Things change.

It has been a good number of years since I have had Christmas with a blood relative. Probably the last one was with the younger of my older brothers in 2001. He is now in Mexico, a little far to travel for a week. The oldest brother is in Ottawa, again, a fair distance to travel. My sister is about a five hour drive (in winter) north of me and she has all of her husbands family in the area they live in. I have my urban family that I spend Christmas with. It fluctuates a bit each year, but the core of it stays pretty much the same.

Except this year. None of us likes hot turkey, so we cooked up a breast in order to have cold sandwiches for boxing day - it came out a bit dry. My friends decided that I should do the cooking this year - you would think they would know better by now! We had elk roast, the recipe sounded interesting, but it came out tough and had no flavour. The scalloped potatoes (that I have successfully made before) were just short of a disaster, but at least the roast and the potatoes were ready at the same time. Something I rarely manage. I even screwed up the salad - yes, I did! I can blame some of the disaster on it not being my kitchen, but alas, not all of it.

One of the traditions that slipped this year was the tree...we have a decorating party the last Sunday before Christmas and get the house all set up and the tree decorated. Not this year, we brought the tree in from the cold and the branches were still upright, so we didn't get it decorated until Tuesday. Whatever, we had decided not to stress about anything this year. This, in turn led us to discussing how things change no matter how much you want them to stay the same.

Click to enlarge

This is how the tree wound up looking, I like the way the lights reflect on the ceiling and floor.

Close up of the Angel.

More reflected lights.

One of the biggest traditions smashed for me, was opening gifts on Christmas morning. My urban family opens them Christmas Eve - after midnight, but still! The kid in me protests!


I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas and no-one had illusions shattered or traditions broken beyond repair.

I also wish you all the best in the new year.

Edit: It seems (and to me too when I read it again) that I am whining. That is not how it was meant to sound. I had a wonderful Christmas in spite of the little things that went wrong and we all had a good laugh about dinner. I am very grateful to have my urban family.