2020 Christmas Letter

 

David is the one who's kneeling

Our little family has, so far, been blessed through 2020. We have escaped physical and financial harm at the hands of the “gyna-virus” (as Trump would call it). Our worst symptoms have been inconvenience and disappointment. 2020 was challenging for many but still full of joy for us. Maggie and David were engaged. There is footage of this happy occasion on Instagram. We used to call people and force them to use their imagination. The happy couple also both recently switched to new jobs selling technology. We are expecting that Bandit the dog will soon also be a Business Development Rep for some software company. 

Hannah’s work at the TECL lab was changed from interacting with infants into mind-numbing coding of videotaped experiments. The basket of lemons made for some good lemonade. It challenged her to find a way to use a computer and AI software to code the videos. Her breakthrough will hopefully be part of an upcoming academic journal paper as a leading-edge methodology.  We are proud of her we just don’t know exactly what for.

Approaching the holidays, Carolyn spent quite a bit of time volunteering at the Women’s Habitat shelter and food bank. Carolyn has a knack for sorting and organizing, and also a passion for helping people. A food bank warehouse is her dream job. In the Summer and Fall we re-planned our cycle tours to our own backyard in Southern Ontario and discovered hidden gems like Northumberland County. Beautiful rolling hills and panoramic vistas and if you tear up a few hundred dollar bills each night and get a rude innkeeper it feels a lot like France. 

Of course, other families have not been so lucky this year. They have suffered physical and financial hardship and our hearts go out to victims of the virus and its deputies the Covidiots. 

Its hard to say how well we are managing COVID in Toronto. We tend to get Ontario provincial numbers. Actually, It is generally the one number: positive tests today. What I have noticed is that our main goal in Ontario is to be under Quebec’s number. This has its long adversarial history grounded in Montreal’s pro hockey dominance and the Plains of Abraham. 

As a country, Canada is performing quite well. Solid B when you look at cases per million people. We are now leading the Germans who have a fully functioning government and a society that balances rights and responsibilities. Canadians are grumpy but happy to not be entwined in the American political healthcare thing that is like the most tangled set of ear buds that you ever pulled out of your pocket. The U.S. makes us look better than we are.

It's like golf, lower is better

We really should be looking at the A+ performer, our favorite commonwealth comparator, Australia. They have less than 10% of the infection rate per capita in Canada. 

I don’t want a visit from the “Jews will not replace us” crew, but I am dying to ask… dude, if you want to keep the businesses open, why not wear the damn mask? Maybe that’s what they figured out in Australia?

American friends and family often enquired this year whether Canadians are aware of the political situation in the U.S. Rest assured that we are painfully aware of all of it. This theatrical spectacle may be the final area of true American exceptionalism, as it drives the global news cycle. Maggie, Hannah and I all vote and pay taxes as (dual) U.S. citizens. US politics has been the source of a lot of dinner table conversation in 2020. I would describe it using George Orwell’s text from the visionary 1984 “Power is in tearing human minds to pieces and putting them together again in new shapes of your own choosing”. We are witnessing it happening frame by frame in disbelief, wondering if there is something more that could be done, should be done, beyond our casting a “highly suspicious” mail-in ballot in the state of Vermont.

Vaccines are dawning. Saved by science. For us in 2021 (don’t tell me it will be 2022) it will hopefully mean more time, better time, with our parents and friends. We will cycle tour in places beyond southern Ontario. Hannah will go back to testing and playing with children in the TECL lab on campus. Maggie will work shoulder to shoulder with her new colleagues and plan a socially proximal wedding. Carolyn will flash the billboard smile in public again and hug everyone, including the Women’s Habitat beneficiaries. 

We are not looking forward to seeing you in 2021. We are looking forward to BEING WITH YOU in the new year. Man, I hope it all works. 

For outtakes (aka the 'directors cut') from the 2020 xmas letter go here.

2019 Christmas Letter

The kayak paddles were slapping at the cold chop with the spray coming back at my face. The frothy swells were curling up over the sides of the small boat and the tide was dragging us back toward the mighty St. Lawrence. The dominant, depressing observation was that one hour into this exhausting six hour odyssey - the damn boat was not moving forward. But, Carolyn would be thinking, at least we are not moving backward! Aside from that afternoon on the Saguenay river fjord in Quebec, through most of 2019 the wind and tide were at our backs and we had more than our fair share of fun and good fortune.

