BUZZon - Another New Year

New Year by JoDee Samuelson The landscape is brown and gold with a few welcome crimson highlights of rosehips, Nova Scotia hollyberries and wild apples. Chrismas lights disappear too quickly, leaving the night landscape bleak and introspective. How long ago summer seems.

A sharp-shinned hawk sits on the phone line contemplating breakfast possibilities. Canada geese, reluctant to leave, congregate in a field of stubble. Black ducks circle lazily in the open water of an almost frozen pond, while crows fly noisily from treetop to shore, sending messages or sharing news—who knows? A cat darts across the road and disappears into the ditch. It’s another New Year for all of us, though humans take this change of calendar more seriously than our feathered and furry friends.

People of the Cove are still recovering from December, our busiest month of the year. It began with the Women’s Institute Christmas potluck supper which included a collection of “White Cross gifts” (personal items such as socks and pajamas) for the Canadian Mental Health Association. The next week a Christmas House Tour raised money for the equipment funds of the QEH and Prince County Hospitals. To the homeowners who opened your beautiful houses, to those who bought tickets, and to the women who kept the cider hot and cookie trays filled at the old school: thank you.

The grandest event of all was the Living Nativity. Words cannot do it justice, but it is clear that community spirit is alive and well in the Cove. If you were in one of the hundreds of cars that drove past the manger of Bethlehem and saw the goats sleeping in the young shepherd’s lap, or Tessie the horse nibbling at a choir member’s song sheet, or the baby donkey kicking up its heels, or the alpacas smiling enigmatically at the amazing sight, or white-robed angels perched on bales quietly blessing the holy birth, or the red-gowned choir singing Joy to the World!—well, then, you know what happened: the Christmas Story came alive in that brief shining drive-through moment. None of us will ever forget it.

Open houses, concerts, craft sales, staff parties, shopping for presents and carol singing now seem like distant memories. We take a deep breath and look about us. What was it all about? Are we better people for all the energy (and money) we spent last month? Was it worth it? Of course it was! We got through the darkest month of the year with spirit and class! In small communities such as ours, thousands of dollars were raised willingly and cheerfully for important causes, not out of charity but out of friendship. We shared music and laughter, stories and food, we dressed up, lit candles, played games, made gingerbread houses, made excuses to phone one another and meet for coffee. It as all worthwhile and always will be, as long as we have winter with its cold dark nights and as long as there is Christmas.

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The Cove Journalby JoDee Samuelson

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The Cove Journal
by JoDee Samuelson