Celebrating Christmas in Canada as a new immigrant is an experience worth sharing. Here is my 3-year Christmas experience in Canada.
Brace up! It’s a long but interesting post. Read till the end and find out how your experience can be better than mine.
December 2019
On December 6th, 2019, I arrived in British Columbia after a 16-hour flight dragging my 26 weeks pregnant body, two toddlers (20 months and 3.5 years old) alongside 6 check-in luggage and 4 carry-ons.
It was the kids’ first white Christmas and they were very excited to see and touch the snow.
We checked into our Airbnb which we pre-booked before we left Nigeria. I was grateful for the warmth in the house as it was freezing cold.
Having a proper Christmas celebration was the last thing on our minds. Our first priority was finding permanent accommodation.
So the search began….
Our challenge with finding a place to rent
It was my duty to surf the rental boards in search of our preferred accommodation – a 3 bedroom with at least 2 bathrooms in Langley.
With our budget of CAD$2000, it was pretty difficult to find rentals with our requirements in Langley.
However, I was able to find a couple of listings. My husband went for the viewings while I stayed back to watch the kids and rest my aching body.
Without a car during winter and irregular bus service, you are left with little option but to book a taxi each time you need to run an errand. This took a deep dive into our finances but since we knew it would be the case, we were prepared.
Most of the rentals were reluctant to rent their houses to new immigrants without a job. This was the first major challenge we faced as new immigrants in Canada.
The first place we viewed asked us for 6 months’ rent upfront for a tiny 3 bedroom and 1 bathroom basement
The second house openly told my husband he is not comfortable renting to us because we don’t have jobs.
A couple of others never got back to us after viewing.
At that point, I was anxious and depressed as our stay at Airbnb was running out. We had just 2 days left out of the 2 weeks we earlier booked.
We were contemplating extending our stay at the cramped 2 bedroom basement Airbnb or moving our search to Surrey since I saw a couple of listings within our budget in that city.
But our spirits were strongly aligned with Langley so I kept searching and refreshing craigslist and Kijiji.
Our last hope was the lower level of a house and it had 3 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms. We requested an amazing Canadian couple we met at the church to accompany my husband to view the house and act as our guarantor and they obliged us.
This was the solution to our no-job issue!
The landlord had no reservations at all when he saw the Canadian couple. So, we got the house! Just in the nick of time to the expiration of our Airbnb booking.
Moving in – a herculean task
Moving in was as difficult as relocating from Nigeria.
We needed furniture, beds, kitchen equipment, etc.
The most important thing for us was a mattress to sleep on and pots to cook.
We ordered two mattresses from Amazon which arrived promptly. so, we moved into the house on the 20th of December, 2019.
We were blessed to have met the couple as they handled moving our entire luggage, in addition to the ones that arrived via air cargo three days after we landed in Vancouver.
Our 1st Christmas in Canada
So our first Christmas in Canada was pretty bare and uninteresting.
We had a couple of furniture donated by friends of the Canadian couple.
The mattress was on the floor.
No TV. We kept the kids busy with cartoons on our phones. Lucky for us, the house came with free Wi-Fi.
We didn’t have a Christmas tree or decorations.
No Christmas gifts for the kids or ourselves.
We had no idea of stores to visit to get anything.
Pretty isolated house with no neighbours.
On Christmas Day, we attended mass, ate our unceremonious white rice and stew, and roasted the turkey that the church generously gave us in addition to some groceries.
But we were grateful to God that we had our first Christmas in our new home. If you don’t sort out your accommodation, you will not be able to focus on other settlement tasks that need your attention.
Getting a roof over our heads was our most important task just like every other new immigrant.
So, our first Christmas was more of a survival than a celebration. We were focused on settling in and trying to rebuild our lives from scratch in a new country with a different culture and system.
December 2020
Our second Christmas experience was more of a celebration that we looked forward to.
We had spent 1 year in Canada and a lot had happened.
Having a new baby without support
I had a bouncing baby boy! Our family size increased from 4 to 5. I was no longer bloated and achy but I was still tired this time from lack of sleep.
