holiday gratitude

On this night, in this place, I am grateful for so many things. Like so many things lately, our plans this Christmas were complicated by forces out of our control. Vancouver got a dumping of winter like none we had seen. Canadians to the east of us laugh when we're forced to show how ill-equipped we are to deal with weather the rest of the country calls a season, and we are so ill-prepared. When it snows the city shuts down - when it snows a lot, we Vancouverites go a little crazy. We take our sports cars out and spend more time stuck than not1. We trudge three kilometres through mostly un-shovelled neighbourhoods, pushing a bored toddler in a weather-inappropriate stroller2. We spend hours being "good samaritans" and shovelling our neighbours' walks, our only reward being a full body workout and lots of wet pant legs3.

We do all that and we have a ball. I am so grateful to live a life where no amount of bullshit can keep us from looking out for one another.

Other things I am grateful for:

1. BC Ferries and portable battery packs
2. dala
   
3. our neighbour shovelling us out this morning as we left to catch a ferry
4. my amazingly tolerant and adorable children who have rolled with every change in direction with as much grace as I could ever hope for, despite both feeling less than great (two words: snot city)
   
5. my incredibly determined father who wouldn't let a little thing like 50cm of snow stop him from bringing dinner and family (two of my younger sisters) to his much less determined daughter, son-in-law and grandchildren, even though it took two hours to make it 3.2km
   
6. my three wonderful, beautiful younger sisters who get all the fallout (and benefit) of my missteps, mishaps and random acts of rebellion
7. my patient, loving, amazing husband who spent his days off work keeping our neighbours' sidewalks as clear as our own
8. my generous in-laws, who showered us in food, love and gifts and who kept the faith that we would make it here eventually
   
9. my faith that there is nothing out there we can't handle
10. my mother, who always told me that there was nothing out there I couldn't handle
11. and finally figuring out that being able to handle things doesn't mean I handle them alone.

1. see #5
2. that was me after the first big dump - after we got home I unearthed our pull-behind baby sled. The only issue now is figuring out who gets to ride in it.
3.see #7