Bandit just a little scary

Maggie and David felt lonely in their 1200 sq. ft. bungalow with two cats and a hockey bag. So rather than watch Netflix and post stuff on Instagram – they got a dog. Not an un-serious lap dog either. A decent-sized rescue mutt that Save Our Scruff hauled back from Mexico as a puppy. Young Bandit the unruly puppy filled our house with joy, feces and fear of being nipped.
But, at the time of writing we all still have all our fingers and Bandit is a well-behaved and only slightly fear-inducing pet. Bandit has spent countless hours training her owners both in and out of puppy-owner school and is now enjoying her daily role at Lakefront Graphix with David.

Hannah is enjoying her time as one of the Lost Boys and now knows where everything is at U of T. She is not particularly interested in “growing up” but does graze at the adult buffet from time to time. Namely, she works in a psychology lab on campus – the Toronto Early Cognition Lab trying to divine what very young children are thinking. She also spends a fair bit of time downtown, condo-ing with the boyfriend Callen. He has a distinctly adult lifestyle with a serious job (wears a tie), a car and now, an Instant Pot.

Saguenay Sunset at our Campsite

Carolyn and I tend to plan our holidays around some outdoor activity like the early September trip with friends to cycle Lac St. Jean and guided kayaking on the Saguenay river just north of Quebec City. Despite the hardship and discomfort, we do it because it looks good on Facebook. In 2019 we did that kind of thing in California, Vermont, Lake Louise. Don’t get me wrong, we mostly did it in the Greater Toronto Area but we don’t post that. The formerly broken hip is now working just fine.

Speaking of the hip I am happy to report that Carolyn and Maggie hiked the Appalachian Trail in Vermont for a week in the Summer. That trip was previously scuttled because of my bike accident last July. One year later I was still not recovered enough though to sleep out with the mosquitos, eat bad food, carry 40 lbs all day and forego showering. I may never recover enough to trail hike.

While technically not part of 2019,Carolyn left her job Jan 1, 2020. She is not actively looking for a new gig. She explained that she is “retiring”. At first, I thought that she meant that she was starting to retire, as in, “I am retiring…and it will happen in 2025”. But apparently it is for real, so book your lunch date early and often. I have encouraged her to consider Uber as she is driving around anyway.

Sorry for the delay in getting this annual note out to you all but we are not that busy and you know how hard it is to get stuff done when you are not that busy. On that note, we are not that busy in 2020 and look forward to seeing more of YOU. Carolyn has explained to me that relationships are the key to happiness in retirement. Of course, they are not, it’s money (don’t tell her). So I am still working at Lighthouse Consulting while I figure out how to make writing, cycling and cooking into a well-paid gig.

From our family to yours, all the best in the coming year.

2018 Christmas Letter

Renovation, renewal, restoration exist in roughly equal measure in the universe as death, decay and destruction. It just does not always seem that way.

If you think of Millennials as life-sucking slackers I put forward exhibit A. In 2018 Maggie graduated with her Business degree, moved in with David, hiked a good chunk of the Appalachian Trail and found herself a real job – which she still has at the time of writing. She will now retain that most sacred right to tell her own children, “for chrissake when I was your age I was living on my own, with a job and contributing to an RRSP…so stay out of the holodeck and get to work!”. That is a good restart into early adulthood.

The actual home renovation was a logistical challenge of moving stuff, not being home and generally getting out of the way. Luckily Carolyn has tremendous skills in this area and saved us all. We had originally planned to live on our boat at the Boulevard Club during the renovation but then we discovered our typographical error. We are not part of the 1%, we are part of the 11%, which is not twice as good. We don’t have a boat, so we lived in our basement and cooked on a hot plate.

Hannah has a renewed commitment to pursuing health sciences after her internship at the Sick Kids Hospital, Speech Language Pathology clinic. Basically, it was a dream job where she had lots of autonomy and impact helping young people struggling with stuttering. We were pleasantly surprised to see her succeed in the role, as we generally think of Millennials as life-sucking slackers.

The polar bears arrive in Churchill, Manitoba every November because that is where the pack ice starts to form on the western edge of Hudson’s Bay. They hunt seals from the ice and they arrive weak and emaciated from starving during the Summer when there is virtually nothing for them to eat.

Like me, they are at the top of the food chain, they have no natural enemies and therefore no fear. So, they can be observed just hanging out. But, at 1000 lbs and ten feet tall it takes a lot of food to sustain them. Some don’t make it and starve waiting for the ice to form. Most do make it. I know how they feel: house, cars, vacations, school, RRSP. Thankfully, we have a good ice flow here and a steady diet of seal. Carolyn explained all this to me when she got back from her Smith family arctic safari with Barb and her sisters. They loved it.

