Butter tarts are a staple of Canadian treats. Not only will you find them at every bakery, you will see individually wrapped tarts beside the cash register at the 7-Eleven. Prolific.

My Mom makes the best butter tarts, obviously.

So much has changed in a year. Dave has a beard, Covid-19 has closed the border with Canada and due to nerve damage, Mom was unable to do her Christmas baking this year. Things look bleak on many fronts, not the least of which is the butter tart front.

This week I decided to approach the butter tart shortage with my most recent perspective filter for the pandemic. It is based on my daughter’s years of performing improv comedy.

IMPROVISATION

The acceptance of the reality of the moment and the agreement to move forward with positivity.

A basic tactic in the performance of improv is the use of these two words – ‘Yes….and….’. The actors use this phrase to move the unscripted scene along. So, THIS is happening right now. How can I continue forward, given this reality?

I wanted to be with my parents and also eat my Mom’s delicious homemade butter tarts. The reality is that this isn’t going to happen this year. ‘Yes….and…’. Yes, and… I made tarts myself.

I made them without the proper pastry shells and with the wrong raisins that Instacart brought me. Dave calls them ‘artisanal’ and ‘rustic’. They are a mere shadow of my Mom’s.

2020 has been the ultimate series of unscripted scenes, hasn’t it? Most often my sadness and disappointment has lived in the space between reality and what I desperately wanted or expected the reality to be.

Christmas reminds me of the ultimate ‘yes, and…’. Yes and Jesus. He is the way to move forward. The reality of the hope He brought with His birth is the one sure thing that I can act upon today.