In Between

We're in the bit in between Christmas and New Year. The time when we normally visit friends, or take the kids to a Holiday movie, or crowd the stores looking for end of year bargains, or go to a hockey game, or a football game... but this year is very different. The area where I live is in lockdown. People are encouraged to stay at home, and only go out for essential shopping or for exercise. 

Christmas Day was very quiet for me... I was at home all day, and had a very short but welcome visit from OlderSon and family.... fully masked, and following the rules. Just enough time for tea and a cookie and a little gift exchange and then they were off home to their own Christmas. 

But a friend dropped by on Boxing Day with a gift of some fresh figs.... lovely!

I was able to spend an early Christmas with YoungerSon and family a week ago at their country property before the lockdown started. We had a Christmas dinner, presents under the tree, lots of chocolate and snacks, and played our traditional party games. I played far too much Monopoly, Catan and Scrabble. 

One of my special gifts this year was from grandie Isaac. Now that the family has moved to a home 1-1/2 hour drive away, he doesn't see me very often, so he documented all the happy memories of growing up and visiting my house.

Then he said "Turn them over, Nana!"

A thoughtful gift full of love, treasured forever!

Their country property has a large tree.... species yet to be determined.... and the kids have nailed a home made ladder to the trunk and fixed up a tire swing, so I made some sketches and then some lino cut printing plates and now this masterpiece is hanging on their wall. 

Only a few more days until the year 2020 is history, people the world over will be glad to see it go. Lots of optimistic hopes for 2021.... getting the vaccine, being able to gather with family again, restarting activities that have been cancelled, trying to live a "normal" life. This is one occasion where the special words HAPPY NEW YEAR really mean a lot!

Almond Crescents and Holiday Greetings

I haven't done much baking this Christmas due to nobody available to do the eating. Thanks, Mr. Covid!  But I did make almond crescents. Blogger Boud sort of challenged me to post pictures. She made some and they looked really good so here are mine. Not perfect but soooooo delicious! A definite Christmas tradition in my house.

I'll be on my own this Christmas Day, but that's OK with me. I spent 4 crazy days with YoungerSon and family last week and we had our Christmas dinner and party around the tree, presents, and chocolates and board games and Pass-the-Parcel and Consequences (gotta play those games every Christmas or it's not a proper Christmas). Great fun.

I'll be seeing OlderSon and family on Christmas Day for a physically distanced dog walk (weather permitting, there's a nasty storm headed this way) and perhaps we can sit in the garage and enjoy coffee and some of the famous almond crescents and exchange gifts. A weird Christmas, but necessary. The whole Province of Ontario is going into Covid lockdown for 28 days starting on Boxing Day. Infection numbers are steadily rising and hospitals are filling up. The vaccine is on order and I can't wait for my turn. So we have to be sensible and follow the rules.

Meanwhile..... happy holiday season to everyone, whether you can be with your loved ones or apart.... whether you celebrate Christmas or not.... and let's keep our hopes up for a Covid-free, peaceful and healthy 2021!

Christmas Prep.

I have no idea regarding how Christmas family celebrations are going to happen this year. Currently in Ontario, only two households will be allowed to combine over the Christmas holidays. And people who live alone (like me) can visit one other family... so who do I visit? It's all such a rotten mess. 

All the usual End Of Year parties, dinners, lunches, get-togethers aren't happening. And I really don't want to spend a lot of time... or actually ANY time at all... doing Christmas shopping in person.

However, there are some Christmas preparations that have to happen regardless. I've done some on line shopping for toys (well, mostly LEGO!) for the grandies, and sorted out a major wrong delivery address for a parcel. I haven't put up a tree yet, but I did get the lights out of the basement for the tree outside. Weather should be good tomorrow so I'll put the lights up.

And of course, no Christmas is complete without cake.... if we can't visit, then I can happily eat this myself. It smells so good coming out of the oven. A dousing with some rum or sherry and then some almond marzipan icing. 

And it's time to make the 2020 linocut cards and get them to the Post Office. 

Hanging Out to Dry

I finally got around to printing my linocut Christmas Cards..... usually it's done, and they are in the mail long before this. But we have had postal strikes er... I mean labour interruptions here in Canada so I'm going to use it as my excuse.

Letter to Santa Claus

The very best letter that Santa Claus received this whole Christmas season.  