Still on the subject of wildlife, when Mr. Porter jammed himself under my front bike wheel, I knew I was headed for a little destruction. Thankfully, the doctors rebuilt that hip and I could restart life’s simple pleasures like walking. There where also many friends, family members and medical types who helped immensely over the last six months. So, what did I learn from the life-affirming cycle of trauma and recovery? That, once you get the hang of it, peeing into a plastic bottle while in bed is a fantastic innovation. It’s the “drive-thru” of bodily functions. Why get out the car to eat? Why get out your bed to whiz?

From all of us, a belated merry Christmas and very belated happy Hanukkah. We hope your start in 2019 is strong and you find the energy and commitment to bouncing back from whatever adversity fate is dealing in the new year. We are here to help.

2017 Christmas Letter

Our neighbors went on Safari in Africa. We did not want to be left behind so this Summer we went camping in Bruce Peninsula National park.

I hear you, why? We all went for different reasons. Maggie is the main force behind it. She likes a good “adventurous, outdoorsy” trip. In fact, she relishes the logistical challenge of all the setup and planning and best of all acquiring increasingly arcane bits of specialized outdoor gear. Carolyn has fond childhood memories of staying on her grandfather’s island in Georgian Bay full of cabins, rocks and swimming in the bay. She likes communing with nature. Hannah likes the idea of less people, more quiet and a good book. She would be happy staying in the car with a thermos of coffee. I, your trusted narrator, avoid camping like Donald Trump avoids a policy decision. I have done it. I don’t do it anymore. But I did it.

The first rude shock is the food planning for 3 nights of pack-it-all-in “backcountry” living. That’s 12 meals x 4 people that have to go in the backpacks along with tents, clothes and assorted gear. All meals start as sawdust, add water, makes gruel. Maggie dehydrated all manner of food to make different kinds of sawdust. It worked, we survived and enjoyed some family mealtime squatting on rocks.

It’s not a culinary adventure. I get that. We went for the hiking and the Bruce Peninsula is a local treasure. The views on the cliffs above the bay are spectacular, the water is crystal clear with turquoise hues. The hiking though is considered the toughest part of the Bruce trail. Scampering up and over boulders and maintaining your footing on slick pumpkin-sized rocks with 40 lbs on your back can be a trial, especially in hour five. Does the family unit fracture in these conditions? Like an iPhone on the sidewalk!

Sleeping under the great canopy of our universe. Spying the big dipper through your tent window as you contemplate whether you really need to crawl out for a pee or not. This is why we came. The symphony of wildlife at five AM. “Honey are you asleep? How are you asleep? The kids are fighting in their tent. You are STILL asleep? Wow.” But, by the third night we had it grooved like Navy Seal Team 6. Tents up, mattress pads, sleeping bags, lights etc. Just in time to go home.

But there was a moment there in the pine canopy with gentle tic tac of walking poles keeping me upright when we were not lost and hunting for trail blazes. Four of us, totally self sufficient, breathing in some kind of super-oxygenated earthy air and only a little bit hungry. We were enjoying the most basic form of transportation – walking, and thinking about – nothing much. Carolyn was loving the great outdoors. Maggie was in training for a greater adventure down the road. Hannah was drinking in the solitude a million miles away from school. And I was shocked. Gobsmacked that I was not only in the middle of this inane exercise but enjoying it. I can’t say for sure if I was enjoying it or enjoying that THEY were enjoying it, but it wasn’t terrible.

Christmas, Hanukkah are “family time”, but sometimes they can descend into a thousand tiny obligations and a long checklist. For us, it’s useful to remember our little unit marching in the woods in late August. It’s a powerful reminder that we need less stuff than we may think and we rely on each other to get where we are going. One plastic bowl, one spork. Hopefully you and your family can find some time just being together doing something you like. If you can’t do that – go camping!

2016 Christmas Letter

2016 has been a tough year for us liberal, progressive types. Especially those of us who get to vote in US elections. So, I am sure you can empathize with my reluctance to pen this annual missive to family and friends. A ritual that began as a personal and satirical take on the gooey tradition of the annual Christmas letter has now become a participative exercise where YOU, the reader help ME via “scribe therapy” manage my varied demons by providing an audience. Many stop reading here, but for the most generous of you who are willing to press on as a Christmas mitzvah – thank you.

