Favourite Winter Holiday Memory

Christmas is my favourite time of the year.  Everything is so festive and wonderful, the movies on TV, the lights on houses and the amazing sweaters that are only acceptable to wear around this time, just seem to make all of December magical. People are cheery and loving because of the contagiously good vibes all around the city.  Looking back I really don’t think I have had a bad Christmas (knock on wood), but one holiday season comes to mind when I think about my favourite holiday memory.  I was in third grade and both my sister and I had been bagging my parents for a dog since our old girl Dusty passed away from old age.  That December my dad signed our family up to the golden retriever rescue foundation, so that when a dog came to their program we would be contacted.  I remember my dad sitting my sister and I down and telling us that we would be getting a dog.  It wouldn’t be right away he explained, that dogs only come to the foundation when they needed a better home.  I was a little bummed out that we wouldn’t be getting a little puppy right away, but I understood why we had to wait.  Only two weeks passed before we got a call saying that there was a three-year-old girl who was in need of a new family.  This was the week before Christmas so everything was pretty hectic, but we went to meet our new dog the minute we could.  That was the Christmas my family got Sonny.  She was the best part of that December. To be completely honest I don’t remember anything else about that season because everything else was so irrelevant next to Sonny.  That year was special to me because all the material goods I got under our tree seemed to mean nothing compared to my new best friend.  All these years later and Sonny still made that Christmas holiday unforgettable.  Sadly she’s getting older, almost 13 and completely deaf, her knees don’t work very well and she can’t go for hour long walks like we used to.  Everyone in my family has come to terms with the fact that she wont be here to see another Christmas, but that’s ok because she’s touched each of our lives in so many ways that she’ll never completely be gone.   My mom jokes about how we’ll be finding dog hair on our black clothes for years after she leaves us.  Even though she’s slowly fading I will never forget how special she is to me and how amazing she made that Christmas nine years ago, as well as every day after it.