The Oxen

There`s an ancient tradition that the beasts of the field kneel at midnight on Christmas Eve to honour the birth of Christ in a lowly stable. British novelist and poet Thomas Hardy (1840-1928) told the story of Christmas Eve in his poem `The Oxen`written in 1915.

I learned this poem when I was at school, and it has always meant Christmas Eve to me, and I wonder if the animals really do kneel at midnight. I`ve never looked. I don`t want to be disappointed.

The Oxen

Christmas Eve, and twelve of the clock.

“Now they are all on their knees,”

An elder said as we sat in a flock

By the embers in hearthside ease.

We pictured the meek mild creatures where

They dwelt in their strawy pen,

Nor did it occur to one of us there

To doubt they were kneeling then.

So fair a fancy few would weave

In these years! Yet, I feel,

If someone said on Christmas Eve,

“Come; see the oxen kneel,

“In the lonely barton by yonder coomb

Our childhood used to know,”

I should go with him in the gloom,

Hoping it might be so.

Christmas on the Farm

Once again, on the first weekend in December, we made our way to the sleepy little town of Schomberg, Ontario, to enjoy their annual Christmas on Main Street. For $5.00 entry (and free for kids) Main Street is full of carol singers, ventriloquists, magicians, fire eaters, entertainers of all sorts, and a huge craft show and sale. The firemen give out steaming hot chocolate from the back of the fire truck for a donation in the fireman's boot. There are blazing fire barrels to warm you. You can try your hand at ice sculpture. There are real reindeer for the children to gaze at. And at around 8:00pm, the long anticipated Giant Farm Equipment Christmas Parade begins. This is only a very small sample of the parade. Sorry.... not the greatest pictures ever taken, I was just too excited!

This Christmas Santa Claus Parade is the best ever.... it really starts the Christmas season off for me!

Greetings of the Season

A selection of the lovely cards that have arrived in my mailbox over the past couple of weeks.... from Australia, New Zealand, Canada, USA and England.

I`m wishing all my blogger friends around the world a safe and happy Holiday Season with your friends and family, whether you celebrate Christmas, or Hanukkah, or Quanzaa, or Solstice, or anything at all. Enjoy!
And Happy Blogging throughout 2015.

Farmer Christmas

Yes, that's right.... not Father Christmas, but Farmer Christmas!

Every year on the first Saturday in December the little country town of Schomberg, Ontario, closes off Main Street, charges everyone $5.00 (kids are free!) to pass the barriers, and holds it's annual Christmas Festival. 

There are jugglers, fire eaters, magicians, singers, and rock bands. Blazing fire barrels to stand next to, in order to keep warm on a frosty night. 

Food stalls, firemen offering free hot chocolate from the back of the fire truck, a craft show and sale, carol singers, a parade for the children in the afternoon, and when it gets dark, the main event that everyone is waiting for...... the Enormous Farm Equipment Christmas Parade!

The local farmers, and there are a lot of them, decorate their farm equipment with thousands, maybe millions, of lights. The bigger the farming machinery, the better!

This tractor and hay wagon had revolving reflectors installed under the equipment making fantastic coloured patterns on the road.

This one had lights that went round with the huge wheels. I have to wonder how they do that, without the wires getting all tangled up. Must be Christmas magic, I think.

Here's a short video of a couple of the floats.... the maniacal screaming is my grandson Callum. Sorry if he hurts your ears. He was very excited!

Finally the Great Man himself arrives riding on an enormous John Deere combine harvester. 

We'll definitely be going again next year..... the best Santa Claus Parade EVER!!!!

Invasion of the Gingerbread Men

First you line up an assortment of sweets and candies, then you get a bowl of the stickiest, sweetest, surgariest icing that you can find, dollop some icing on your gingerbread man, and stick the candies on. And don't forget to lick your fingers.

Max has his eagle eye on whatever's going on beside him. 

He covered his gingerbread man with red liquorice, and he doesn't even like it!

Emma was very industriously decorating her gingerbread man, but it looks like part of his head is missing already! No, no, not my head! (spoken in a gingerbread man kind of voice).

Isaac made his gingerbread man into a gingerbread robot ninja. 

(He was outraged that I called it a robot.)

But gingerbread robots ninjas don't last very long, and this one was no different. 

