Colourful Threads

It is Election Day in Canada and we are hosting our regular Family Election Party. We’ve been throwing them for almost ten years. It’s how we try and make voting both educational and fun.

The pre-party preparations included reading up about the parties, their leaders and our own candidates, watching the debates, and planning our theme snacks!

This year we have:

Blue Whales for the Conservative Party – traditionally blue and certainly the largest party at this time.

Mike and Ikes for Michael Ignatieff’s Liberal Party – anyone for a Mike or Iggy?

Monteray Jack cheese and crackers for the NDP Party – Jack Layton is running a cracker campaign.

Trail mix and apple slices for the Green Party – cause they’re healthy earthy types.

Maple Cookies with real Quebec maple syrup – for the Bloc, who we can’t vote for but who make our political system most interesting.

Banana Chips – for all the independent parties who are all a little bananas!

Sweet Fudge – because nothing is sweeter than being able to vote on the destiny of our country.

Tonight we have set up our antenna outside (we don’t have cable but can get the “farmer four” with our rabbit ears!) and will spend the evening watching The CBC National coverage and checking various websites for information.

We keep track of our own riding, important ones in our city and province and of course the national results.

People are dying in the Middle East and Africa to obtain this right that many of us take for granted. Kirby and I are trying to instill in our children the importance and excitement of democratic elections.

If you haven’t yet, go vote! Then come on over and join us for some crazy snacks and some lively political conversation!

I hate having to get up early in the morning.
I love having planned a special breakfast so everyone gets up excited.

I love the idea of gymnastic photos.
I hate having to try and make the boys’ hair look like they haven’t been crawling under furniture (which, incidentally, they had.)

I love getting out of class a little early.
I hate having to go back for a forgotten water bottle.

I hate when you don’t have cash when you need it.
I love it when you find a bank quickly in an strange neighbourhood.

I love when there’s a good show on the radio that we can all listen to.
I hate when they interrupt the good show for news about local murders.

I love driving on warm bright winter days.
I hate cleaning vomit out of the car because a child got too hot and queasy during the warm car ride.

I hate trying to figure out what to cook.
I love that I spent time on Saturday planning a week’s worth of meals so I don’t have to think about it at 12:30pm when everyone is starving.

I love sitting and reading with a little one on my lap.
I hate when sick little ones spray spittle over you as they try to hack up a lung.

I love when all the children play outside for the entire afternoon.
I hate the way after scaling snow hills, climbing old trees, and running around the bay, they have no energy to hang up their coats and ski pants.

I hate the way, when everyone is sick, cooking seems like such a chore.
I love when, out of the blue, an acquaintance who Kirby helps out with her computer shows up with warm broccoli cheese soup.

Life is about good and bad.
Life is about finding good in bad.
Life is about making good out of bad.
Life is about getting through the bad because good will come again.

Life is good. Even when it’s not.

And today I see the good.
Today I am good, even with sick kids and a vomitty car and the hall strewn with massacred winter wear.
Today is good.

Yesterday we trimmed our tree. This is our official kickoff for the holiday season.

We fill the buffet with eggnog, mandarin oranges, and a box of mixed chocolates. Pot of Gold is usually the cheap chocolate of choice, but this year we bought Botticelli. I think we’ll go back to Pot of Gold. Though the chocolates aren’t the best, the box and memories of the old commercials still elicit warm fuzzies!

We crank up the cheesy Christmas music (no one sings the Twelve Days of Christmas like the Muppets). And then the ritual begins.

We have an old artificial tree we bought the Christmas Kirby and I got married. I realize that it is not an environmentally friendly choice and research while I was doing a recent blog has made us make a drastic change but I’ll save that for a future post!)

The children run around sorting the branches and putting the tree up. Then they help twist on the lights and bead garlands. Then the best part of the afternoon begins.

Every year or so while I was growing up my parents gifted me with a Christmas ornament. When I left home I had a large collection to take to my new home. We continued this tradition as a married couple and then with our children.

On tree trimming day everyone takes out all their ornaments and reminisces about the ornaments they made or received and any stories that go with them. This is a wonderful walk through past holiday seasons. Some of my ornaments are very old and delicate so they don’t go on the tree anymore but we take them out, listen to their story, admire them and wrap them back up. There’s the faded flocked styrofoam deer that was given to me on my first Christmas. There are the very first ornaments I ever bought for myself, a pair of hand blown delicately decorated eggs that I bought at a tea and craft sale where I was volunteering with Girl Guides. There’s the pine cone that one of my students gave me the month I was a student teacher. I thought she hated me. I was always on her case. Apparently she saw things differently from me. And so the stories are shared and memories built.

Since there are so many of us and our collections are becoming quite large, everyone chooses about ten ornaments and then we hang them on the tree. When all is arranged, the tree topper is placed by the child whose year it is and we sit around the tree and admire the beautiful lights while I read a selection from our Christmas Treasury.

And so we begin our season taking pleasure in our past and enjoying spending our present together surrounded by treats and music and one another, and looking forward to the future festivities.