My friend Dave has launched a project to, over the next 52 weeks, film a shot-for-shot remake of Love Actually, but with his kids in the starring roles. At least that’s what I think he’s doing; I may have misinterpreted.

This year we expanded our terrain and walked all the way to Stratford. The new path along the Hillsborough Bridge is only half-completed — from Charlottetown to the span — but the way is passable until land on the other side. The 50 km/h winds added some resistance exercise on the way over, and blew us back home.

Quick, get your turkey in the oven: it will be cooked by 100% wind energy at this hour.

Oliver insisted we have a go at making Apple strudel tonight, from my grandmother Nettie’s recipe.

Poor planning on my part meant we had to go the whole nine yards and make the dough from scratch. While we didn’t manage to get Nana-level paper-thin, we came closer than I imagined we might. In the oven now.

It’s a remarkable Christmas Eve here on the Island: warm, sunny, calm, green.

Oliver’s full-on request for help, launched in November, met with open-hearted response from those far and wide: our pantry is full, our tree is girdled with gifts, and, well, to be honest I am simply, tearfully overwhelmed with the kindness we’ve been shown.

Catherine was home from the hospital a year ago Christmas Eve; her mother had just arrived, as a surprise, from Ontario. Our house was warm and full of life. We had no idea of what harrowing events were to come: that a week later she would move to the Palliative Care Centre and, a few weeks later, that she would be dead.

There is nothing at all to recommend having your partner die: all the “this is the worst thing that can ever happen to you” reputation it has is richly deserved. And yet grief and joy can coexist, I have found. Happiness and lament, hope and dread, loneliness and warmth, pride and shame, fear and expectation. If nothing else, these 365 days have exposed me to realms of the emotional landscape I’d heretofore never glimpsed. I miss Catherine something awful; I love my son something fierce; it’s been a hard, hard year; I am excited for tomorrow. 

Merry Christmas and much love to all.

One of Catherine’s Christmas traditions I could simply never wrap my head around was setting up a model Christmas village for the holidays. It always just seemed, well, weird, with a Norman Rockwell aesthetic that I just couldn’t get behind.

But Catherine’s Christmas traditions are Oliver’s Christmas traditions, so the village rises to live another day.

On Sunday night we drove out to our friends in Belfast for a socially-distanced winter solstice campfire. It was a perfect night for it (but, of course, for it not technically being the solstice): the sky was clear, the temperature hovering around freezing. I made vegan jambalaya, they made dreamy donuts, and the fire warmed us all. Gives me hope for a season of outdoor fun.

As the video I shot of the campfire had personally-identifying audio, I swapped out the crackling for this excellent replacement.