Monday Morning Musings

Posted on November 25, 2019 under Monday Morning Musings with 2 comments

Christmas Cheer?

It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas.

Well, it has been feeling a lot like Christmas up north but that probably has more to do with the temperature than anything else. When I arrived a few weeks ago, the temperature change was quite shocking. We had had some unseasonably warm weather back in Nova Scotia in October. When I stepped off the plane in Kangiqsujuaq, I was greeted by the biting cold and a wind chill. We’ve actually had very little snow up this way. I have heard that the last few winters have been peculiar with very heavy snow one winter and very little the next. I guess climate change is everywhere.

I don’t have radio or television so I am not being bludgeoned with Christmas ads or Christmas music. I actually may be less inclined to throttle “the little drummer boy” this year!

So why am I experiencing a bit of the Christmas spirit? Well, I received my first grocery order from “down south”. Down south used to mean Miami but now it’s Montreal. As mentioned in an earlier post, groceries can be very expensive up north so many people place an order from Montreal and have it shipped up by air cargo. My first order went astray but a few days ago, on one of my frequent forays to the airport, I discovered that my groceries had arrived.

Rarely does a grocery order from Sobey’s or Superstore cause rapture but these large grocery chains don’t painstakingly individually package every grocery item. In order to avoid breakage, every item, with very few exceptions, is wrapped efficiently in cardboard.

My order contained three medium sized cardboard shipping boxes. One was quite heavy, the second of medium weight and the third was one that could have been manhandled by a four year old. I had two friends accompany me to the airport. You know which box I got to put in the back of the truck. Most four year olds I know are stronger than me. That’s not giving a four year old much credit.

The boxes sat on the floor of the kitchen. I had forgotten exactly what I had ordered so you can imagine the excitement and anticipation of tearing into the boxes to reveal the treasures within. I am glad that there were no hidden cameras in the house to capture the oohs and ahs of opening a package and discovering a 1.5 litre bottle of ketchup. I was euphoric when I saw the two 400g packages of old cheddar cheese. Mercifully, I will not divulge the remaining contents of the boxes, with one exception – the featherweight box, the same one I had single handedly manhandled a short time earlier.

When placing the order, I wrote down the list so that I could cross check to see if everything arrived. I was far too giddy with excitement to bother with this futile exercise so my curiosity was piqued about the contents of the last box. My faithful readers are much brighter than me and surely you would have deduced (if you had seen my grocery list)  that this box, the same size as the other two, contained three- 255g bags of Lays Classic potato chips. I did not think it was humanly possible to ship potato chips without smashing them into powder. I was able to buy three of these bags for the same price as one bag here in town. If you ever decide to move up here, contact the Lays potato chip company and ask them to send a crate on the next cargo ship. Yes. Goods are also delivered here by ship when the ice isn’t in the harbour.

Many of you have asked me about my students and the school. For obvious reasons of confidentiality, I can’t say too much but I don’t think anyone would mind me discussing recess. Along with the children this is my favourite period of the day. I guess I’m just a big kid at heart or I’m slowly regressing back into childhood. You can decide. “We” play soccer, volleyball, and skip rope on the snow covered playground. My skipping days are well past me so I get to swing the rope. I take a pass on the soccer because the ground is very icy these days. I do play volleyball as the ball gets tossed around in a circle of children… and one old fart. I have rediscovered the joy of simple play in the great outdoors.

A couple of times a month, the elementary students are given the last period off on a Friday to take part in “Just Dance” in the gymnasium. Music videos with animated characters are displayed on the wall, the lights are dimmed, and everyone gets on the floor trying to follow the moves of the life like images. It is a great stress reliever at the end of a long week so it should not come as a surprise that many teachers take part as well. Never a wallflower, I joined the fray. I stood at the back of the room to avoid pandemonium (and laughter) so no one got to see me do my “moon walk”!

TGIF actually means something again which is rather cool.

Have a great week.

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