Holidays 2024: Newly-minted Warden Jamie Heffer and wife Lori embrace reason for the season

BY SCOTT STEPHENSON

A few weeks ago, Morris-Turnberry Mayor Jamie Heffer was officially sworn in as the new Warden of Huron County. While he was more than kind enough to accommodate The Citizen’s request for a holiday interview, there was one thing that Heffer wanted to make abundantly clear - he doesn’t think of himself as being much of a “Christmas Person”. And, even though his new position as Warden is recognized all over Huron County, his wife, Lori, is still the Heffer family’s ultimate authority when it comes to all things Christmas. 

 

For Jamie, all it takes to make a perfect Christmas is a little bit of solitude and a day off from doing his daily farm chores. “It’s the one day a year when I don’t leave the house,” he joked. 

 

Lori does consider herself to be a “Christmas Person”. In fact, she loves pretty much every aspect of the holiday season. She loves decorating every year and baking festive treats for her whole family to enjoy when they come for their annual visit to the family farm. While Jamie is still settling into his new role as Warden, Lori is fully embracing her “Christmas Grandma” persona with open arms. “It’s even more exciting now that there are grandchildren - it’s just wonderful! We have our six children, so that makes it a big crowd when we get together,” she explained. 

 

Lori never tires of making holiday-themed baked goods in the lead-up to Christmas, but when the big day rolls around, the last place you’re going to find her is the kitchen. In fact, not cooking on Dec. 25 has become one of her favourite solo traditions. “I decided early on that I wasn’t going to do a Christmas meal,” she recalled. “I thought, ‘Hey! I give you meals all the rest of the year. I want to enjoy the day too. So I do a lot of baking and then we have brunch. I’ll do other meals, I’ll do Easter, I’ll do Thanksgiving, whatever, but for Christmas Day, I said, ‘no, it’s for me to enjoy, too.’ I’ll do a casserole brunch and then in the afternoon we just graze on all the good stuff.”

 

If she absolutely had to choose one particular aspect of the festive season to single out as her all-time favourite thing about Christmas, Lori would probably have to go with the simple transformative qualities of the holidays. “I really like just the joy of the season, because it brings about a lot more pleasantness than we’d normally get at this time of year,” she said.

 

Even though Jamie and Lori have very different styles when it comes to how they celebrate Christmas, they’re in total agreement as to why they celebrate. “It’s about the birth of our Saviour,” Jamie explained. “We do have Santa stuff and whatnot, but I would prefer to focus on the birth of our Saviour, and just getting together… we enjoy the day together as a family, and we read the Christmas story of Luke’s Gospel, just to kind of set the tone for the day.”