It was notably “the year of Twitter” – that stupid cacophony of links, half-thoughts and comebacks. Limiting contributions to 140 characters is a challenge akin to a modern haiku beloved by the very smart and the very dumb but it’s just plain weird for the rest of us. So, here are a few of our (slightly Trumpian) tweets from 2016:

Vacations! My kids go on better vacations than I do now. @Maggie to Turks and Caicos, @Hannah to Serbia, Greece, Cuba all-inclusive. Is this a trend? #YOLO

Mom. Winner all the way. Comes through yuge operation to repair 2 arterial aneurysms bounces back better than before. Dr Tirone David @MunkCardiac, water-walker, would be my Surgeon General. #YouOnlyLiveTwice

Carolyn’s fallback – long-haul trucker. Fetches @Hannahdaughter from Halifax King’s liberal arts program. 1800Kms in 1 day. Kid now knows the difference between Kant and Can’t. Way2go. On to U of T. #mombus #gethigherlearning

Christmas Eve M&C Solby Creation:
Donald Trump Gingerbread

M-I-L Barb flies through 85^th birthday with huge circle of friends and party central at 8 Elliott. Be positive, swim every day and go bowling – secrets to success. #makefriendsandbehappy

Good job getting a Summer job/internship @maggiedaughter, in your chosen field, marketing. #familybusiness. Winning in a winning business program at “MaggMaster” makes you a winner. I need to believe that. #justpaythebilldear #snatchthepebblegrasshopper

3 Smith sisters, Duffy, Di and Small Fry dominate the “Try A Tri” triathalon on Toronto Island. Some podium finishes. Winners! #sisterluv #neverstopmoving. Good way to ruin a nice bike ride, sandwich it between a run and a swim. #slowman

Summer road trip with @Brunobrother to BostonMass. My Rabbi cousin @AlisonPoir marries Rabbi @MattHaas. (yes, they met studying theology) So fun seeing family. #wickedsmaht Dad @JohnPoir drops the mike in a PRO cover of Sweet Caroline  #francoamericanidol

Congrats to @paulbrown for organizing the “Wilkinson Warriors” Dirty Dash team in Cambridge and creating a Brown-Smith-Woodfield flashmob family reunion on @KimMark’s deck.  #whysomuchmud #ShirlBarbMony

More great world tour cycling with friends @FrankandNatalie in Sri Lanka for 2 weeks. Why Sri Lanka? Only culture, history, beach, mountain, friendlies, and vicious heat that makes you stop cycling and enjoy something else. #speedtourism #howcanitbesohot

December blizzard family road trip for Xmas-time in NYC and not-surprise birthday party for Dad. Snowplow drivers are losers! Too much snow not enough plow! #Subarusaveslife Superfun to visit with California SuperNephew @RobertSolby Candidate 2024? #UncleMarc

Big shout out to @JacksonandSienna because nephew Jackson ,12, now has a cooler phone than @UncleMarc and can pickup the big shoutout. Never enough @JacksonandSienna who are even cooler than an iphone. More fun times and great sports in 2017 please #AuntieCarolyn #Siennarunslikethewind.

Fighting back in 2017 with peace, love, understanding and warm wishes to all our family and friends. Hope to see and hear from many of you. More “social” than “media”.

2015 Christmas Letter

When Justin Trudeau said, in his acceptance speech, “sunny ways, my friends, sunny ways” he was apparently referencing Wilfrid Laurier’s positive approach to solving the separate schools crisis in Manitoba in 1896. Sadly, I mis-heard this and thought he was saying “funny ways” which rang especially true in my own household. Funny ways, my friends, funny ways.

It’s funny how when the kids come home from University for re-supply in one form or another you rarely see them. When I’m asleep they are out. When I’m awake they are asleep. When they are home I am at work. We text. They have boyfriends. The boyfriends are nice guys - they fill me in on what’s going on. Carolyn texts their other friends to find out stuff.

It was also funny how the girls are a study in contrasts. Maggie had a very fun and profitable summer working as a brand ambassador at the Pan Am games and other marketing events (you hand stuff out and be a human billboard in the service of some marketing objective).  Hannah had a socially exciting post-high school summer with a moderate amount of work. She had banked her cash from working through the year and was enjoying that dividend.

The empty nest is just fine. The big adjustment is running the dishwasher every second day. We learned. We went places like Burlington, Vermont and California and St. Lucia to spend time with Duff and Nik. Absent the wards, Carolyn found time keep her fitbit humming and ran a 10K with Maggie and did a triathlon with Duff.  The tri appears to be an annual thing; other family members are considering joining.  They do it on Toronto Island. The trek to the starting line is at least as challenging as the actual race.

 In February I had a flashbulb moment at the Air Canada Centre. Carolyn and I were singing along with Fleetwood Mac and 17,000 well-heeled baby boomers.  We were belting it out when suddenly those lyrics in Landslide seemed, well, profound?

Well, I've been afraid of changing/'Cause I've built my life around you/But time makes you bolder/Even children get older/And I'm getting older too

But then they launched into “Go your own way” and I snapped out of it.

