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.

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

Birthdays, Books and Cake

Each family has its own traditions around birthdays. In our family, birthdays always involve a homemade cake, a family dinner and books.

My eldest daughter Emma is 17 today. I'm having a lot of trouble believing how fast the years have gone by, but I am so proud of the beautiful young woman she is.  She is intelligent, kind, principled, a little bit quirky and very strong-minded. I love each and every part of her.

I remember the day I found out I was pregnant with Emma. It was on the Thanksgiving weekend and that seemed entirely appropriate.  I recall how very hard it was waiting to meet her which I finally did on June 1, 1995. As a birthday bonus, Emma's cousin Erica was born the very next day.

From the look of these recipe cards, you have an idea of how many times I've made this cake. That peacock blue ink and calligraphy-style printing tells me that I copied this recipe in my early twenties, loooong before I was a mom. :)

Ever since Emma and Chloé were babies, books have been one of the gifts they have received from us on birthdays and at Christmas.  Of course, they would receive toys but there would always be books among the packages.

When Emma was about eleven or twelve, she came into my room and said 'Mama' in a serious voice to the point that I was a little worried about what she was going to say.  She said, 'Mama...I just wanted to thank you for giving me your love of reading'.  I thought my heart would burst.

This year, Emma has asked for an iPod as a gift. She has been using my old one that is not performing very well at all anymore.  A couple of weeks ago, she asked me if by requesting an iPod, would she still be receiving some books as she always looked forward to them.  I would find it very hard not to include them. Right now, I am making her cake. Later we will go to a vegetarian restaurant for dinner.  And tonight, along with a brand new iPod, Emma will receive a big stack of lovingly chosen books.

♥ Happy Birthday Emma! ♥

Family Traditions

You know you are dealing with a family with a serious baking habit when you see 10 kg (22 lb) flour bags on the counter.  Both of my daughters bake regularly, but the past few days it has been me up to my elbows in flour.

I am making our tourtières as I have done every year for the past 24 years--in honour of my husband's French-Canadian traditions.

I always make more than one type and make enough to share with my own family in Ontario as they have grown to love these tasty pies.  With a salad and condiment, a tourtière can be a lovely and simple winter dinner. We like a non-traditional choice of condiment--Indian chutney.  My husband's childhood choice was Heinz ketchup.

This year I am making three kinds: a meat and potato combination, a savoury veal-pork pie and a vegetarian version (with tvp) for my eldest daughter.  I love to decorate them with cut-out pastry, so each has its own personality.  The dove-decorated one is my favourite so far. I have four made and have five to go.

I actually had made tourtière before I met my husband as I was always interested in French Canada and used to watch a show by a French-Canadian chef Jehane Benoît when I was a teenager--not the interest of every young girl growing up in Toronto.  I studied French in high school and university. In fact, I am the only bilingual member of my family, although I still have an anglophone accent all these years later.

I wonder how many of you make foods that honour more than one Christmas tradition in your family.

Christmas Spirit

This is a hard thing to say but I have a love and hate relationship with Christmas. I love it. I truly do. But there are moments and even some days when I hate it.  Those are the days when I feel that I am totally behind in my preparations, when I feel that my list of things to do will never get done (it never does), when I worry about traveling in bad conditions (our families are not nearby) and when everything else in life is preoccupying me.

Maybe that's why I love the movie 'National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation' with Chevy Chase so much.  I can really identify with his attempts at creating a perfect Christmas for his family.

One solution is definitely to try and do less.  I suppose scaled-down preparations, fewer presents and a less grumpy mother at Christmas could be a gift. :) Also to concentrate on what's truly important.

We do have our tree up now and it is exquisitely beautiful--I think our nicest yet. We go and cut our tree down each year, a tradition started a long time ago by my Mom and Dad.

Somehow we managed to find the time amid school projects, commitments and my husband's insane work schedule to cut our tree down on Sunday.

The decorations aren't quite finished so the boxes are still out. My elves go to high school during the day.

