Trees and Their Stories

What does your Christmas tree say about you? Trees that look fashionable with designer bulbs and complementary colour schemes are all well and good, but my favourite trees are the ones decorated with things that have stories to tell. Over the years, I’ve collected enough storied things to decorate a normal-sized tree. It used to […]

The Longest Night

Tonight is winter solstice: the longest night of the year. It certainly feels like it. In fact, it feels like we’ve been living in the longest night for awhile now. Waiting, in the darkness, for the light to come. Today, in my part of the world, we were told, yet again, of more restrictions. Just […]

The Final Stretch: Christmas Ode to Samwise Gamgee

A Christmas Ode to everyone who has been a Samwise Gamgee to me this year.

An Open Christmas Letter To The Bestest People In The Entire World

Dear friends / family / fellow adventurers, I want to write you, personally, to thank you for the impact you’ve had on my life this year. I’m already crying before even getting into this letter, because although it may seem impersonal to write an open letter instead of scribbling a quick greeting in an individual […]

Happier Times

I caught myself, for just a second, wishing for “happier times.” Happier times, when I wasn’t broken. Happier times, when he was by my side. Happier times, when… when… Stop. It’s true, I have never felt more pain, more brokenness, more utter sadness, than in this aftermath of the story I wish I never had […]

COMIC: Countdown

Rethinking the “Reason”

“Tis the reason…” quipped the cover of a shopping guide for a retail establishment that should have known better. As if the insanity of Boxing Day shopping wasn’t enough in Canada, I’ve returned after 4 years living in Japan to discover the tendrils of America’s notorious Black Friday sales creeping north of the border as well. It is clear that […]

No Place Like Home Base On Christmas

I remember clearly the first time I didn’t make it “home” for Christmas. It was Christmas Eve, and it was snowing. Christmas snow is rare in Vancouver. I was happy, but my family was worried. My uncle, a pilot, was set to take my cousins and I in his 6-seater twin engine plane, to the […]