Dear Friends,
It’s that time of year for our annual family Christmas letter – composed without the help of ChatGPT, we promise! We know that when you clicked on this, you might have thought it was yet another one of those open letters asking you to add your name in support of an urgent cause. But we’re going to try to focus on happy thoughts in this season of joy. (Emphasis on “try;” 2023 has been a tough one.)
We want to let you know what our family, the Canadians, has been up to over this eventful year!
Accomplishments:
Not the Eglinton light rail line, amirite? Or fixing the housing crisis, the homelessness crisis, the affordability crisis, the health care crisis, or the toxic drug crisis.
But, hey, the pandemic finally ended! (Even if a bunch of us Canadians are really, really sick right now.)
We were so excited when the family basketball team almost made it to the playoffs. (There’s always 2024, Raptors!) And when our baseball team scored that one run in their wild card series! (The series that the other team swept. Sigh. There’s always 2024, Blue Jays!) In hockey, the whole family was rallying around the kids in Edmonton for a while, but that too came to a crashing halt.
Ending our accomplishments section on a positive note, a member of the family won an Academy Award for best adapted screenplay. (Yay, Sarah!) Another family member contributed to Hollywood’s Barbenheimer sensation. Wasn’t Ryan – the pride of the London, Ont., wing of the family – a doll as Ken? Margaret did not win the Nobel Prize for Literature, but she did get a pacemaker and she performed a little dance at the hospital to show us how well she is doing, and frankly we’ll take a working, noble heart over a Nobel any day.
Visitors:
It’s been a big year for guests. First, we welcomed a very special invitee over to the House, even gave him a standing ovation, but then things went a little awry afterward. Turns out Yaroslav was not exactly the war hero as advertised. If only someone had spent as much time vetting that invitation as someone probably spent vetting a tweet (now called an “X”?) inviting the Taylor Swift to Canada. But guess what: it worked! She’s coming! To Toronto and Vancouver next year!
Big props to Justin, the head of our Swiftie household, for extending the invitation.
Yes, we know Justin is not the official family ruler. That’s Charles, and this was a big year for him too, as he was officially coronated (we think that’s the term) and has now made his way onto our money (instead of just spending it LOL). We probably would have been a lot more excited about Charles’s ascension had we not read about his dearth of parenting skills in Spare or watched him devastate Diana in The Crown.
Family Updates:
This part of our Christmas letter is a little sensitive as there have been some big changes to parts of the Canadian family in 2023. As you probably heard, it hasn’t been a great year on the marital front, and there have also been some related job changes. (Although, sticking to our theme of attempted positivity, John T’s demise in Toronto was ultimately good news for Olivia.) Of course, the biggest news on this front was Justin and Sophie calling it quits. We are a little bit heartbroken and wish them – and any other members of the family going through this – well this holiday season. We know it’s not easy.
Activities:
We experienced a lot of hikes this year as a family! Not the fun outdoor kind that require boots; the other kind that have some people saying we should give Justin the boot. LOL. Even though it’s not really his fault. Double LOL. We managed not one, not two, but three interest rate hikes in a single year! While this did not quite match the level of hikes we Canadians experienced in 2022, it was a really dominant theme around our dinner table this year!
In related news, we’ve decided to forgo the turkey for Christmas dinner and feast instead on mashed potatoes and possibly brussels sprouts (TBD). We might also be able to swing some Stove Top stuffing if it goes on sale early enough. We’re all doing our part to get through the holidays solvent!
By the way, we’re writing this letter while wrapping gifts we bought at the mall in a big, big rush last weekend, because we were worried someone might discover that we are 1.2 per cent Jewish. But we managed!
Happy holidays to all the members of our family, the Canadians. And let’s hope for better news in 2024.