The West Commences: The holidays continue

The holiday with mom and dad has been subdued but not without some surprises and traditions. Christmas Eve was one of the former. Mom wanted to go out for dinner, preferably to a pub where she could have a Herman’s. This is a beer that she and dad used to love but that she hasn’t had much of lately; she can’t really drink while taking gabapentin for post herpetic neuralgia. But the urge seemed to overwhelm her to such an extent that even dad who is beyond urges suggested that we should go out. After the usual prolonged consideration of all possible options, which I left them to juggle with while I went for a brisk head-clearing walk by the ocean, they decided they wanted to return to the old neighborhood and go to the Oak Bay Beach Hotel, even though they were pretty sure that they didn’t have Herman’s there. We dressed up and went out for a drive to look at the Christmas lights down Dallas Road, through central Victoria and back along Oak Bay Ave. to the hotel. The Snug had a special curry buffet for the evening. Dad doesn’t like rice at any time and just the idea of curry upsets his stomach, so we moved on through a crowd of dinner theatre goers to the quiet of Kate’s for beer and a sausage roll for dad, quiche for mom and me. When we were about half way through our meal, a group of people started to gather at the door and move into the café. They set themselves up around the fireplace. A photographer joined them and had them pose for a series of pictures. It was fun to watch them change positions and expressions for each shot. It was clear that they were practiced entertainers. When they were finished, the man who appeared to be the leader came up to us, apologized for disturbing our peace and asked the group to form a circle around us. They did so and then burst into a lively, acapella ‘Jingle Bells’. It was wonderful. They were the entertainment for that night’s dinner theatre at the hotel and they began by brightening our evening. I later discovered that the man who spoke with us is Matthew Howe, a music teacher at the Pacific Christian School and mentor at the Canadian College of Performing Arts.

Christmas Day was more traditional. We opened presents and ate a turkey dinner at noon with the other residents of Shannon Oaks who were not visiting family and friends. As no real dinner was planned for the evening, we settled, after the usual afternoon rest for mom and dad and walk along Dallas Road and out Ogden Point for me, into a 4 course Boyce Christmas meal. It began with rum and eggnog, moved on to white wine with smoked oysters on soda biscuits, progressed into toast with butter and peanut butter and ended with tea, Stilton cheese and Christmas cake. Mom and dad were happy to be able to eat all the treats that they don’t usually have room for because they get 2 filling meals each day. That’s about all they can eat, although they are both bottomless pits for sweets, especially chocolates. It will take weeks of cross-country skiing for me to work off this holiday.

I spent the first part of Boxing Day happily relaxing with Barbara and Terry, a drive to Saxe Point Park in Esquimalt where we drank Serious Coffee and enjoyed a walk and panoramic view. Then on to London Drugs for a bit of shopping, what else. The mall was not as crowded as I had thought it would be, perhaps many locals are taking advantage of low gas prices and spending their devalued Canadian dollars in the US. For lunch we feasted on left over turkey sandwiches, salad and more Christmas sweets.

And so it goes.