A New Christmas Tradition

For all of my life, our big family Christmas event happened on Christmas eve. My dad would come home early, we'd play games and then eat a massive turkey with all the fixings. As a matter of fact, one year the turkey was so big that it didn't fit into the oven (this is the absolute truth) so my mom asked the local baker, who happened to be a friend of ours if she could cook the bird in one of his ovens. He graciously complied.

There was another time when mom had put the bird into the oven and a little later, we went to church. We came home after 1 1/2 hours only to realize that the oven wasn't working. I think we still had "the old stove" which still had a working oven which cooked the turkey nicely. I seem to recall eating around 11:00 PM that day.

We have kept the Christmas eve tradition for our family here in Winnipeg too. It has always worked well, until this year. We decided to have a church service on Christmas eve rather than Christmas day. This made it difficult for us (there are about 20 of us who are part of our family group) to find a day to "do the turkey thing." We'll be having our turkey dinner tomorrow evening, on January 1. But for Christmas, we decided to have brunch, rather than a dinner. This way those of our family who had other Christmas dinners to attend could spend some time with us all on Christmas day.

It was a lovely brunch and we ended up staying the whole day at George and Yvonne's. We agreed that the brunch was a great idea and I think it won't be too hard for us to agree to begin a new tradition.

I am so grateful for the family I have. I can hang out with them for a whole day and then look forward to seeing them all again the next day. I really don't tire of them. And I don't think they tire of me either. At least I've never been sent home.

Yet another reason why I don't do christmas baking...

This is my rather pathetic attempt at shortbread cookies with chocolate drizzle. However, I must say that they do taste pretty good.

I Know What I'm Getting

I know what I'm getting for Christmas. Wes and I are going out this afternoon to pick it out. We have decided that we will purchase bikes for ourselves. There are some great sales on now. Stores are getting rid of their 2006 inventory. That doesn't matter much to us because Wes used his bike for 27 years and I've had mine for about 20 years. After a couple of bike rides, it won't matter if we have an '06 or '07 model. These bikes will probably last us 20+ years too.

The main reason for purchasing the bikes is the fact that we are finally going to take our 25th anniversary trip this fall. That anniversary was 2 years ago and it just didn't work out for us to go away for a couple of weeks but it looks like it will work for us in 2007.

So what do bikes have to do with our anniversary?

We plan to take a 7 day bicycle trip in Tuscany. (Every time I say that sentence I get all weak kneed and butterflyish in my stomach. I cannot believe how excited I am about this trip! It is honestly, a dream come true.) We need bikes so that we can train and be prepared for the trip.

This is no back pack kind of trip. The tour organizers send our bags to our daily destination so all we need is what is required for the day. I am looking forward to seeing a beautiful part of the world and also meeting people from other countries on this tour.

We have talked about this trip for several years but I was afraid it would never happen. It really sounds like it is almost too good to be true. For us, this will be a trip of a lifetime.

Until I go to Africa with Heather.

Freezies

Michele mentioned freezies in her post the other day and that reminded me of a cute kid story.

I too had those freezies in my freezer and frequently doled out quite a large number to the neighbourhood kids.

One day I had been out for the morning when I came home and realized that I had forgotten to lock the door. I entered slowly and saw that everything seemed in place and it looked like nothing was stolen. But when I got into the kitchen, I saw a chair right in front of the frig, scissors on the counter and the ends of two freezies. I was puzzled. The chair, scissors and freezie ends were not there when I left. Had Ben grabbed a couple just before we left? That was impossible because I had been with him all the time.

The answer suddenly dawned on me. I went outside to talk to David, Ben's little friend who was probably 4 years old at the time. I asked him if he had eaten a freezie that morning and he said he had. I then asked him where he got the freezie and he replied matter of factly that he had gotten it from my house. Apparently he knocked and when no one answered, he tried the door which was unlocked and proceeded to help himself and his sister to a freezie. He knew where I kept the freezies and the scissors which I used to cut the tops off.

I found it all hilarious and very clever. David's responses to my questions were straightforward and I believe that he felt he didn't do anything wrong. I guess any other time he asked me for a freezie, I would give him one. If I wasn't home, he would just help himself.

His mom did not find it quite as funny as I did and told David that he was never to do that again. I don't believe he ever did and besides, I was not in the habit of keeping my door unlocked when I went out so there was no opportunity for him to do it.

David is 24 by now I think. I wonder if he remembers?

All Cleaned Up

Heather was talking about being blessed. I am feeling so blessed today and I'd like to share some of my blessings with you. Several months ago a couple friends of mine (Keith and Stephanie) moved to St. Lucia to work for a Baha'i mission. They decided that they would give away most of their possessions before they left as they are making steps to simplify their lives.

Keith is an artist and he generously allowed me to go through his stack of art. I chose several watercolour pieces and here are 2 of them. They look like angels to me. I just got them framed and picked them up yesterday. I feel like I've been given a wonderful gift from them. I will remember them everytime I look at the paintings.

Today Kristen and I started and almost finished my Christmas shopping. We had a lot of fun. That is a blessing. As some of you may recall, we had some real challenges last spring. We are enjoying one another's company a lot these days as she is only working part time these days.

I had coffee with a friend last Friday. It's been a while since I've done that but somehow, after we parted ways, I was left feeling so blessed and honoured to have a friend like her. I heard the loving voice of God coming out of her mouth.

Sarah McLachlan CD. Beautiful.

