A Green Christmas

I think we are heading for a green Christmas. It's so unusual in Montreal not to have at least a bit of snow on the ground at Christmas. It's what everyone is talking about here. The skating rink boards were installed weeks ago in the park across the street but there isn't a snowflake or a sliver of ice in sight.

There's not really anything one can do so, while dreaming of snow, we are going about our days and getting ready for the holidays. Today it is colder but the forecast for the week ahead is for mild, rainy days.

The photo above is of tiny rain-soaked crabapples in my garden. While I was taking this photo and others on one of the rainiest days of the past week, a patient, slightly soggy Meeko waited for me on the back porch. Such a good boy.

I have been painting. If you follow me on Instagram, you will have seen my progress photos of a watercolour I just finished of a small winterberry branch. This is my favourite kind of painting to do--a study of a natural object. I have another step to do as this will be a special print, actually one that was suggested to me by a lovely customer.

When I was purchasing the winterberry branches to use as my painting references at a local garden centre, the sales clerk told me that their spring bulbs were 80% off. I already planted over 350 bulbs in November but the ground still isn't frozen and the price was hard to resist. So I purchased some more spring bulbs and added them to my garden this past week! Planting spring bulbs in the garden in mid-December! The silver lining of this odd weather.

Peace and Joy

December always seems to go by at high speed. There is so much effort expended preparing for one day. I meant to post more often but 'whoosh', the month flew by.

We have tried to keep things simpler this year. We put out less decorations. (The photo shows a simple but beautiful candle arrangement Chloé made for our table, with our tree in the background.) We bought less things although the pile of gifts under the tree still seemed monumental. We have shifted our traditions over the years as our family changes. We still eat tourtière on Christmas Eve to honour my husband's Quebec traditions although I now make both traditional meat and vegetarian tourtière as Emma is a vegetarian.

In honour of my anglophone traditions, we open our gifts on Christmas morning. In Quebec, it is more common to open gifts just after midnight on Christmas Eve.

We used to have a turkey dinner on Christmas Day which is what I always ate growing up. But cooking a turkey for a family of four, actually three since Emma doesn't eat it, made less and less sense.

The past couple of years, we have eaten 'raclette', a traditional Swiss meal. No Swiss heritage here but it works for us. We put out plates of potatoes, cheese, vegetables (this year--green beans, asparagus and cauliflower), pickles, cured meats and marinated tofu.  We sit around our round kitchen table right beside our Christmas tree. We light a fire in our fireplace. Each person chooses and cooks exactly what they want on a small communal raclette grill. We cook, we eat, we chat. It is perfect.

I hope you are enjoying your holidays whatever your traditions.  May you find pockets of peace and joy in all of the bustle. I won't be posting again until the New Year so I will take this moment to thank you for your friendship and to wish you all a beautiful new year!

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I am having a Boxing Day Sale in my Etsy Shop. I am offering 20% off all purchases (prints, cards and original paintings) when you use the coupon code BOXINGDAY. It is effective now until midnight on December 29th. All orders will be mailed during the first week of January.

Home Again

Yes, the lord and master is in! If you wondered who ruled the roost...oh, you probably knew. :) We are home again.

Our holidays are never very restful. Neither of our families live near us so we drive a lot. We spent the weekend just before Christmas in Trois-Rivières to see my husband's family and then returned for a few days here. And then we were off for over a week in Ontario to visit my family and stayed in three different houses! We lived like gypsies. It was great. We'll recuperate after the holidays, right?

The day before we left for Ontario, we had a record snowfall in Montreal. We had 45 centimeters in one day! Montrealers are used to a lot of snow (although maybe not that much in one day) so it was dealt with admirably.

I haven't really had the time to go through my photos from our holidays, but I needed to post something--just so you knew I was still around. :)

I found the perfect thing. Emma took some gorgeous photos of our fireplace this weekend. It's a bit like cloud-watching. There are amazing shapes and figures visible in the flames.

This one blows my mind. Can you see the female figure?

Really quite mesmerizing! I love our fireplace. We had a gas fireplace at first but it didn't feel natural and I was having a lot of asthma problems with it. The natural wood-burning fireplace has been much better and it is so much more interesting to look at. A beautiful part of the winter season.

Chloé went back to school today. Emma doesn't go back until the 21st. I will slowly drift back into a more regular routine. Can't wait to paint again.

To Cut, To Cut The Christmas Tree

Yesterday, despite the very cold weather, we ventured on our annual Christmas tree cutting expedition. This is a family tradition that extends to my own childhood. The tree farm we have gone to for the past three years is about an hour's drive from home. This farm actually sell cut trees at a location very near to our house but somehow going to a lot isn't the same as choosing your own tree in the middle of a snow-covered field.

Meeko is always very excited to go anywhere in the car even if he doesn't know where he is going to end up. A tree farm is much better than the vet!

This is Emma and Chloé standing in front of our chosen tree just before it was cut. It was so cold that they actually went back to the car and let Mama and Papa Lumberjack cut it down. There are many goofy photos of the junior lumberjacks that I would have loved to have included but unfortunately I was not given permission.

