Christmas is coming and a decade is ending

Christmas is just a few days away. Travelling to the International Falls’ airport, we joined many other district parents welcoming their children off the flight Sunday. Children were home for the Christmas holidays. Other parents are braving the highways to meet their children in Winnipeg or Thunder Bay airports and bring them home.
As the pace of Christmas builds this last week, we can be comforted by the fact that come Christmas evening, we will all begin relaxing.
For several weeks I have had my car radio tuned into either the Christmas Classics or the pop Christmas music channels. Traditional Christian music songs have helped me gather in the spirit of the season. I find myself humming or singing along to those old favorites. Churches will fill on Christmas eve with both believers and those who feel comfort in just being present to enjoy the story and the music.
Many will attend the midnight service. And leave feeling a sense of relief. And may expect to be up early to catch the large eyes and amazement of kids and grand kids on Christmas morning. The official longest day of the year may have passed, but Christmas eve is the longest night for children.
The schedule of Church services has already been published.
We might be travelling from home to home to make all the necessary family stops, but each stop is welcomed and enjoyed. With Christmas falling on Friday and Boxing Day Saturday, many are looking to a long weekend extending through Monday. Many will enjoy a four-day vacation.
Cory Westover bragged Monday morning that he caught a crappie measuring over 15 inches on his first ice fishing outing. Arms a little sore from drilling 24 ten inch holes, Cory’s favorite fishing time of the year is now here.

And the ice measured almost 16 inches deep, more than enough to carry the weight of a half ton truck. I am told that the ice road has been plowed across Stanjicoming Bay shortening the route from the first nation at the top end of the bay.
Trout fishermen are eyeing up the next decade. That season opens on January 1.
Jim Martindale passed along the job of judging the best costume at the Voyageur Lion’s Polar Plunge at La Place Rendezvous on New Year’s day. The event has become an annual tradition in Fort Frances attracting thrill seekers from both sides of the border. Of course the community always comes out to see who is foolish enough to have the first of the year bath in the crystal clear waters of Rainy Lake.
This decade may be ending, and the next will start in just over a week. We could never have imagined all the events that would occur in our lives in the past ten years. What will the next hold for us and our district?

–Jim Cumming,
Publisher