It got eaten soon after completion.

Christmas Remembered

December was a hectic month totally taken up with shopping and baking and Variety Show rehearsals and trying to stay warm during diabolical bad weather, and so I didn't post much about Christmas. In fact, I'm always relieved when the Holiday Season is over and life can get back to a normal routine. But Christmas memories remain.

The skating rink (in summer it is a reflecting pool) in Nathan Phillips Square outside Toronto City Hall. The rink was closed.... big notices saying telling the public "Skate at your own risk" due to chunks of ice falling from the overhead arches.

 Some of the amazing Christmas decorations at Brookfield Place. Mind boggling!

And more Christmas sparkle looking up into the ceiling of the Chrystal Cathedral of Commerce inside Brookfield Place.

The wonderful "Lights of December" Holiday Concert by Singing Out, Toronto's LGBTQ Community Chorus at the Jane Mallett Theatre. Great holiday music with a quirky touch, loved it! So much fun to see friends up there on the stage, singing their hearts out.

And the Ice Storm! This beautiful corkscrew hazel tree in YoungerSon's back yard normally stands 35 feet high, but here the top branches are touching the ground due to the weight of the ice. Amazingly, now that the ice has melted, the tree has bounced almost upright again! Thank you, Mother Nature! We thought that tree was a gonner.

Something Very Fishy Going On Here

A few days before Christmas we made our annual family pilgrimage to downtown Toronto to see the Pantomime. Not such a large family group this year. Callum was the only child in attendance, as Isaac couldn't be there, and the twins are still too little.
The annual Christmas Pantomime is a time honoured tradition in Britain, usually vaguely following the theme of a nursery story or nursery rhyme. Christmas just wouldn't be Christmas without a visit to the Panto.

This year's offering was "The Little Mermaid - Ontario's O-FISH-AL Family Musical"..... definitely not the sweet Walt Disney version but something far more fun. Lots of audience participation, booing the baddies, cheering the goodies, shouting warnings... "Behind you! Behind you!" No need to keep the kids quiet in this production.

Ross Petty took the form of the evil fish monster Ogopogo who lives at the bottom of Lake Ontario... and he certainly makes a very believable bad guy. He was almost BOOOOed off the stage and he loved every minute. Ogopogo wanted to develop a Marineland Casino and nightclub featuring all the mermaids, and was eventually defeated by Panto regular Dame Plumbum von Botox, the mer-maiden aunt of the Little Mermaid herself, and the underwater residents of the lake, including Shelly the Shrimp, Carl the Clownfish and Sponge-Bill-Triangle-Pants.

Lots of slapstick belly laughs for the kids, lots of slightly off-colour references to keep the adults laughing. Lots of dancing, singing, colourful costumes, talented comedy.
Will we go again? "Holy Carp!" You bet we will, I can hardly wait till next year!

Naughty or Nice?

Santa Claus has been taking a short break from supervising the elves in the toy workshop.
He's arrived a couple of weeks early so he can be part of the rehearsals for our annual Christmas Variety show.

Looks like he's having a great time. Ssshhh! I hope Mrs Claus doesn't find out.

Black Friday

I had never heard of Black Friday until a few years ago. It's an American shopping frenzy that takes place on the day after the U.S. Thanksgiving Thursday. From what I saw on the TV news tonight, it's not only for shopping.... throw in a couple of riots, scuffles with police on the store floor, and gunshots fired in crowded parking lots.
Black Friday has crossed the border into Canada, even though our Thanksgiving was seven weeks ago. And we're a lot less frantic than our American cousins.
We line up politely waiting for the stores to open.
We hold the door open for the customers coming in behind us.
And we apologise if we grab the same item as someone else. It's the Canadian way.
I thought I'd check out the local mall.

Although the parking lot was full, the mall seemed relatively empty, until I went into some of the stores and had to join a long queue to reach the cashier.

Good old Santa seemed a bit lonely sitting in his oversized chair. But it's early days yet.... still a couple of days until December starts. I wonder what's in those ginormous prezzies.

Christmas decorations everywhere.
Except in my house.
For me, real Christmas doesn't begin until the week before the big day and that's when I put the tree up. OlderSon says I'm a Grinch. I think he already has his house decorated. The Hallowe'en stuff comes down and the Christmas stuff goes up. But I don't want to be reminded of Christmas in my house every day for a month or more, it's bad enough when I go shopping! Bah, Humbug!