Here's the tree with its lights on. That's my job. Chloé and Emma then added the decorations. (If you squint a little, you can see one of Geninne's beautiful bird prints on the wall to the left of the tree. We have five of them in our family room.)

Even Meeko is getting excited about Christmas. Actually, I'm not sure he was all that joyful about having reindeer antlers on his head but he was a very good sport about it.

There was a lovely snowfall last night as we were decorating our tree. It's amazing how a little snow makes everything feel more Christmassy. For those of you living in places where snowflakes are rare or non-existant, I'll try to share more snowy photos in the days ahead. Good luck with all of your holiday preparations.

Snow-covered clematis seed heads in our garden last night

Paintings As Gifts

In December, I worked on two paintings that I couldn't show you previously because they were Christmas gifts.

I did one painting for a very dear friend who moved to a new house this past summer. I painted her former home complete with her sweet cat sitting on the front porch.  She spent many years in this house raising her three great kids. I can say that because I know them. :) (In case you are worrying, her cat was not left behind. He sits on the front porch of the new house now.)

The second painting I did was of my parents' Golden Retriever named Ginger.  If you have been following my blog, you will know that Ginger was a sweet girl who died in December at the age of 12.  I held my breath through most of the painting process as it was so important to me that it really look like Ginger.   I have never done a watercolour painting of a dog before.

Both gifts were very much appreciated but I made everyone cry which I didn't intend, although I knew that I had chosen subjects with emotional weight. I know that they were all touched and I told my friend and my parents that I wouldn't be hurt at all if they put their gifts away for a while.

Back at Home

Four different houses in one week

Two provinces

Four different towns & cities

The above two photos were taken in the Muskoka region of Ontario, Canada

Areas with snow and others with very little

Mild days and freezing cold days

Approximately 1,350 kilometers (838 miles) driven

Countless plates of delicious food, glasses of wine and Christmas baked goods

20 family members hugged

3 dogs patted

We are happy to have celebrated with everyone

But also happy to be home

Even the dogs are tired :)

My sister's dog Mabel

My brother's dog Marlowe

Meeko loved visiting and caused as much mischief as possible but is now
happily asleep in his favourite spot on our sofa

We will leave our tree and decorations up a few more days

We barely see them during the holidays

My routine will become more normal in the days ahead

My daughters go back to school on the 10th

I can't wait to start painting again

I hope you all had wonderful holidays

and I wish you the very best in the new year.

(The top photo was taken by my niece Katie, 
the others by myself and my daughters Chloé and Emma)

Merry Christmas

Winter Wonderland

I was feeling a lot of pre-holiday stress yesterday and decided to take a short walk with Meeko in the forest at the end of our street. We can't walk there except in wintertime because it is very swampy.  So it was our first walk there this winter. There wasn't another footprint except for rabbit and deer tracks.  We weren't able to go the whole way because it's still not entirely frozen, but what we saw was magical and I wanted to share these photos with you.  The walk transformed the way I was feeling. I hope it helps you too.

This is where we had to stop. You can see Meeko is looking a little wistful.

This week has definitely included all kinds of stress. My Mom had surgery on Wednesday but is now home and is doing really well. If she is feeling up to it, our whole family will be travelling next week to have a late Christmas dinner with her. The mother of a very dear friend is also in hospital this week.  My heart is with her and her family. I know of other families dealing with difficult situations and I am thinking about them too.

I hope I say this right. I really didn't know what this blog would do for me when I started it.  I began it mainly as a way to make sure I kept painting.  I'm not sure that I expected so many visitors from around the world--really nice people. There have been encouraging words about my paintings, nice words about my developing photography skills, thoughtful words (and rainbows!) for my Mom, shared feelings and thoughts about gardens, dogs, food, art, children, music, computers, cameras, rocks, rain and snow...so many things.  I have visited many of your blogs and been inspired by your art, your photos, your homes and your lives.  Somehow this blogging experience that started out feeling scary, cold and impersonal has turned out to be quite the opposite. I have a sense of community with people that has nothing to do with where I live. I have friendships with people I've never met. It has given me a sense of the world being a smaller, kinder place and I like that very much.
Kathleen xx ♥

Christmas is Near

On Wednesday night, we had this--freezing rain.

Difficult for walking and driving but pretty for photos

This morning, we woke to a blanket of snow. :)

Enough to cover the grass...finally!

And make a certain dog named Meeko very happy. He reminds me of a rabbit when he runs.

The decorations are up. This one made Meeko bark. He doesn't like change.

I went with simpler decorations this year.

A lot stayed in their boxes.

This always comes out.  Beautiful  Mexican crêche figures--a gift from my sister Nancy years ago.

Why is it that the funny little decorations tug at your heart?
I made this reindeer out of toilet paper rolls, paint and twigs
with my daughter Emma when she was three. I still love it.

A little indoor ice

And some indoor warmth



Warm wishes to everyone in their holidays preparations and celebrations. 
To all of my blog readers
near and far, 
to friends, to family--a big holiday hug.  ♥