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Monday, December 19, 2016

#MicroblogMondays: A Canadian Christmas scene


We arrived at my parents' house this weekend to -25C temps (-31C with the windchill)... but today was a balmy -3C. Sitting in the living room reading, something outside caught my eye. There were four young children frolicking in the snow, with several adults hovering nearby. One lady was brandishing a camera, taking photos.

"Shouldn't they be in school?" I said (school here doesn't let out for holidays until Dec. 23rd). 

"Oh," said my mother, "those must be the refugee children."

Apparently several churches in this small Prairie town have banded together to sponsor a Syrian refugee family to come to Canada (as many community groups across this country have been doing over the past year). The family just arrived last Tuesday (!) & have moved into the house directly across the street from my parents. They have four children under the age of 10, who will start school in January, after the Christmas break.

We recognized one of the adults with them as my parents' next-door neighbour. He uses a motorized scooter to get around, and he was towing the children on a couple of sleds behind him, going around & around the circle. They were clearly having a blast. :)  Another neighbour emerged from his house with two hockey sticks in his hand, and within minutes, the young boy had learned the fine art of the slapshot. ;)

They were all out there for a good half hour before a van pulled up with several more adults, two of whom were clearly their parents. They were all carrying bags and had obviously been out grocery shopping while the children were being entertained. After a few minutes, everyone went into the house.

My heart was full as I watched the scene unfold. Could you imagine anything more Canadian, or more in keeping with the spirit of Christmas?

You can find more of this week's #MicroblogMondays posts here

13 comments:

  1. Go Canada! That warms my heart, even though just *reading* those temps makes me shiver. Brrr.

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  2. That is just lovely!

    ... though I do feel sorry for the refugee family dealing with those temperatures! I remember when my family here hosted an exchange student from Thailand. She arrived about Easter, so it was autumn, and she just didn't know how to keep warm. My parents told her to go have a bath - but she didn't know to fill it with warm/hot water, and so got out even colder!

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  3. That's such a nice story. The cold must be pretty shocking for them but sounds like they're getting stuck in...

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  4. Thank you for sharing this story with us. I remember so clearly my first snow storm when I first moved to the US, I bet they will do too.

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  5. They'll be prairie kids in no time. -31 won't even bother them. Glad you missed most of the cold snap we had - it was brutal. Merry Christmas!

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  6. This is why I love blogs. Leaving behind all the awful news in the newspaper for great stories like this one.

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  7. I love this story so much! It gives me hope for this messed up world that we live in.

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  8. This renews my faith in humanity. What a beautiful story!

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  9. My heart swells! I love this story. And I'm quite happy with our temps hovering just above and below freezing. I could use some snow though.

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  10. Bbbrrrrrr... Those temps!

    This is such a great, feelgood story. We should be reading more of these in the news. It might start to bring about a change of mindset. I think we forget that there are quite a large number of decent people in this world, since we don’t often hear their stories – after all, it doesn’t make for very good, attention grabbing, news headlines, does it?

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  11. Canada is a wonderful example for us. You have the values I believe in and want for my country. Thank you for sharing this story & I love the fact that hockey sticks came out from another neighbor! Lovely story.

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  12. So nice that this family seems to be having a good experience. It fits with what I've read that privately sponsored families do better.

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