Once upon a time a man went to a tailor to have a suit made for him - bespoke - as they say. He chose a very good fabric and left it with the tailor. Several weeks passed before the tailor called him to tell him his suit was ready. So he went and tried it on. It didn’t seem to fit too well.

“Look,” he said to the tailor. “I think the right sleeve is a little too long.”

“No problem,”said the tailor. “Just raise your right shoulder a little and then the sleeve will fit your arm. "

The man did so and the sleeve lifted off his wrist nicely. “Okay,” he said, what about the left leg. It’s too short.”

“That’s easily fixed,” said the tailor. “Just bend your knee slightly and pull your leg back. It’ll be fine.”

The man did as instructed and his left trouser leg fell into place where it should be. “What about the collar?” he said. “It’s lying low and loose at the back.”

“Stretch your neck above it,” the tailor said. The man stretched his neck and the collar laid flat across the back.

“I don’t know,” he said. “What do you think?"

"Walk around and let me take a look,” said the tailor and after a moment, he smiled in approval.

“But what will people say?"

“People will say,” said the tailor, "there goes a deformed man in a beautiful suit.”

I do have a point.

Yesterday I had my second interview with CLSA. The last one was five years ago.In case you didn’t know or remember, CLSA stands for Canadian Longtitudinal Studies in Ageing. It’s a long-term survey of older people, their health and habits.I have read of several such surveys in the United States but this is the only one I know of in Canada, so far.

I didn’t enjoy it as much this time round. It seemed to me to be more concerned with my physical health than with my mental acuity. As you may have surmised, I try to keep fit, to stay on top of my aches and pains, that is, to ignore them and/or to walk through or away from them.Of course, everyone (most people?) compensate for their shortcomings and keep going. I realised, as I answered the questions, how much I have compromised with my various problems, successfully, I might add. I do not take painkillers or other medication. That’s when I thought of the man and his custom-made suit.It was he who shifted his body to suit the suit. I guess I’ve done that, altered my behaviour to suit my body’s requirements.

I’ll be fascinated to see how I’m doing in five years.

It’s hard to believe in December this year because the weather continues mild and snow-less. Still, the TV meteorologist I watch is almost - almost - promising a white Christmas, a pleasure we have not had for several years. So I guess we’ll go along with December and see what happens.

I’m still going along with Christmas. I think the biggest anachronism is the list of Christmas card recipients I write to each year, dwindling each year. It’s something I used to do and still do out of habit. For several years I have been reminding my friends that we keep on keeping touch just to assure each other that we are still here. Every year I get at least one letter from a relative of someone I have sent a card to, informing me that the person has died. That’s the hard way to shorten a list.

I don’t have any Christmas decorations left. My children were still at home when Bill died; they were 12, 14, 16 and almost 18. We were all caught in the midst of our lives, or maybe I was caught in the midst of theirs. I kept on trying to maintain a family and family traditions until they finished growing up and dispersed and started families and traditions of their own. When we moved into Toronto for our first Christmas there, Liz emptied all the boxes of decorations and mementos and strewed them around the entire apartment. We got home from church and she greeted us:

“Merry Kitschmas, everyone!” she said.

That’s when I began to divest myself of the past. As they all established homes of their own, I stopped producing Christmas for my children and went where I was invited. By the time I was living in Muskoka, there was no point in putting out decorations at Christmas time because no one was there, including me. I put a string of bells on the door, was all.

But I still look forward to a white Christmas, with authentic snow.