finding christmas in st. john's

i spent 2 weeks in toronto. 11 days working the toronto one of a kind show. a couple of days before and after the show re-acquainting myself with toronto. out of the corner of my eye i kept seeing signs of christmas. the huge tree in the centre of the ooak show. the animated window displays in the bay's downtown store. and it kept catching me off guard. "oh, yes, it's almost christmas". i was too busy all autumn leading into the show to give it any thought.
we just returned from 5 days in st. john's - visiting with my daughter and her husband and the grandchildren. and there i found christmas. setting up the christmas village on the first morning and 4 year old lucy spending every spare moment with it all weekend - arranging and re-arranging the magic. watching poppy keith and eamon (who both have beautiful singing voices) singing at the wassail pageant at cochrane united church where 2 of their other grandparents (my grandchildren have 4 sets of grandparents) were wassail dancing with bells and jester's hats. the "boys" playing with the new shuffle board game that eamon got at a christmas party that nanny milly took the children to. making rice krispie christmas tree cookies with poppy on the last morning (we discovered that none of the adults in the house had ever made rice krispie treats. being with family. being with children. that's where christmas was hiding...