Senior Living: Christmas comes early … for me

Is it too early to be reading about Christmas?

There’s more than a month until my favourite holiday of the year. And perhaps I shouldn’t be prematurely writing about that personal fave — not least because I’m not Christian.

But I’m stoked for Dec. 25. And I’ve always loved the period leading up to that particular day.

Hit it, Michael Bublé: It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas.

Holiday advertising is starting to crank up, on television and in the papers … not to mention department store windows.

People are planning gifts for their loved ones. Some are strategically gifting for those to whom they’re sucking up.

Some personal holiday history:

My Jewish mother separated from my Protestant father when I was five years old. I never laid eyes on him again.

The enduring paternal influence — after my mother and I left Saint John and moved to Montreal — was my grandfather. His childhood languages were Russian and Yiddish.

His mother tongues were operative during my grandfather’s early 20th century immigration to New York City. That’s where he learned accented English.

My grandfather wasn’t religious. The Judaism he studied during childhood in Russia was of little use in New York.

Nor was religion an influence during my grandfather’s emigration to Canada — first Halifax, then Saint John. Hanukkah came and went … no big deal.

But to paraphrase Buffalo Springfield, something was happening here when my mother and I became Montrealers.

I grew up in an anglophone neighbourhood, part of a francophone city. Christmas was happening everywhere.

Not that there was a tree surrounded by presents in the small apartment where my mother and I lived. We didn’t celebrate the Bethlehem birth of a child who — unlike me — had a Jewish father.

There was, however, life outside our tiny abode. My new neighbourhood included a Protestant elementary school, Christmas specials on our small black-and-white TV and — outside our window — white snow.

Plenty of it, way back when, in the pre-climate change winter.

I walked five blocks to elementary school, bundled up in a hat, mittens, winter coat and boots that we stored during the day at school. Hopefully, they were dry for the trek back home.

OK, maybe I’m overstating a Dickensian winter youth.

I liked school and hung around with my Prot classmates.

My Grade 6 teacher celebrated Christmas, dressing up as an elf for our last day of class before the holiday break.

She was a native of Ohio, teaching here because her husband was a medical student in Montreal. She brought American-style Christmas exuberance into our classroom.

Canadian style was outside her classroom: snowy weather and holiday spirit.

I loved it.

Still do.

Waxing nostalgic took me back to the increasingly distant past. And now I’m back to the reality of being a septuagenarian for whom Christmas is not 365 days a year.

Ho-Ho-Who’s the doctor I’m seeing next?

I’m very fortunate to have a GP and occasional specialists. Reading scary medical stories in the newspaper freaks me out … and, again, makes me feel lucky to have good attention and treatment.

Maybe I’m lucky.

But I credit my GP and several specialists who have provided first-class medical care that hasn’t been excessively delayed.

Again, I’m lucky. An old(ish) guy with medical issues doesn’t want to be bounced around less-than-perfect medical treatment.

Should I chalk it up to a succession of excellent doctors who have been treating my various problems?

I’m going to generalize:

Doctors work hard. They care for their patients.

And they lobby for improvement in the medical system.

Let’s celebrate everyone in the medical system — doctors, nurses, hospital support staff. Give them what they need … and the salaries they deserve.

Sincere gratitude to readers who expressed sympathy after reading my October column on the loss of my beloved dog.

They joined the mourning.

And that was kind.