Yes, it’s your favourite time of the year — the Ingram Christmas Letter is finally here! In what has become a somewhat depressing annual event, I am typing this in mid-December and it’s plus 10 Celsius, not a trace of snow on the ground. The part of me that hates shovelling snow is happy, but the part of me that is concerned about global warming is not happy at all. In any case, on to the letter! I will do my best not to make this all about our 18-month-old granddaughter Quinn, but it is going to be difficult, since I am convinced she is the cutest and smartest child who probably ever existed (it’s possible there were some cuter and smarter children in ancient Greece, but I doubt it). As usual, the photos here are also available as a Google Photos album or at the Ingram Family Photo Archive — which runs on an old computer in our daughter’s bedroom, so please don’t get mad if it’s down. You can also find a more old-fashioned web version of this letter, complete with old-timey Santa images, at https://mathewingram.com/christmas. However you consume it, it’s the same great Ingram family content that you know and love!
Since most of these letters are written before Christmas, they don’t often include photos *from* Christmas, but I will make an exception in this case because of the aforementioned angel known as Quinnderella, who was a vision in plaid for her first Christmas. She appeared to have a great time, despite not really knowing what was happening, and at one point she appeared to be channeling her Scottish ancestors and telling a tall tale, clad in her tiny sweater and plaid skirt. And someone upstairs must have heard us wish for a white Christmas, because we got a massive dump of snow just a few days before, and Meaghan — who was driving Becky’s mother from Ottawa — had to be rescued from the blizzard by Wade and me. But once everyone was safe, the snow made it very pretty on hikes around the property, making everything look like Narnia.
Although many past years have begun with skating on the pond at The Farm in Buckhorn, that was not the case this year, because the combination of rain and snow made it impossible to get the ice ready. But the weather made it much nicer for hiking in the woods with friends. We also had a visit with Quinn not far into the new year, at which point I had to engage in my standard interaction with babies, which is to hold them sitting on my outstretched hand — something I do for as long as I can before the mother of said baby asks me to stop. February brought more winter walks through the woods at The Farm, but also a hint that spring might be approaching. And since the canal in Ottawa never opened for skating due to said warmth, we spent our usual Winterlude trip bowling, as we have in recent years, and added a new event as well: axe throwing! Lots of fun, and the axes stuck in the target and not the participants, which was great.
Soon, it was time to visit sunny Florida, where we took the usual romantic sunset photos at the beach. One highlight of the trip was a kayak journey around the bay in Venice, with Becky’s brother and sister-in-law Dave and Jenn, as well as a couple of old family friends who happened to be in Florida at the same time, renting another home in the same village that Becky’s family has a place. It was a beautiful day, and much fun was had. After that, we did a whirlwind trip out to Calgary, where Becky and I helped out with Mesh, the tech conference that I and some friends started way back in 2006, which one of our team has recently resurrected after a COVID-induced hiatus. Meanwhile, Quinn was trying out her Easter outfit, which we all agreed was a big hit.
And then it was off to Italy on our annual trip to the journalism conference I go to in Perugia, which is a couple of hours north of Rome, in Umbria. Job number one after getting there was the obvious: espresso and gelato at the gelateria next door to the Brufani Palace hotel, a gelateria that Becky likes to call my office. I reconnected with some fantastic friends and journalists who I only see once a year, and got to take part in some fascinating panels in interesting venues like this one, a restored cathedral. Becky and I also made our annual pilgrimage to our favourite Perugia location: a circular pagan temple-turned-church that dates back to the year 350 or so. And then it was off to the airport for our flight to the island of Sicily, which cost a whopping 27 Euros (checked bag extra).
We got to Catania and checked into a fantastic Airbnb apartment overlooking a historic square. This photo is just below the same apartment in the daytime. We met our friend Anna in Sicily, and drove in our rental car south to Noto, a lovely little town on a hill, with some beautiful Baroque churches and other buildings (Anna explained that most of the buildings are Baroque because everything before that was wiped out in an earthquake in the 1600s). It was a beautiful sunny day, and the view from the churches — some of which allowed you to go out onto a rooftop patio — was spectacular. From Noto, we drove town to the seaside, but it was so early in the season that everything was closed. Luckily, Anna spoke to a man who said he knew a little place that made of some of the best aroncini (rice balls filled with meat) in Italy. We followed him to a little cafe/bakery in a small town nearby and sure enough, they had some amazing aroncini — they were half as big as my head, and delicious. Then we headed north to Siracusa, where we found a beach and went for a swim — it was cold, but the sun was lovely, and the water was clear and turquoise.
Back in Catania, we found a lovely restaurant in an alleyway with paper umbrellas forming an arch over the entire street, and had an incredible seafood dinner, then walked around the historic square, where we may or may not have had some gelato. The next morning it was off to Mount Etna, because what else would we do on our vacation but climb up an active volcano? We rented boots and ski poles (thank God for both) and helmets at what passes for base camp, about 1,900 metres or 6,000 feet up. Then we took a shuttle bus up to about 2,500 metres, where we started our climb up the sliding piles of volcanic rock — and the first red flag that should have alerted us to what we were in for was that we had to take a bus because it was too windy to use the gondola. We hiked up from 2,500 metres to about 3,000 metres with a guide, and it was a real slog in parts — at a couple of points we were literally bent in half to try to keep from getting blown off the volcano, and the little rockslides that happened now and then were super fun as well. But we survived!
