There's a first time for many things

It's six degrees outside and there's no snow on the ground. It is also just a few days before I spend my first Christmas by myself. It feels bizarre.

I must admit that I'm looking forward to having the house to myself for a few days. Melissa left for Winnipeg yesterday and will be there for over a week; Peter leaves on Friday for the weekend; and my friend Joelle is heading to Arizona with her family for a week and is dropping her cat off to stay with me from the 24th until January 2 or 3. I'm stoked about having a feline companion for a while. I've got my weekend all planned out. My mom was here for the weekend of the 9th (which was divine - more about that below) and brought with her a whole whack of little gifts for me to open throughout the day on the 25th. She's put together all of our small traditions and comforts to keep me occupied here while she sips Coronas on the beach in Mexico. I've splurged on some amazing food to treat myself with: tourtière for Christmas Eve dinner (a longtime tradition of my mother's and mine), mulled wine with Grand Marnier, brie with caramelized onions and dried cranberries, and a massive shrimp cocktail. Handel's Messiah and a Lord of the Rings marathon on Sunday. So... like, is it December 25th yet??

It isn't the fact that I'll be alone during this particular holiday that's got me thinking about it. My spiritual inclinations are inconclusive, but aside from coming from a Mennonite family and having been raised attending the United church, this time of year doesn't bring with it any personal spiritual significance anymore. Additionally, I abhor and recoil from the way the capitalist machine has perverted a religious holiday into this mass-marketed materialistic mayhem/corporate delight. I take little part in Christmas gift-giving and have for a number of years made handmade cards for my loved ones in lieu.

DISCLAIMER: I am fully aware of the hypocrisy in my making such statements after I've expressed excitement over all of the gifts that my mother has just brought me in honour of this very occasion. I truly am looking forward to opening them all. I'm not going to make much of an excuse for the contradictions herein save for one: this is an exceptional case. She never would have done the same if we were spending the days in question together; we would be enjoying these traditions in each other's company instead. I do also receive gifts from my father and grandmother every year for which I am of course deeply grateful. They are both aware of my feelings about Christmas gifts but they send presents anyway, and we've come to an understanding about it all. And don't get me wrong. I buy gifts for people for other occasions (which may, in itself, seem rather hypocritical I guess). I've just made a decision to bow out from this particular practice... on principle. My logic isn't flawless, but give me a break; I'm only 27 and I have years to work it all out.

Anyhow, I suppose that what's got me really reflecting is that the thing I love about this time of year - family spending time together - won't be happening for me. I'll really be missing the good food, good drink, roaring laughter coming from every room of whomever's house we're all visiting in, and the abundance of superb hugs. I'm still feeling a bit homesick because I know that all of these great things will be going on back where everything is warm and familiar to me.

Segue: Speaking of familiar, I was super-duper fortunate enough to have visitors for the first time a couple of weeks ago. First, my brother and his girlfriend, who had a twelve-hour layover in Toronto on their way back from Puerto Plata (Dominican) spent those very few and fleeting moments chez moi - Steve and I stayed up with a bottle of wine talking for much longer than we should have given the few hours he had to rest before his flight. He was here and gone so quickly that it felt like a bit of a dream, but at the same time it slightly altered the sense of place that I've been developing since I arrived. Hosting someone in a different city gave me an idea of how my family may be seeing me now. Shortly after I arrived, during a conversation with my mom about the evolution of the family's plans for Christmas (do you see how I bring everything around full circle? hah!), she referred to me as having joined the group of my cousins who have moved away or don't live in Manitoba. I'm outside the circle. Not in the sense that I'm being excluded or don't matter anymore, but in the same sense as I have always considered family outside of Manitoba a little differently. A much bigger deal is made about their visits, of course, but they also tend to play host to family when said family is around their neck of the woods. My fam may very well keep me in mind if ever planning a trip down here. I love to host people, by the way. So this new idea is exciting.

My darling mother's visit was so wonderful. We had a blast together. We laughed hysterically. We visited the ROM and walked down Bloor looking at all of the designer shops - went into Chanel, looked through the windows at Cartier and Prada at all of the pretty things that we could never afford nor would, in actuality, really want to own. Shopped for good quality makeup at MAC. Drank really good wine. Laughed some more. Went for Sunday brunch with my roommates. Shopped at Zellers for some housewares for me, like my own bedclothes and some mixing bowls for the kitchen (how nice to own some things of my own again!). It was two nights and two full days of bliss. I slept like a baby while she was here. The other day we're on the phone and she says to me that she just wants to let me know again how wonderful our weekend together was; that she misses being my mom and had so much fun mothering me. "I miss being mothered!!!" Laughs all around. But she does, and I do.

Sigh. OK, everyone raise your mugs of mulled wine with me and let's give a big cliché'd toast to growing up. To venturing out into the big world and creating one's own path - something that I, personally, could never have done without the love and support of my family, as well as without knowing that they're cheering me on.