Living apart from your family is not easy, and it’s especially not easy at Christmas time.
That’s the predicament I found myself in last Christmas when I first returned to Canada from Holland to work for what I thought would be a few months, but which has turned into a rather longer stint here at Airdrie City View/ Rocky View Weekly.
My wife, who is a Dutch citizen, and I met seven years ago, and married five years ago when we both lived in Lethbridge. She had three sons from a previous marriage who I am honoured to say look to me as their father, but she decided after the trials of the pandemic and the grief following the loss of our daughter, Teressa, to return to Holland. And I went with her.
Finding the economic difficulties of living in Europe hard, and me unable to work over there, we made the decision I should come back to Canada to work some kind of term contract, which resulted in my coming back to Canada alone in August of 2022.
Last Christmas, I went to Holland before Christmas but was not there for the day itself. Luckily, my parents live not too far away in Gull Lake, Saskatchewan, and I spent last Christmas with them after driving through the worst snow storm and visibility I have ever encountered. So it was not entirely alone, but my wife and sons were still very far away, and the holiday was filled with longing to be with them.
This year, I will be in Holland for Christmas as my wife and I still try to work out whether our long term plans lay there or here. However, it is nice to know I will be with them in the coming week.
As hard as this separation is, it is not the worst Christmas I ever spent. The one Christmas I spent truly alone was when I was attending Wilfrid Laurier in Waterloo. That would have been 2002, and I was far from home and without local friends to spend it with.
Another Christmas spent far away from family comes to mind as I type these words, but with much happier memories. The Christmas I spent in Japan as an English teacher, I had become part of a close-knit community of teachers– mainly from other Commonwealth countries, particularly Australia, England and New Zealand. One of my Aussie friends had a wonderful idea. He took up a collection from about 20 teachers he knew would not be going home, and we rented a small restaurant/ pub for Christmas Eve. A long table was set up in the middle of the room, and all of us sat shoulder to shoulder and shared a turkey Christmas supper together in good cheer and fellowship. It was a very warm Christmas for all of us who were so far away from home.
