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Tags: Christmas

WEAPONS OF SELF-DESTRUCTION.

Last weekend our family went for its annual Thanksgiving Walk, a two-hour hike through Awenda Provincial Park above Georgian Bay. Behind me were my stepson and his 11-year-old daughter. Their conversation twisted and turned through as many subjects as they did navigating the fallen trees and winding forest paths. I was listening idly to their back-and-forth when I heard: “But when can I have a phone?”

I won’t say the skies clouded, but the mood changed at this, the most insistent question of our age. Because asking mom and dad when you can have your first phone has turned into asking them when you can have your first shot of heroin.

Clearly, this was not the first time she’d asked, and I was impressed by her father’s patience as he calmly listed all the reasons an 11-year-old shouldn’t have a mobile phone. “But Mary has one, and she’s 12!”

Read on…

October 17, 2025 October 17, 2025

WHATEVER YOU DO, AVOID OLD PEOPLE.

James Watson said that. The co-discoverer of DNA’s double helix and Nobel Prize winner was in Toronto years ago when someone asked him what (I think he was 80 then, not the 96 he is now) was his secret for staying young?

Watson’s point, of course, was to force yourself on younger, suppler minds so that your own doesn’t harden like peanut brittle.

Avoiding old people when you’re old yourself is hard, in the way that avoiding booklovers is when you’re a booklover, hot-rodders when you’re a hot-rodder, and alcoholics when…all to say, elephants like to sleep with elephants.

Read on…

December 28, 2024 February 14, 2025

SANTA CLAUS OR SANITY CLAUSE?

Last week in England, a vicar told a group of Grade 6 pupils that Santa Claus isn’t real.

He then told them their parents ate the biscuits the kids left out for Father Christmas. Many of them burst into tears and their parents complained that the Reverend Dr Paul Chamberlain had ruined their families’ Christmas.

The Anglican Diocese of Portsmouth then apologized on Chamberlain’s behalf, saying: “Paul has accepted that this was an error of judgement, and he should not have done so. He apologized unreservedly to the school, to the parents and to the children, and the headteacher immediately wrote to all parents to explain this.”

Read on…

December 21, 2024 February 7, 2025

WILL THE DAY COME WHEN ALCOHOL IS TREATED LIKE TOBACCO?

The fact that this question is even askable, let alone answerable, speaks to how drinking is fading, and what role your own diminished drinking might play in that.

I ask because once again, a respected medical authority has concluded that no amount of alcohol is safe to drink, and because we’re plunk in the middle of drinking season. These “none is too many” reports are growing each year, and the number of Canadians who drink alcohol is falling.

We were all brought up knowing that tobacco will kill you if you consume it over time, but drinking will kill you only if you consume too much of it. But what if the second half of that last sentence is false?

Read on…

December 14, 2024 January 31, 2025

Happy birthday, Jesus

I remember growing up in Edmonton, Christmas was the busiest time of year. My father was a florist and my mom and I picked him up at 6 p.m. on Christmas Eve and brought him home, exhausted, to sleep – just as soon as he dealt with the complaints from customers who hadn’t got their flowers yet. He’d be in bed by 10 and slept for 12 hours straight, which let Santa deliver gifts late the next morning. But no matter how tired he was, we never forgot to put out milk and cookies for Santa on Christmas Eve, a tradition that still has me headed to the fridge tonight.

Meanwhile…

December 24, 2022 February 2, 2023

Happy Birthday Jesus

Even though we’re late risers on Christmas Day, Santa still hasn’t arrived. We hear there were long delays since he has to show his vaccination certificate at every chimney he climbs down. Then there’s the gifting pandemic which is so bad this year that Jesus is asking God if he can shift his birthday to July to avoid the clash with Christmas.

Oiye and Oh Well…….here’s the Christmas Omnium-Gatherum blog post to bring comfort and joy to your day and your life.

December 23, 2021 February 10, 2022

“Christmas is at our throats again.”

Thank you for that, Noel Coward. It’s what oft was thought, but ne’er so well expressed for lots of people this time of year. But this year, the predations of the season take on a new and feverish tone. It knows if we’ve been bad or good, so we’d better watch out, we’d better….well, before we open any gifts, let’s make sure we get our booster shot, okay? 

December 17, 2021 January 21, 2022

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