It was what I call “second-order fun” — it’s not much fun while you are doing it, but fun to talk about later. The next day we headed up north to Taormina, a lovely coastal town with some spectacular vistas and hotels — one of which was used for some of the filming of the TV show White Lotus, which was set at the San Domenico Palace, right on the cliffside overlooking the sea. That’s not why we went to Sicily, but we went to see the hotel — unfortunately, they wouldn’t let us in. So we went to the nearby ruins of an amphitheatre, which also had amazing views. And then we went to another beach, where of course I had to go for another swim, despite Anna’s warning that there were stinging jellyfish.
Back in Canada, we went to see Hamilton the musical at the Princess of Wales theatre in Toronto for a combination Mother’s Day and 60th birthday present for Becky (since her actual birthday was during COVID), and it was great. We had some visits with Quinnderella, and spring started to spring forth in the gardens around the house in Buckhorn. Pretty soon it was time to head up to the cottage to get a look at the massive pine tree that decided to fall during the winter — and by some miracle, this 60-foot-tall tree wedged itself in a tiny space between the cottage, the woodshed, and a cabin. But we didn’t have time to clean it up; we spent the weekend putting up windows on the porch, creating a room which we can use when it’s buggy or windy or raining. My nephews Scott and Curtis, my son-in-law Wade and I even went for a (quick) swim.
Then it was time for Quinnderella’s first birthday party, which had a ball pit and a water table and a slide and somehow it all fit in Caitlin and Wade’s backyard. And when we got together with Becky’s family at a resort near Kingston with a bunch of rental cabins, we had another birthday party. We even introduced Quinn to her cousin Brynlee Ann, who was born on Quinn’s first birthday and made the trek up to Otter Lake despite being only a few days old! Back at the cottage, we had all the usual kinds of summer fun paddling around the lake and swimming off the boat, and we had a special guest in July, when our friend Anna came for a visit from Italy — went to see the bald eagles on a nearby island, had a big dinner in our new screened-in porch, and Anna and I spent a day hiking the Track and Tower Trail through Algonquin Park up to a fantastic lookout.
Since Caitlin was off all summer, we had lots of time with her and Quinn at the cottage, playing in the sand and going for walks. Just look at this fantastic picture of Quinn and Caitlin at the beach. Pure joy! Later in the summer we did our annual backwoods camping trip with Marc and Kris, and this time we did a couple of portages from Little Wren Lake in the Algonquin Highlands into Raven Lake and then into Gun Lake. And we took some friends as well — Patrice and Therese came, and they were real troupers. And along the way, there were lots of kayak paddles around a mirror-flat lake, some beautiful sunsets, and even some golf in the fall, where Becky and I had a great game on a lovely fall day and made a new friend.
Fall also brought some spectacular colours on the lake, and then soon it was time for Thanksgiving. Our new screened-in porch was unfortunately not very useful for Thanksgiving, because it suddenly turned from being 30 degrees Celsius to being 3 degrees and rainy. So we brought the tables inside. And of course we went for our annual hike to the top of the lookout. And Zoe even made it home in time from Australia, where she was visiting her boyfriend Jack (why did she choose to date someone who lives 10,000 miles away? You’d have to ask her!). She has also been loving her new apartment in the Junction area of Toronto, and is rising up quickly in the ranks of customer service at Empire Life.
A big fall project was roofing part of our cottage and my cousin Chris’s cabin, which Scott and Curtis and Wade took charge of, since they all have skills in that department that I don’t. I tried to help as much as I could — which turned out to be a bad idea, because I pulled a bunch of muscles and tendons in my leg and knee, and spent the next few weeks hobbling around like an old man (which I kind of am, I suppose). Lesson learned: next time, just stay inside and watch TV while the boys work. And then it was time for Halloween, and Quinn became a ladybug. And Becky and I went on a whirlwind trip out West, where we visited our friends Lori and Barb in their new home in Predator Ridge, near Vernon, BC and went for a great hike along an old railway trail through a giant canyon.
Then it was off to Calgary to visit our other friends Alan and Jilaine and attend Becky’s company Christmas party (where we wore something in keeping with the “business casual” rules), followed by a quick trip to the mountains in Canmore. In other Ingram-family news, Meaghan moved over to the Geek Squad at Best Buy and is really enjoying helping old people figure out how to delete photos from their iPhones or defrag their hard drives or whatever it is they do over there. And Meaghan also has a new roommate, who has been working out great (translation: actually pays the rent on time and cleans up after themselves!). Caitlin, meanwhile, had to deal with Quinn’s very first day of daycare, a huge step for any parent (which Quinn passed with flying colours, of course) and is looking forward to and/or dreading a return to work, depending on the day.
And that’s about it for the Ingrams this year. As always, we hope that you have had a chance to spend some time with the ones you love over the holidays, and that 2024 brings you health, wealth, and the time to enjoy both!