Snow White

We did it again!
Yes, we gathered up the extended family members and went to the Toronto Pantomime between Christmas and New Year.... it's becoming a family tradition. This year there were 5 children and 7 adults in our group and we sat 4 rows back from the stage. Great place to sit.... easy to see the action yet safe from being asked up onto the stage to be the magician's assistant!

This year it was Snow White - The Deliciously Dopey Family Musical at the gorgeous Elgin Theatre in Toronto.

Picture from the Toronto Sun newspaper

The show is as traditionally "British Pantomime" as it can get. Songs, music, an evil stepmother, dancing girls, fabulous costumes, obvious jokes to please the kids, and slightly more risque jokes to tittilate the adults, and lots of opportunity for the audience both young and old to BOO loudly whenever the bad guys come on stage.

Oh yes, Panto is all about audience participation.

Snow White's stepmother, the Evil Queen, was played in a wickedly funny manner by Ross Petty.... who is a perfect man in a dress, and was wearing far too much makeup, as you do, when you're Evil.

Assorted Nursery rhyme characters populated the stage.... there was Pinocchio, and one of the Three Little Pigs ( I don't know what happened to the other two), Little Red Riding Hood, and Jack-in-the Beanstalk.

Picture from the National Post Newspaper.

In this modern day version of Snow White's story, the Evil Queen was plotting to bulldoze the forest and make her fortune by opening a huge Botox strip mine, and Snow White and her little furry woodland animal friends were going to be banished from the forest. Oh No.... bad news!

But who was there to make sure that Good triumphed over Evil? 007 of course! “The name’s Bond, James Bond,” says 007 after a wonderfully ridiculous entrance. “That’s my full legal name.”

Callum loved it. Isaac loved it. Everyone loved it. We'll definitely be going again next year.         

Train Talk

Santa delivered a train table to Isaac's house for Christmas.

Callum (who loves to tell everyone what to do and how to play with toys): Don't forget when you are driving a train you have a daily duty to load and unload the train, it's your daily duty. Everyone has a daily duty!
Isaac (who doesn't want to be told what to do by his cousin): Sorry, today is my day off!

Christmas Greetings!

Christmas Eve is here and Santa Claus has been busy getting the presents loaded in the sleigh and the reindeer harnessed up. Remember to leave a cookie and a drink for him, it's a long night's work! And Rudolf and the other reindeer would really appreciate a couple of carrots, or a handful of nice green grass.
I'm wishing my bloggy friends a Happy Christmas and may you enjoy good health and good cheer throughout the coming year.

Christmas in October

I bought a small Christmas Cactus at Home Depot a few years ago. Each year it gets a little bigger. It stays in my south window all winter and really does nothing much except enjoy the winter sunshine, and then in the spring it goes outside. I don't water it, I just leave it up to Mother Nature to look after it.

And then as soon as it starts to get colder at night I bring it in.

And I noticed that it was covered with tiny pink buds.

Obviously spending the summer outside and being ignored agrees with it.
Only a week later, the whole plant is covered with pink blooms. Just gorgeous.

It's giving me my Christmas present a couple of months early.

Priscilla the Poinsettia

Last Christmas I was given an enormous Poinsettia. (Euphorbia pulcherrima in case you need to know.) Lovely! So Christmassy. I put it on the floor by the window and enjoyed it's cheery red colour.
But as January and February progressed, I got a bit tired of it. Christmas was over.... why do I still keep this messy Poinsettia around, dropping dead leaves on the floor and generally looking a bit tarnished?
It refused to die. Even when I went to England and didn't water it for three weeks.
It's been living outside on the deck ever since the snow melted. And thriving in spite of my lack of TLC.
And now it's producing flowers. Strange little yellow mouths accompanied by red blobs with antenna. They look like something from outer space.

This plant definitely has a will to live, so I'm being nice to it right now. But starting in October I'm going to be mean to it again, by shutting it in a closet in the dark for 12 hours a day. This should cause the red colour to return to the bracts or leaves around the crown of each stem. That's the plan.... I'll let you know if it works.

Bye Bye Christmas

Christmas is back in the box. Actually, three boxes.

Safely stowed away in the furnace room until needed in 11 months time.