Today, I am a 57 year old man and a 35 year old father.

Leigh Erin had her first taste of oxygen on December 21, 1982 and she objected rather loudly and fiercely. But she pinked up in a hurry, a nurse swaddled her in a flannel blanket and we were formally introduced.

I observed that she looked like boiled baloney. (Well....she did!)
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Four days later, Erin, Annie and I spent our first family Christmas at St. Michael's Hospital. They wouldn't discharge anybody on Christmas Day(??)

This year, we will celebrate our First Christmas with Erin, Dan and Piper Jules in our family home.

We all celebrate a First Christmas - every Christmas. Of course, the hymns we'll sing and the services we'll attend this weekend will celebrate THE First Christmas.

​I wrote a song by that title in July 2005. It came to me a couple of weeks after brain cancer killed my friend Jules Tonus. (Piper is named after him, btw.) I sang it last year at our performance of The Promise. You can listen to it here if you like. https://soundcloud.com/dtrafford/first-christmas

I share it, not to bring you down, but to encourage you and yours to simply embrace this Christmas as a first.

Merry Christmas!

I’m already seeing and hearing the holly jolly push for us to separate our cash from our wallets. And there’s nothing wrong with that. Even the frenzied chaos of Black Friday and Cyber Monday has some entertainment value to it.
 
Above all, say what you will about the ‘stress’ of the season and the crass commercialism – Christmas comes with its own brand of joy and excitement. That applies to non-believers and believers alike.
 
I fully expect the editorial calendar will kick in sooner than later and a lazy media will create outrage out of incidental complaints about seasonal salutations and the placement of Christmas trees.
 
Whatever. REJOICE!

This will be the second year that I have managed to collect a select group of accomplished and gifted musicians who help me ‘kick off the season’.
 
We are producing and presenting ‘The Promise’ on November 26 and 27th at St. Michael’s Centre for the Arts (1515 Bathurst Ave. in Toronto). For those of you who liturgically attuned, you will know that is the first weekend of Advent – the four Sundays preceding Christmas – the season of preparation.
 
‘The Promise’ is a musical and poetic journey through the Advent, Annunciation, Christmas and Epiphany stories – based on music I wrote for the St. Bonaventure Youth Choir over a fifteen-year period. It’s unabashedly all about Jesus!

It’s not intended to take the holly and the jolly out of the season. It’s intended to put your gift giving in context.
 
This year, we are hoping to raise funds and awareness for St. Clare Inn. It’s a transitional home in Toronto supporting women who live with mental health challenges. The story behind the Inn is a remarkable one – inspired by the death of a homeless woman who routinely slept on a park bench at the corner of Lawrence and Leslie. That’s in the middle of one the most affluent neighbourhoods in Canada. You can more about St. Clare Inn here.
 
Help us help make room at the Inn. Join us and experience The Promise.