I was hoping for a quiet end to 2018 in Canada, because quite frankly I'm beat. The ugly year took so much out of me, I might need to be pushed across the finishing line in a wheelbarrow.
And I'm not sure I should be wildly celebrating the arrival of 2019, because it could and probably will be worse.
But one thing is for sure, for me this year ended with a bang.
When I woke up and discovered there was a rumour flying around Twitter that I had died of cancer.
I knew that some dark invisible force had recently given Andrew Scheer a big boost in the polls, and I thought I knew what it was.
A primeval panic and new eruption of toxic Trudeau hate, caused by Scheer's false claim that Trudeau was about to erase our borders, by signing the U.N. Global Compact on Migration.
And was encouraging the migrant hordes to invade our country.
I haven't read or heard anything by Rex Murphy for so long, that I thought he was missing in action, or retired, or dead.
But no, the crusty old oil pimp is still going, still ranting and raving over at the National Post.
And he's just as ghastly as he ever was...
It's like a third rate werewolf movie starring the creepy Andrew Scheer. And while it may be tacky it's also really scary.
For the hairy Scheer may be a serial liar, a religious fanatic, a racist, a misogynist, a xenophobe, a climate change denier and an oily messiah who would happily torch the planet for crass political purposes.
But in the eyes of our terminally mediocre media he's just lil' Andy who can do no wrong.
It's Christmas Day in Canada. A day for me to give thanks for living in a country still so peaceful and so beautiful.
And a day when I rerun a post I wrote years ago to try to explain what Christmas means to me.
I was going to write something different this year, because so many things have changed, and the reasons I wrote that post have been lost in the passage of time.
But in the end I didn't.
So for one last time, here we go again...
It's hard to understand how much damage Brexit has done to Britain. You really have to see it for yourself, as I did last week.
Jobs are being lost or moving to the EU, people are stockpiling food and medicines in case the hapless Theresa May has to settle for no deal in March.
Fear and loathing are everywhere, and even the army is being made ready in case anarchy erupts.
But somehow the spirit of Christmas still clings to life.
As we all know only too well, Andrew Scheer is a serial liar who mangles the truth over and over again, to try to smear and destroy Justin Trudeau.
He lies about our booming economy, he lies about the state of our criminal justice system, he lies about everything.
But this has to be his biggest lie yet.
I must admit it wasn't easy to leave Edinburgh, where I spent the last week celebrating an early Christmas with my family and friends.
And everything seemed more alive than anything in Canada these days.
It's not that I wasn't glad to come home, or don't enjoy the simple pleasures of the place where I live.
I think you know how I feel about Andrew Scheer's kooky far right campaign against the U.N.'s Global Compact on Migration.
It's another Big Lie. It appeals to the worst instincts of humanity. It's the call of the loony fascist. And it's dangerous.
But I have to admit I never thought that many Canadians would be fooled by Scheer's monstrous lie.
And now I'm not so sure.
As you can probably tell from the sporadic state of my blogging, I am rapidly approaching Christmas mode, where I try to think about only nice things, and have as much fun as possible.
So when I was skating the other day, I was dreaming about how at this time next year, the Cons will be splattered all over the ice.
Judging by the way their polls have been tanking.
Only to go home, and get a horrible shock.
