24 Christmas Memories – 15

We’re 15 days in to our 24 Christmas Memories calendar and today’s post will bring you right up to the cusp of 2015 (a happy coincidence… it wasn’t planned).

There are wayyyyyy too many photos that I could include here, since Christmas 2014 was our last Christmas in Canada. We said a lot of goodbyes, were invited to a lot of homes and had a lot of people in our home.

So please indulge my drastic over-simplification…

Is this first Christmas Memory post you’re seeing?
You can get caught up by starting back on day 1 to understand this year’s theme.

Our Last Canadian Christmas

It was our last Christmas Eve in Canada.

Pastor Carter had asked me to look after the service at church as he was going to be spending it with family in another part of the province. I was wearing my Canadian Maple Leaf Tartan blazer (very Christmasy in its red & green) and would surround myself with kids on the platform. I wasn’t old, but it had a little bit of that “gather the kids ’round the fireplace for a story” kind of vibe.

I loved the kids in Saint John, and they knew it! They say you can tell a lot about a person by the way they tread kids and animals. If that’s true, I should be in good shape!

(Throwback memory to when Ethan Keller came over to me tightly clutching something in his closed fist… wanting to show me what he’d found outside. Imagining a coin or a particularly beautiful pebble, I dutifully held out my hand, my palm ready to receive whatever treasure he was about to deposit there… His lips and his hand were operating in tandem and just as he released the treasure he said:

“It’s a PIDER”

I wasn’t entirely sure what he was announcing, until an 8-legged spider landed in my palm… accompanied by peels of laughter!
…thought. I. was. going. to. die. laughing!

As soon as church was done, we hopped in the car and headed to my mom’s house, an hour and a half away. It was a special, albeit emotional time, for sure.

Pre-Christmas Festivities

Mark & Sharman Lewis are an awesome couple. Sharman is as discreet and demure as they come. Nice as the day is long and managed a dental office at the time. Her husband Mark was an “I can do just about anything tech-wise” kind of guy, on top of being a musician. Sharman had an alter-ego, Sister Loose who made no bones about saying just about anything. She never minced words and was hi-LAR-i-ous!

They were part of the fun at a married-couples’ event that was held at the Lily Lake Pavilion in Saint John (also where the photo of Liz & I was taken). That was another opportunity for us to say some goodbyes and enjoy the company of our peers.

Also… can I just take a moment to mention friends Alan & Debbie Lawson who, every year, gifted us with a beautiful, limited-edition tin of Schwan’s ice cream!? Over the years we had a slowly growing collection of these gorgeous tins. Only one made it with us to France… but it remains a wonderful memory of friendship!