In what seems to have become a pattern for Toronto at Christmas, I am writing this surrounded by green grass and not a trace of snow, and temperatures are in the 5 degree Celsius range (any Americans reading this will have to do the translation into Fahrenheit themselves — I think it’s multiply by 2.1341 and then add the square root of 11). It’s quite nice not to have to shovel, and to only have to put on a light jacket when going out, but it also feels a little odd, and somewhat disturbing. I mean, I love the personal effects of global climate change, but I can’t really enjoy them fully because I’m worried about all the ways it could go wrong for the planet and life as we know it.
In any case, on to the letter! As usual, I will focus on the great events of this year and skim over (or ignore completely) the not-so-great ones, like multiple car accidents (everyone is fine! Our insurance didn’t even go up!). If everything works properly, the links below should open in a new window — and if you want to go and look at the photos afterwards, you can find them in a Flickr slideshow. You can also find larger versions of all of them, along with a whole bunch more pictures that I haven’t included here, at the Ingram Family Photo Library (unless my server is down, in which case I apologize). If you have any questions about the letter or just about the Ingram family in general, my email is [email protected] — unless of course you have a criticism to make about this letter, in which case please feel free to use the email [email protected].
As some of you may remember from last year’s letter, this year started off very differently compared to every other year. Usually we get together at Marc & Kris’s farm near Buckhorn for New Year’s, but this time we were all in a ballroom at the Stone Mill Inn in St. Catherines, toasting the marriage of our eldest, Caitlin, to a wonderful young man named Wade Hemrica. It was a great wedding, with beautiful bridesmaids and great food and a lot of good friends and family gathered, and of course there were hilarious and touching speeches from the bride and groom’s parents, which Becky and I managed to get through without too much trouble. Caitlin also convinced me to record myself singing and playing “Blackbird” by Paul McCartney, and then played that as the music for our father-daughter dance, which was pretty special. I may have had something in my eye at one point, but made it to the end without too much blubbering.
It’s hard to believe that two people as youthful as Becky and I could have a daughter as beautiful and accomplished as Caitlin, but there you have it. And despite the fact that I don’t drink, I had nine-and-a-half shots of tequila with various family members and still managed to remain vertical for most of the evening! All in all it was a terrific party, and a great way to ring in the New Year. I told Caitlin and Wade it was so much fun that we should do it every year, but somehow I don’t think that’s going to happen.
Continue reading “The Ingram Christmas Letter for 2018”