JUST WRITE!
Christmas spirit
By Tracey Coveart/The Scugog Standard

This Christmas will be a year of firsts for me: the first time I won’t see my parents on Christmas Day; the first Christmas in 20 years I won’t have all three of my kids with me on Dec. 25; the first Christmas for Stephie, Rob and I as a family in our new home; the first year that Rob’s family will be joining us for Christmas dinner.
_But in the midst of all these firsts, there are some things that never change. Like my desire to believe in the inherent goodness in people. Here are three things I cling to as proof.
_1. The Scugog Standard/Operation Scugog Toy and Food Drive. The generosity of this community never ceases to amaze me and at no time is it more evident than during the holiday season. As has become our tradition, Stephie and I (and this year Rob) spent a few hours at McDonald’s on Saturday manning Anne’s Toy Box on the final Fill-the-Van day for 2011.
_Some people backed their vehicle up to the van and unloaded a trunkload of toys. By all accounts, this was the best year ever for the drive, which means that every child and youth in Scugog will find a whole lot of Christmas cheer under the tree this Sunday morning. Rik spent all day Monday making deliveries to the Victory Christian Centre - eight vanloads! - where Christmas hampers were lovingly filled by Operation Scugog volunteers on Tuesday, then distributed to families in need on Wednesday. God bless the compassion of this community!
_2. The annual Coveart family Christmas gathering. If it weren’t for dad’s youngest sister and her husband, our family would have drifted apart years ago. The generosity of Aunt Lorraine and Uncle Bob (who will be canonized) is the glue that holds the Covearts together. Each year, my aunt and uncle host a feast at their cottage for Thanksgiving and at their home for Christmas. Their kids - my cousins Bryan, Graeme, Angela and Cameron - were trained to help out at an early age and with their partners now make wonderful hosts in their own right, fetching and carrying throughout the evening and then cleaning up after we all head for home full of good food and fellowship.
_If not for these gatherings, the only time I would see my relatives would be at funerals. Instead of shedding tears together over the dead, we share laughter with one another while we’re all still very much alive. And we are so very grateful for the opportunity. God bless the custodianship of family!
_3. A tale of sin and redemption. It was with tremendous excitement that Stephie and I - clad in T-shirts in mid-November! - decorated outside for our first Christmas in our new home. We hung colourful plastic balls from the lilac tree, festooned the porch railing with garland and bows and pushed the stakes of our three brightly coloured solar globes into the garden. It was a Friday, and late that night while we were sleeping, someone teed off on our yellow globe. We found the shattered debris on our front walkway the next morning and I was devastated; despondent. “It was just one yahoo with a stick,” Rob said, trying to console me, but that single callous act knocked the wind out of my Christmas sails.
_I tried to put the incident behind me and go about spreading Christmas cheer, but the cruelty of it haunted me ... until last week, when the karmic universe aligned.
_I was dragging the recycling bins out to the curb on Friday morning when something blue in the garden caught my eye. I thought it was an errant bit of paper, but it was a five dollar bill, tucked carefully between the dead leaves of our day lily ... in the exact spot where the yellow globe had stood. God bless the moral compass of strangers!
_Without darkness, how could we know light? Without sadness, how could we know joy? Without selfishness, how could we know generosity? Without cruelty, how could we know kindness? Without evil, how could we know good? Without godlessness, how could we know god? Maybe that is what the holiday season teaches us.
_Merry Christmas to all - community, family, strangers. God bless us everyone!