There are so many more things I'm thankful for but these are the ones that come to my mind right now.

I'll leave you all with a parting blessing from God himself:

"The LORD bless you and keep you;
the LORD make his face shine upon you and be gracious to you;
the LORD turn his face toward you and give you peace."

Numbers 6:24-26

Our Christmas Tree

There are several people in my life who have said/written lately that they just don't feel like putting up a Christmas tree. Everyone has different reasons and I respect them.


I however, love to have a Christmas tree in my house although I don't particularly like putting it up or decorating it. We purchased ours on Friday night and by 3:30 Saturday afternoon, it was up and decorated. I had two meetings on Saturday so I had nothing to do with it. Wes did it all, the sweetie.



It's beautiful, with a straight trunk and very tall. Tall enough for our high ceilings.



Unfortunately, while it's been looking just lovely for several days, this morning, this happened. I can't blame it on anything. I was talking on the phone and heard the crash. That's all. Nobody, not even Sammy was close by.


I will post the "fixed up" tree when it's fixed up (when Wes gets home).

Random Thoughts

• I just bought a new CD. It's Sarah McLachlan's Wintersong CD. What a beautiful CD. And it doesn't have "Oh Holy Night" on it. Thank goodness.
• We bought our Christmas tree yesterday. I was away today until about 3:30 so Wes ended up decorating the whole thing. It looks lovely and smells divine. I think we'll stick to real trees.
• Right now, I'm listening to my new CD while Wes is cooking supper, Kristen is sitting next to me working on a gift for CJ and Tim's around somewhere. It is a very peaceful, sweet Saturday afternoon. I am blessed.
• Tonight we are going to the symphony with some friends of ours and out for late night snacks afterwards. It will be a lovely evening.
• I had a music team practise this afternoon. It was wonderful. It amazes me how a bunch of amateurs can sound so good when they all work together.
• I want to memorize the music to "The Christmas Song" this year.
• I took Sammy to the vet yesterday. He has some skin problems-rashes and such. Apparently, rashes are fairly common in Cocker Spaniels. Taking him to the vet is no problem but when they refer to him as "Sammy Postma," I feel really weird.
• Sammy seems to be feeling more comfortable today than he has been for the last week.
• This past week Michele and I did a fairly big catering job. It was such fun! The recipients of our cooking were very encouraging with their comments. What was especially good was that Kristen and Chelsea (my neice) helped out. I am impressed with how well they worked and with how much fun we all had.

NaBloPoMo

I'm kind of sorry that National Blog Posting Month is over. Not for me because I was finding it hard to post every day. I miss it because everytime I check for new posts, there are none. You bloggers who I love to read are not posting every day anymore and I miss that. So, I'm going to keep trying, just so that you have a new blog to look forward to from me.

I will not post every day. That's just too tough. And this week especially, there won't be a lot of time. Michele and I are catering a few jobs this week and we'll be pretty busy shopping, cooking and serving. It will be lots of fun though.

Today, Wes and I finally, almost, finished one of the chairs that I started reupholstering last spring. The chair is actually looking pretty good. Next week we'll start the second one. By January, we'll have all kinds of chairs to sit in.

Making up for not posting every day in November...

In my last post I mentioned that I am trying to create a place in my home where I (and others) can pray and meditate. I have a chair, table and a blanket to keep me warm. I hope to have some candles in there as well as a fish aquarium to help create a mood of peace and serenity.

Any other ideas about what I can include in my spot? What are things that help you to focus on God and your spirituality?

Thrift Store Shopping

I do not usually go to thrift stores unless I am dropping something off. It's not that I don't like them, it's just that I so seldom find anything that works for me. One of the last times I shopped at a thrift store, I found 2 shirts for sale that I already owned, were hanging in my closet and I still wore. That was so depressing I vowed never to go in again.

I do go on occassion. On Tuesday, I had something to drop off and thought I'd go in and have a look. We have a lovely little room in our house that I call the turret room. It is octagonal in shape with 5 huge windows. When we bought the house, I said that I wanted to turn it into a prayer room or meditation room. Alas, we had to put the TV in there.

Today, the room is empty, the TV is tucked away in a room upstairs and I can finally create my oasis. Hence the visit to the thrift store. I found a round table that with a table cloth will be perfect for a candle or something. $15.00. And the thrift store is run by MCC with a lot of people volunteering their time so even my $15.00 will be put to good use.

I also found 2 prints. Having just had some paintings framed, I know the value of a frame and mat. The prints themselves were not something that I would choose but I could see that they had been professionally framed. I decided to buy the pair ($15.00) and just replace the print. When I got home and looked at them again, I realized that they would look perfect in my living room-as is. They are botanical prints with colours that are just right. So, I'll hang them up without changing anything.

I think I'll shop at thrift stores more often.

Headline in the Free Press today: "Billion pounds recycled."

Wow! That's good. Something to cheer about. We Manitobans have now recycled one billion pounds (467 million kilograms) since 1995. The increase is approximately 3.4 percent over last year.

As I read this I thought that Manitobans have finally jumped on the recycling bandwagon. We've been slower than other provinces. Finally, we have our act together.

"The jump is probably due to a solid economy, as people toss more containers into blue boxes when they buy more goods, MPSC (Manitoba Product Stewardship Corporation) general manager Jim Fogg surmised.

"The economy has been strong, and that means people consume more," said Fogg."

Suddenly, I don't feel like cheering quite so loudly.