Stories say that it was a mis-dialed call in the mid 1950s that led organizers to begin what is now the Santa Tracker, a bi-national program that runs each Christmas and now employs fighter pilots, several different air force bases and staff, and over 1500 volunteers! In 2014 there were over a hundred thousand phone calls and almost 20 million visits to the NORAD Santa Tracker website!¹ Luckily for me, I know someone important in the know down there at NORAD! Major Jennifer Stadnyk happens to be the poor soul I message with Public Affairs questions every once and a while and, because she’s just an all-around good person, she helps me out. Much more importantly, Major Stadnyk has the pretty incredible job of being a Public Affairs Officer for Santa Clause at the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) in Colorado Springs. How is that not the coolest job ever? In 2013 I interviewed Major Stadnyk about the Track Santa program and thankfully again this year she was able to take a moment during Santa’s busiest season to answer a few updated questions for us to let us know more about how we can our kids can track Santa in 2016!   1. I think being a Public Affairs Officer for Santa is possibly the coolest job in the CAF! How did you find yourself with this job? I also think it’s pretty cool! I found myself working in the CFB Kingston public affairs office during the ice storm of 1998 and really fell in love with the importance of communicating what the Canadian Armed Forces was doing to support the local community, I knew that’s where I needed to be! Being a PAO allows me to catch…

If you’re like me, around early September you have fleeting thoughts as you buy a Christmas gift that you are so ahead of schedule. So ahead. Like, it’s amazing how forward thinking you are. You should probably take a break. And then, mid December, you are scrambling wondering how you managed to take that early start and turn it into a last minute rush. This year, I have NO idea what to get Dh, and the jury is still out on the kids. And we only do stockings at our house, so you’d think it would be easier! So in my hunt for unique gift ideas (because I hate spending money on crap that I am only buying because I have to get *something* and I know they won’t use or care about it) I started compiling a list of other Canadian military members and/or family members who were talented enough to sell things that they create themselves. Turns out there’s a ton of them, and they have great ideas! So, slackers like me, rejoice. Maybe you’ll find an idea in here. Or, maybe you’ll leave this screen open in the hopes your spouse does. Or maybe, you’ll just order it for yourself. Your call, I don’t judge.  As far as I’m concerned, the best part about holidays when your member is deployed is that you get *exactly* what you want for Christmas. You just have to wrap it and put it under the tree yourself. Disclaimers: You will find that MLM businesses like Sentsy, DoTerra, Tupperware, etc are not listed. Not because they don’t have value, but simply because of the sheer volume of people selling…

    For those who have followed lately, you saw that last month took me on a little tour of Ontario. I thought I would be smarter than I’d been with my travels in the spring when I was constantly back and forth. I decided that when I was contacted by MFRCs that were in a similar area, I would book them one after another so that I could get to everywhere in one trip. In and Out. Easy-peasy. Right. By the time I made it to Ottawa I was at my 4th location in 4 days and ready to fire my personal assistant for booking that kind of ridiculous schedule. Except I don’t have an assistant. Sigh. That evening I was scheduled to MC an event marking the 25th anniversary of Military Family Services. That afternoon, however, found me with a pint at the Mill Street Brewery hoping by some miracle I would have inspiration to write something. I thought I had to change. I thought there’s no way I can just use the same voice I always do, I need to clean it up, to present a more put together self. So I tried. I really did. Which would have worked if I was anyone else. But I was still me, and back at the hotel I still realized I had chipped off half my manicure AFTER I ordered the Uber, so I was still painting my nails in the car while writing on a paper in my lap. When I arrived, it wasn’t long before the foyer filled with military personel, military family services staff and government officials. There were cameras everywhere and military members in all directions wearing those fancy gold cord thingies that show they were…

If I had to take a picture of love, I might be tempted to find a photo of our wedding. Grand gestures like wedding proposals and anniversary surprises. Yet this is Dh. At the doctor with me at 2am. He’s exhausted, working 10+ hour days getting ready to leave for exercise. But when he woke to me hurting he drove me, without question. He tied my gown and carried my clothes and watched carefully everyone who came near. Even here, he’s not asleep though he could be. Every few minutes he’d open his eyes and just watch me. If I’d been asked to post a photo of love I probably would have picked something prettier. But at 0 dark stupid in bare feet and a flimsy gown, laying with my knees to my chest for the medicine to work, all the grand gestures in the world have nothing on this…

