Though the weather forecast was open skies the snowplow hadn’t yet cleared the Appleton Side Road. I met the truck coming in the opposite direction. My side of the highway remained covered in snow, making the driving feel uncertain. Accordingly I turned onto Patterson Street. It was a welcome and broadly plowed dirt road which comfortably led me back to town – but not before I paused on the side of the road to snap some photos of the old wooden rail fence at the corner of the former Robertson farm. I have always been enchanted by rail fences. Not in the tradition of “good fences, good neighbours”; rather, artistically, approaching architecture. Its personality is inevitably enhanced by muted grey colours, an overgrowth of winding, leafy trails and a proximity to perfectly situated trees and underbrush.

Thus have I begun Christmas Eve 2025 – though I’ve overlooked noting the delightful breakfast of 2 superbly fried eggs in oil with a hint of Maldon salt, 2 pieces of grain bread with peanut butter and honey, followed by a bowl of blackberries, Kéfir and ground flaxseed. While sipping my antioxidant tea (with far too many exotic ingredients now to recall in this sublime state of mind), flipping through Country Life  magazine and occasionally glancing at the distant farm fields to the horizon, I loosely ponder the day.

Curiously the current fascination is not Santa Claus or family. Instead it is friends. Naturally both family and friends are topical at this particular time of year. Like the fences, the glimmer of friendship is for me a territory of constant illumination by virtue of its precarious and otherwise unmoored foundation, balanced not by the innate substance of family; rather, buoyed by inexplicable alliance, equality and tolerance, reliability and common history. My personal landscape of family and friends is defined by the obvious lack of children and grandchildren. Through no dislike of anything more than travel, we have chosen to decline invitation with immediate family. This is a sparsity to which we are accustomed from having been au sud for the past decade or more at this time of year. The sense of completeness and proximity to family is nonetheless evident.

We are unknowingly fulfilling our ambition to remain in situ this winter. The prospect of travel anywhere this year is diminished. We specifically disapprove of the necessity to submit to what smacks of incarceration preamble before entering the United States of America. When the Canadian passport and US/Canada Border Services NEXUS card are no longer sufficient to capture our identity, it invokes a broad array of unanswered questions, the mere speculation of which speaks of unfamiliar authoritarianism and possible exposure to unlawful imprisonment or other vilification and violation. One cannot but ask, “What was your first clue?” Call me old fashioned but I prefer not to step in the mud that is so vividly extolled by the President of the United States of America. We’ll take a pass instead. Whether we ever regain our belief in this ruptured community remains debatable. For the moment, enduring snowy roads while watching a pacific rustic view is the least of our concerns. The further details of friendship – the ones across the globe that we have nurtured and preserved over many decades and some as far back as half a century ago – brighten the wintry sky. Being home for the holidays is not bad at all.