This First Person column is written by Claire Biddiscombe who lives in Ottawa with her cat. For more information about CBC’s First Person stories, please see the FAQ.

I bought my first Christmas tree — three feet tall, pre-lit — for $9.99 at a Canadian Tire in Ottawa. It was mid-December 2009, and it had become clear that, for the first time in my life, I was not going to get home to my family for Christmas. 

It had been half a year of slow unravelling. I graduated from university in the spring with a job already lined up. In the