The award for best actress in a leading dramatic role went to Carolyn for her part in “The Halifax Express” (aka “Rocky”). She drove the 3600km round trip to bring Hannah and her stuff to school at King’s (with Julie and her son). Best supporting actress went to Duff who flew out to drive the return leg with her.  When they returned fully intact I had to enquire how she managed it so well, especially the journey home when all the excitement of going to college had faded. “Duff and I just chatted the whole way home. We didn’t even turn on the radio” As if they were coming home from shoe shopping at Yorkdale. Bravo, bravo!

Both Carolyn and I started new gigs. She left the Heart and Stroke Foundation to lead the marketing at a lumber distribution company called Upper Canada Sierra (UCS). After 10 years of doing good works she decided, “not for profit, not for me!”

In addition to my consulting I started teaching a marketing course at Uof T in their school of continuing studies.  My course covers wide-ranging marketing interests like: Why are the ads still too loud?  How does Hormel feel about the email term “spam” and where are their trademark attorneys?  Do cowboys still use brands?  What are the names of the three people who click on banner ads? What is the cleverest ad agency name ever? Actually it’s not, but it should be.

We can only hope that your 2015 was as good as ours, maybe better (you had no exposure to oil and gas stocks). Despite the daily grind we have few real reasons to gripe. Now if we can only get a little snow – we might fit in some cross-country skiing.   Have a great holiday from all of us. See you in the new year.

2014 Christmas Letter

The root of the word University is the Latin form of “universe” or “whole”. I suspect that it has less to do with the number of subjects taught and more to do with how it takes over your entire life. Qualification, selection, admission, preparation, remuneration and finally separation. So, I was surprised that we had no sooner endured the tearful return home from the drop-off at McMaster then Maggie was standing in our living room. I am exaggerating, but the GO train from Hamilton takes about as long as getting to Union Station downtown. Our child is not “away” at university, she is in a halfway house working toward an orderly transition into society.

Early in the year Carolyn started a new job at the Heart and Stroke Foundation. I was glad of her CPR retraining and expertise with an AED (defibrillator) as we went through Maggie’s high school graduation and the Prom. Organizing the Pan-Am games is child’s play compared with planning and executing a high school prom. All I can tell you is that in the end, there was a party, there was a Prom and there was a dress. It was a tsunami, and then, it was gone. 

Hannah continued to thrive at the quirky school and her school dragon boat team set a personal best time at the finals. The team competed at a higher level, so they did not win their division. At the time of writing she has applied to a few universities and we are ready to do it all again – older and wiser. She has taken to spending the week after Christmas with a friend in Palm Beach, Florida. Friend’s Uncle has a beautiful home and they all live like Richard Branson. I need a friend like that. Heck, I need a friend.

Carolyn’s sister Jenn and her husband Nik left their circumnavigating sailboat-home in Trinidad and spent the summer in Toronto visiting family and friends. We had fun motorcycle shopping and road tripping to Montreal for Maggie’s Ultimate Frisbee finals. They are the Captains of adventure and lead a derring-do lifestyle that the rest of us aspire to. They could have a lot of Twitter followers – but they don’t need them.
We are lucky that my brother’s family lives nearby and we get to hang with his kids Jackson (10) and Sienna (6) virtually at will. We can easily attend some soccer/basketball/track events and not all of them. They are not going to University any time soon. We have the joy of having fun with them, encouraging misbehaviour and then handing them back to their parents if they get cranky.

Even as an extended family we have had a remarkable run of good health. I attribute this to the multivitamins we take most days and a high stress lifestyle that forces you off to work before you can start complaining. Basically we are trying to outrun illness and leverage the placebo effect simultaneously.

While some people are trying to put Christ back in Christmas, we are lobbying against it. The more we secularize Christmas and Hanukkah, the closer we get to fusing them and simplifying our lives. Eight days is clearly too long, but one day is kind of meager for a full-on festival. There used to be twelve days of Christmas before the cutbacks. We are working on a four day Christmakah that always includes the winter solstice. The Retail Council of Canada loves the idea.

Of course all this secularization doesn’t help much with faith. It is in short supply but in great demand every Season as world events never fail to shock and dismay. I suppose that one of the meanings of this time of year is to somehow reconcile the “over there” where there are ebola and beheadings and drone attacks and working poor down the street with the “over here” and all of our good fortune. I certainly don’t have many answers on that one. I am thinking of perhaps returning to university, everyone is doing it these days and I seem to be driving there anyway.

Wishing you and your family a very happy holiday and joyful 2015 from all of us.