We Wish You A Merry Christmas

I am spoiled. It is pretty obvious. This Christmas was no exception.

It is Kerrigan family tradition to wake up and open stockings together, eat the only elaborate breakfast we make ourselves all year, open our presents and spend the rest of the day reading, listening to music and watching mindless TV (read: Westminster Dog Show re-run, Shaw Cable Fire Log…). It is truly my favourite day of the year and the only one I feel truly entitled to do EXACTLY as I wish.

After opening gifts as a family we hunkered into our newest books. My mum had heard, on the news earlier, a story about 2 horses stranded on a mountain in North Eastern BC and the town that risked much to save their lives, coincidently, in a Christmas miracle. There are 2 things that make this a unique and inspiring experience. The story was truly a vivid reminder of the miracles that can be created when people work together towards something not expect of them for the good of something greater than themselves.

The horses, Belle and Sundance, were not owned by anyone in the town. They had been abandoned after a pack trip went wrong and when found four months later were so near death that the only reason they weren’t put down on the spot was the men who found them didn’t have a gun on them. What made the situation such a challenge is that it was late December, North Eastern BC is VERY cold and VERY snowy and the horses were trapped up a mountain in a space in the snow not much bigger than a dining room table with no food except each other’s tails. The dedication, commitment, sheer stubbornness and love for something else was what drove the people of the town to dig a trench 6 feet by 3 feet a km long to free two animals from the trap at the top of the mountain.

I lay, wrapped in a blanket, full of cheese, maple sausage, rice flour crepes and a healthy dose of maple syrup just reading this amazing story. For two and a half hours. I haven’t ready anything for two and a half hours that wasn’t my emails in longer than I can remember. I read a WHOLE BOOK. I have not read a whole book start to finish in a long time. I love completing a book. I did something I love and read something so truly inspirational that I was overwhelmed with emotion. I couldn’t have asked for a better way to spend the first part of my day. It was the best Christmas gift I could have asked for.