I didn’t have an easy baby. From the pregnancy to the delivery was not without an element of drama but I was glad it was a success.
2020 was the year the world stood still due to the coronavirus.
I had my baby in the heat of the pandemic when the entire world locked down.
I didn’t have any family to support me. My husband was my mother, a husband, and a father. It was a very challenging period for our family but we overcame it.
Because we were much more settled, we anticipated Christmas.
The 2nd Christmas in Canada experience
We bought a Christmas tree!
We got some Christmas decorations and lights and decorated the interior of the house.
It is a Canadian culture for houses to go above and beyond in decorating the exterior of the house with lights and other decors.
Our neighbours living upstairs were not interested in any decorations.
Our house fell short of this. We couldn’t hang the lights on the roof as it was a tradition we weren’t used to. We didn’t have any tools, ladder, or the expertise to climb on the roof.
Due to the lockdown and restrictions, Christmas worship was an online event. We joined the Vancouver Cathedral mass on YouTube.
Immediately after the mass, there was a power cut so we couldn’t cook our Christmas meal. The snow and wind caused a power outage for more than 2 hours.
So we decided to spend the time unboxing the gifts. This time around, we got lots of gifts!
We got the kids their dream gifts – a paw patrol car for the boy and a toy kitchen for the girl. The baby was just 9 months old so we got a couple of baby toys for him.
We also received some gitfs for the kids from a couple of friends we met at the church.
It was a magical experience for the kids to wake up on Christmas morning to see that Santa visited our house.
The joy on their faces and the hugs they gave us when they unboxed their gifts was the best gift my husband and I received.
We embraced the Canadian culture of gift-giving during festive seasons. We got personalized gifts for our few friends. I searched Facebook groups for ideal gifts, contacted a couple of small businesses, and wrapped the gifts as much as I could (Gift wrapping is not my strength).
When they restored the power, we had a simple meal of rice with vegetable sauce and chicken.
We were happy we finally had our first memorable Christmas in Canada.
December 2021
I’m sure you are anticipating that our 3rd Christmas will be better than our 2nd since we had already spent two years in Canada.
Well, 2021 wasn’t a much better year than 2020.
The pandemic was still very much around with new variants.
The province had new restrictions to try to curtail the virus so people were not free to celebrate Christmas with lots of family and friends as much as they would have wanted.
What was different for us this year?
Moving to a new house
We moved houses. Our former house was up for sale and we didn’t have easy neighbours. Tension was starting to build up so we made a decision to move to a new place.
We still wanted to stay in Langley and within that neighborhood because of the kids’ school.
2021 was the year of the landlords. It was a seller’s market. House prices were going over the roof. We didn’t have a choice but to increase our budget which we could barely afford.
We found our dream house in a very cool and quiet cul-de-sac.
This time around, we had warm neighbours. The neighbourhood organized a block party during summer so we got to know everybody. For the first time since we came to Canada, our kids had other kids to play with within the neighborhood.
We still had our Christmas tree from last year so we put that up with all our decorations.
I wasn’t in the mood to go gift hunting so I didn’t bother with getting gifts for anybody.
We had a pretty tight budget so we were very mindful of our expenses.
Our 3rd Christmas in Canada
Finally, we had the opportunity of attending Christmas mass in person.
Earlier in the year, we met two amazing Nigerian families and we became a crew. Our kids played together and we hung out together at our place on Halloween.
So, we spent our Christmas with our new Nigerian friends.
It was a beautiful celebration and the kids had fun playing with their new friends.
Settling in Canada is a journey. Some new immigrants have it easy while others have it rough. In our own case, it was pretty rocky. We didn’t have a guide.
This is why I have added a new settlement service for prospective and new immigrants to BC – A Personalized City Information Guide. Our struggle with finding a place to rent because we didn’t have a Canadian reference, not knowing where to buy stuff for our house could have been avoided if we had a personalized guide. I highly recommend you take advantage of this service as it will shorten your settlement time.
Kindly share this post so that others can learn from my experiences.