I’ve learned something about myself as I made my way past my 20s and made peace with the middle of my 30s. I may be older, *ahem* a little bigger, a touch wiser… I may have a slight better handle on my tongue and a stronger idea of diplomacy, but I am still who I am, and I can’t change her. I’m louder as the night goes on. I talk when I’m nervous. I make jokes when I’m uncomfortable. I rarely cry but when I do, it’s usually because *someone* left the country station on in the car. I’ve accepted myself for me. And what I seem to be, more and more, is tired. I’ve been married to a soldier, the kind of soldier who lives his trade instead of just doing it, for over 15 years. We’ve seen war start and we’ve seen the country call for the ‘end’, the way politicians can call it that when people are still being shot. We’ve been posted across the country, we’ve been to funerals for friends lost in combat and friends lost to their own demons. We’ve spent Christmas’ over sketchy video calls and we’ve completely forgotten anniversaries. We’ve loved, celebrated, cried, fought, screamed until our throats were raw and fallen asleep on the kitchen floor. This week we are rebuilding our fence. And when our older neighbor commented on Dh’s ‘youthful’ ability to pull out the fence posts himself (hey, those muscles need to be good for something other than looking hot in a t-shirt) I laughed because it’s…

    The Canadian Armed Forces is moving into another season of more frequent deployments. At least, that’s what the news is making us think. Not that deployments ever stopped being a thing, but it looks like they might happen a little more frequently for a larger number of the Forces than has been the case the last few years. Or not. I mean, if the army has taught me anything it’s we’ll see when it happens. Either way, there are several friends of ours who have see you laters happening this summer. Since for Dh we are very much in a holding pattern deployment wise, just waiting for a phone call that may or may not come, I find myself feeling a little helpless as I watch other families prepare. It’s been a while since I’ve felt like we are on the sidelines to a deployment. So I decided to make myself feel useful by putting together some care package gift baskets. I figure there are some things that a little too much experience in deployment has taught me can be helpful to have. More than anything, though, it’s just nice to know someone is thinking of you, and that’s the point more than anything else. They may never need a candle, but they’ll remember someone took the time to put something together to acknowledge things hurt sometimes. Using some hints from Jo My Gosh, who has an amazing number of crazy creative care package ideas, I put together a list of things that I thought would be helpful and I set out to the store. Admittedly, I started at the liquor store. I grabbed a bottle of red for the center of…

  Canada Day is coming. I admit, sometimes I struggle with how to celebrate with my kids. I don’t really like the crowded festivals and the logistics of cramming into a space on a parade route, but we usually do every year because, you know, it’s Canada Day and I’m not a total jerk. I’m not sure, though, that those parades, the same ones that we have for St. Jean Baptiste day or Stampede or Christmas, I don’t know that they teach anything about Canada except that here, we really like to ride old cars slowly through the streets and throw candy. But really, is there anything more we need to know to celebrate Canada? This week my 10 year old daughter started reading “I am Malala.” It’s been eye opening for Drama, a girl who’s been raised in a home without want, who has gone to school without a second thought and who has never had to experience a fear for her own life any greater than that of the occasional harmless spider. Now Drama and I are both early morning risers, I’m generally up before 6 and she’s always up shortly after. With 3 other kids in our house this summer our early mornings have offered us some often scarce alone time to chat. Lately, we’ve been talking about the book and why Malala’s experiences are so much different than hers. What every one of her questions have boiled down to, in the end, was this one: “Why does nothing like this happen to me when I go to school?” “Because you were born in Canada, and Malala, she was born…

A couple weeks ago I spoke at a weekend conference that was put on specifically for military families struggling with an Operational Stress Injury (OSI). There were a lot of speakers and teachers there, most with fancy degrees and accomplishments, all were teaching life skills and lessons and stories. I felt really out of place.   I was nervous, which is unusual for me, public speaking doesn’t generally bother me, but I was a little overwhelmed by my lack of qualifications and the stories I usually tell seemed inadequate. So that Saturday morning found me out for a run at 5am. Because sleep is not a skill I have mastered on the best of days. And because I didn’t think through my decision, which is a pretty accurate representation about how I go through life, breakfast wasn’t going to be served until 8:30 so when I was done running at 6 I was starving and needed a distraction. So I lay on the grass next to the path I had been on, like a carefully presented bear snack in bright orange Lulu.  Contemplating my very possible imminent death by bear and wondering if playing Symphony of Destruction would be an adequate repellent, I watched as the sun very, very slowly lit up what had been just a sea of black in front of me. The idea that it’s always darkest before the dawn made more sense to me than it ever had before, because as the light filtered in there was, in fact, an entire valley and mountain view right in front of my eyes.   It was almost like the view came gently, not wanting to scare me off by being too much at once, reminding me that even when…