The Christmas blizzard isn’t over in southern Ontario.

The local version of English has a word for what happens to people who venture too far from home in foul weather and end up in a stranger’s spare bed. That word is “stormstayed”. Right now, at 0840 hours on Christmas Day, I have a stormstayed organist under my roof. He lives in London, where he should have remained last night instead of struggling across country to play for Midnight Mass in Stratford.

And my car is stuck in a snowbank on Hamilton Street outside the side door of the church, so my first task today, after feeding Stéphane, is to dig it out. What larks, eh?

It’s snowing lightly now, and the weather radar indicates yet another storm cell rolling our way from Lake Huron. The town fathers have given up on plowing the streets, Perth County roads are still closed, and life continues to unfold as it will whether we like it or not.

So it’s a nice, traditional Christmas.