Couple making the best of first Christmas away from P.E.I.
Nick Linkletter was born in B.C., but from the age of five, he grew up on Prince Edward Island.
Although he's an Islander at heart, when he got a chance to take a welding job in British Columbia, he jumped at the opportunity.
“It'll be two years in April, I got an opportunity to come out here for a welding job and I took it because it was always a dream of mine to come live out on the West Coast,” says Linkletter.
“I was able to go home for Christmas last year and it was really good because it was the longest time that I'd ever spent away from my family and my friends. I got to spend just a little over a week home. I had so many people to go see. I felt like a superstar, it was great.”
After last year's Christmas celebration, Linkletter's girlfriend Shelby Murphy was able to join him in B.C.
As COVID numbers increased in the province into the spring, they were forced to cancel plans for a summer visit to PEI. At the time, they
consoled themselves with the hope of making it back for Christmas, but those hopes gradually dimmed this fall.
“Shelby kept asking me, ‘Do you think we're going to be able to go home for Christmas?'” says Linkletter. “And I was always like, ‘We're just going to have to wait and see.' And then it was mid-Septem
ber, and I was like, ‘You know what. I think it's becoming apparent that that's not going to happen. We have to accept that we're not going to be going home for Christmas.' ”
The couple is more aware each year of how little time is left to make Christmas memories with their older relatives.
“We both have grandparents that are getting older, and the clock's kind of ticking, right?” says Linkletter. “Now, every time I see my grandmother, I don't know if it's going to be the last time I see her. Same with (Shelby's) grandmothers as well. So that's the sad part about it, for us at least, is I just don't know if I'm going to see my Nana again.”
They plan to refocus the holiday as their first away from home together, since depending on COVID restrictions, it might not even be possible to get together with the friends they've made out west.
“For both of us, it's going to be our first Christmas away from our family, but at the same time, it's going to be good, being out here together on the West Coast,” says Linkletter. “And of course, we'll be able to facetime our families on Christmas and get to talk to everyone. But we're not going to get that actual experience of waking up with our families and all that, but that's the world we're living in right now.”
The couple hopes to get an Airbnb on Vancouver Island and go snowboarding instead of a gift exchange.
“Me and Shelby decided we're not going to do gifts. I'm an avid snowboarder and I'm trying to teach Shelby how to snowboard this winter.”
This will also mark Linkletter's first foray into that most complex of traditions: the cooking of Christmas dinner like Mom used to make.
“We'd always do the turkey, we'd have mashed potatoes. We always had the green beans and turnips. Dressing with the cranberry sauce. Coleslaw. Sometimes, there'd be ham,” says Linkletter, who plans to make calls home to suss out the finer details. “We're going to do our best to make a supper.”
However things turn out, for dinner and the holiday, Linkletter is determined to make the best of it.
“It is sad, and I do wish I could see my family. But it's not going to happen, and I'm just glad that I have Shelby out here to make Christmas a little bit easier.”
This week, SaltWire Network will bring you the stories of some of the families who won't be able to be together this Christmas due to COVID-19, and how they'll celebrate this very different holiday instead.