Did I mention that my elves are pretty?

Actually pretty goofy. :)

I own over 1200 Christmas songs.  (So you see that I do love Christmas.)  I listen to all sorts of genres.  Here's a song that I keep playing lately.  It's by a Canadian country singer named Jessie Farrell.  The song is called 'Christmas in My House'. The message is a good one for people like me.

Another song that I really love is by American singer/songwriter Mary Chapin Carpenter. It's called 'Christmas Carol' and it's from her album 'Come Darkness, Come Light'.  There's a sad undertone to it but it's really quite beautiful. It's a song about trying to reconcile her sense of Christmas as an adult with fuzzy childhood memories, commercialism, environmental change and world events. I couldn't find a video of it  but here are the lyrics and I encourage you to buy her song and listen to the lovely lyrics along with her soothing voice.

The week before Thanksgiving Day 

This town puts up its old display 

Streetlights hung with candy canes and bows 

The earlier it gets each year 

The scarcer is my Christmas cheer 

I guess I just like taking these things slow 

I really don't remember much 

Of Christmases growing up 

Except the year the Beatles came to play 

On my record player that came from Sears 

That White Album filled my ears 

In 1968 on Christmas Day.

I haven't been to church since God knows when 

I'm not someone who usually attends 

Truth be told there's just two wishes 

On my list every Christmas 

Peace on earth and a snow storm now and then

Now I pray that peace comes in our time 

It's hard enough to keep from crying 

When every bit of news just breaks your heart 

The same old stories, same old songs 

We dust them off when Christmas comes 

And for one day we just try to do our part 

And around here winter seems to come 

With rain and mud and bits of sun 

It's not exactly Currier and Ives

I don't mind cold if it brings snow 

Alberta Clippers come and go 

But a dusting would make everything all right

Perhaps a Christmas eve from long ago 

Delivered Christmas day with knee-high snow 

It's something lost but not forgotten 

Like candy hidden in a stocking 

That makes me every year wish it were so 

Because Christmas is for children's joy 

For every single girl and boy 

That's the truth we come to understand 

But the memories that don't let go 

Like Beatles songs and falling snow 

Can make us feel innocent again 

And maybe next year we won't go insane 

When they rush to hang the bows and candy canes 

Because peace will shine in me and you 

From Bethlehem to Timbuktu 

Even if the forecast is for rain 

Because peace will shine in me and you

From Bethlehem to Timbuktu 

Even if the forecast is for rain

Here's hoping that you find whatever makes sense to you as the Christmas spirit in the days ahead, no matter what is happening in your life or the world around you. ♥

The Approach

It smelled so good in our house this morning.  Emma made gingerbread cookies.  It's funny how simple things can be such powerful mental triggers.  The spicy scent of those cookies wafting up the stairs started to get me in a Christmas mood.  The snow helped this week too, although sadly it has already melted. It'll be back soon enough.

We've put our Christmas lights up outside.  I love approaching our house from a distance and seeing the golden lights.  They'll be even prettier once the snow returns.

The decorations in the house will be next.  Chloé has already brought up the box of Christmas books and DVDs from the basement and I have tranferred them to a basket.  Even the books they have outgrown stay in that box. Tradition.

I held onto one of my Christmas books from my childhood and it still puts tears in my eyes when I read it. It's a beautifully written and illustrated book about family members making gifts for their little girl (and of course she makes gifts for them).

It seemed too soon to be thinking about Christmas before and all of a sudden I'm wondering if I'll have time to do everything I want and need to do.  It's that way every year. It's exactly one month away today.

In the end, it's important not to hurry and worry too much as I think this is the best part of Christmas:  the approach.

(Every Day in the Year by Phyllis Rowand - out of print, but still available used)

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If you have started to think about your Christmas shopping, just a reminder that I have a special in my Etsy shop all this weekend right until the end of the day, Monday November 28th.  Just apply the coupon code THANKS2011 when you check out and you will receive 15% off your entire order.

Enjoy your weekend.