Tag: christmas

Christmas 2025

Christmas teddy bear by "Miss A"

Is chaos the new normal? I am going to go with “yes”. Now that I have rewritten this article more than 8 times, I’m just going to abandon edits and write freestyle. Blindly dropping notes from inside my skull onto paper without a safety net seems like a sane idea, right? Hokay then.

What an insane year this has been. And I would usually just be talking about my own life, but it seems to have been a global phenomenon in 2025. From potential visitors from another galaxy to the first paralyzed astronaut, to Canada considering building their own military jets and going back to the moon – the stuff I expect my brain to make up when I’m in a creative mood is apparently real and news, and this is just the last few months????

Add to that the insanely fast evolution of AI that I have definite opinions on, as well as the massive shifts in tech development that have reshaped everything you know about IT in the last few months. It is all a little too much, and I will expound on that in future posts, but for now I just need to <breathe>.

This week, I am taking a step back and, aside from publishing this article, plan to take a technology break for a bit. The first step is in the images for this post. The hero image was created by my favourite local artist, specifically for this. She is super talented, and I hope she continues being this creative in the future. More importantly, it might help me stop using AI images in my blog posts, which I hate doing, but has become so crazy convenient. The smaller version is below just because I love it so much.

Christmas teddy bear by "Miss A"
Art credit “Miss A”

This is a time to focus on the people and traditions that ground us and connect us. I’ve tried a little harder this year to pay attention to the details in decorations, food, and friendships. Our house looks like a set for a Christmas special, and I love it. So many lights, ribbons and bows. Reds and greens, silvers and golds.

We also took the time to make sure all the woodland creatures in our neighbourhood were well-fed before taking in a local hockey game (Go Flames Go!).

With that in mind, I have to go get an eggnog refill and watch Chevy Chase light up his house. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year, from our house to yours. See you in 2026.

~ Tom

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Make it snow

For me, this time of year is about closure and renewal. It’s about traditions and family and reflection. It’s about your friends and family and friends you consider family. I like to take some time at the end of the year to reflect and plan, but I am acutely aware that it is a luxury not often easily available.

This has been an exceptionally chaotic year in our house, which may be evident from the sparseness of my blogging activity this year, and it has been challenging to just sit for a few minutes and gather my thoughts, but here we are a few days from Christmas and I finally have a few minutes of calm to write.

Usually, I like to fill the few weeks of December with as many Christmas movies and shows as possible, including some great old classics that my kids like to remind me are from “last century”. Even though I have not watched the show this year yet, the Snow Miser song has been rattling around in my head for weeks. You know the one I mean – from The Year Without A Santa Claus (1974) where Snow Miser is introducing himself.

I’m Mister White Christmas, I’m Mister Snow.
I’m Mister Icicle; I’m Mister Ten below.
Friends call me Snow Miser, whatever I touch,
turns to snow in my clutch.
I’m too much.
~ “Snow Miser” by Maury Laws and Jules Bass
The Year Without A Santa Claus (1974)

This is pretty empowering when you think about it. Snow is just frozen water mist that is not even as stable as actual ice. It is fragile, transient, temporary, fleeting – and yet Snow Miser owns it like a boss. He takes the natural gift he has been given and makes it his superpower, owning it and bending it to his will. Mr. Ten Below blankets everything he sees with that fine white icy goodness that chills everything so it can be renewed when it thaws. To some it is just cold and wet and gross, but it has an important and necessary function. Its a matter of perspective.

Which brings me back to family and friends and all our weirdness and oddities that mesh together to make us a community. We all have a superpower that is important and useful and needed. For some it is buried, for some it is obvious, and many people are not even aware they have one. Like Mr. White Christmas, they may just see the immediate result, and not realize the beautiful after effect that changes the world. So go ahead Mr. Icicle, make it snow.

Regardless of how you weirdos spend the last few weeks of the year, I want to wish all of the friends in my community joy and happiness. Catch you again in the thaw.

~ Tom

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The Light of Christmas

Christmas bells in New York

Listening to The Pogues Fairy-tale of New York this week, one of my favourite modern Christmas songs, it struck me how life changes from year to year and the Christmas season can change in tone as your life and the people around you evolve. And as much as that couple had a roller-coaster experience, the choir and the bells remained a joyous constant. 

The boys of the NYPD choir
Were singing Galloway Bay
And the bells were ringing out
For Christmas Day

~ Fairytale of New York by The Pogues


I love to surround myself in light and music and Christmas smells for the whole month of December and it is always a disappointment when it all goes back into boxes in January. As with every year, this December has been a little different, having been “funemployed” for nearly a year now. Just like it was different when we were first married or when we had toddlers experiencing Christmas morning for the first time.  It all changes, yet there are joyous constants that persist. 

There is the ornament from 1985 that always goes on the tree in a prominent place. And the handmade stockings that we have used for decades. There are the old Christmas movies that are traditional requirements, and the annual cookie decorating day when I handcraft about 20 kilos of royal icing. 

My wish for you all this Holiday season is that you are able to find joy and share it with family and friends and friends you consider family. Whether that is lighting a menorah or singing Christmas carols or waiting by the fire for the Yule log to be consumed. 

In my house, that means Merry Christmas, Joyeux Noel, May the blessings of the season be with you. 

Be awesome; Change the world.

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