The Bruce Report

For the first time in 28 years, my wife and I find ourselves home and alone for the holidays. By “alone” I mean without our kinder who are children only in the most technical sense of the word.

            Melinda is 28, married, and living and working in Toronto. Jessica is 25, engaged to be married later this year, a new mom, and spending the season with our future son-in-law’s family in Brighton, Ontario.

            It was bound to happen, as inevitable as old age: The day would come when our progeny would no longer consider time spent with their folks an absolute necessity, an unbreakable rite of Christmas cheer.

Good, my wife and I bravely tell ourselves. Good for them and, just possibly, good for us.

After all, what better opportunity could there be to start planning our assault on the world’s exotic hotspots? Working travel has always been our shared dream. Now that the kids are gone, nothing stands in the way of crossing off some of those items on our already dusty “life list”.

The Mayan Riviera looks stunning (at least the pictures do, which my wife’s new Christmas laptop conjures as the mercury outside plummets), but then so does Tuscany, southern California, and England in the merry month of May. What shall it be, honey? Spanish or Italian? The comely lady pitching Rosetta Stone on the TV is waiting for my satisfaction-guaranteed order.

Or maybe wanderlust is not for us. I’ve always wanted to augment my meagre writing tools with a truly fine camera (to which end I bought myself a Nikon D-5000 to hide under the tree). Oh, for me? Thank you, me! I shouldn’t have!

“Hey darling, check it out. This puppy’s got a continuous photo-shoot array, just like the ones sports and fashion photographers use.”

“Or paparazzi, even,” the wife cracks. “Now, when Magnum PI shows up next summer to sunbathe in Shediac, you could sell the picture to someone who gives a hoot.”

“That’s funny,” I jape. “By the way, have you figured out how to turn on that. . .uh, how do you like to pronounce it, again? Oh yes: ‘com-poo-tor’.”      

A rousing game of Battleship is another way we find to fill the silence. I begin by reminding she who shall be obeyed that games like this are my forte by virtue of my distinctly masculine competitiveness and bloodlust. She ends by wiping me and the board clean and declaring her distaste for such crypto-military exercises.

Pouting, I am discovering, is a particularly fruitful activity over the holidays (if by fruitful, one means time-consuming). I’m not especially happy with my presents this year. Well, actually I am. But compared with the haul my wife pulled down, I’m looking a bit like Little Orphan Alec over here.

“Look, all I’m saying is, ‘why don’t we trade one of my boxes of lifesavers for one of your two-pound bags of Belgian chocolates?’”

“Okay,” the wife smiles. “First you take that camera back to the shop, and then I’ll give you all my candy. On second thought, keep the camera, pal.”

The other day, we decided to take down the tree and all the decorations. What’s the point of keeping them up when the kids aren’t around to enjoy them?

“Now, you take the fir out to the backyard and we’ll mulch it for the garden,” she instructed. “I’ll join you in a minute.”

“I don’t feel like it,” I declared.

“What do you mean you don’t feel like it?”

“I’m busy.”

“You’re watching reruns of Law and Order for crying out loud!”

“So?”

“So, get a move on mister!”

As I a shuffled off the couch, I could not help but think how wonderful it will be to have the children back in the house next Christmas – assuming, of course, they behave like the adults their mother and I raised.

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