Christmas Celebration in Canada

This is the first year we have not had extended family at our house for the Christmas Holiday. We also did not have a Ward Dinner to help out at, so we went to Saint John the Baptist Church this morning to help with the Holiday Meal for men that are far from home and did not have any other place to go for the day. We, along with about 30 other volunteers from across the community, showed up early to start preparing the hall and the meal.

First order of business? Peel, wash and cut 300 pounds of potatoes for later. These ladies were sharing stories about "home", which for each of them was no where near Fort Mac. We talked to people form Vancouver, Toronto, Indonesia, Africa, the Philippines, Prince Edward Island, New Found Land,and the US. It almost felt like Girl's Camp, except that it was -30 degrees C outside.

Dawson, Jacob and I peeled and cut potatoes and talked about work, school, the holiday, and hockey.

Samuel made a total of 10 gallons of juice for the volunteers. His favorite thing was the commercial faucet. He later admitted to having to fight the temptation to squirt Jacob and I with the hand held sprayer. We let him ride home in the cab of the truck because he resisted so well.

Compton and Ashley helped with the decorations. He is from Kenya and really gets a kick out of the snow.

Joseph knows Shelby from school. They have a couple of classes together.

Michelle making bows for tree decorations and table decorations. There were about 25 people setting up and decorating the trees, including Joseph and Michelle.

Alex and Gord are two of the chefs at one of our favorite restaurants here in town, The Fish Place. Believe it or not, it is a Mexican Place. Just kidding. And wishing too.

One finished project.

We enlisted Ashley to stand in for both girls because we could not find another Amy for our "family" photo. She is a Peace Officer here in town (by the way, you need to realize that Alberta is about the same size as the state of Texas, and Fort McMurray is part of the regional Municipality of Wood Buffalo, which is about the same size as the State of West Virginia) I kept trying to get her to run a check on Joseph or Jacob, but she wouldn't play along.

As we were leaving, Bob showed up to be part of the entertainment for the day, and was struggling to carry all his equipment. Joseph jumped right in to help, buying himself some much needed points for the day.

After our service in the morning, we returned home for the traditional family activities, starting with Stockings. Ashley sent things, which we thought was way cool of her. This is a great way to start off the gifts. I guess we were all good and bad this year since we all got some Callebaut chocolates and some "Coal" from Santa too.

Sam scored big time in his stocking. He loves his newest monkey.

Santa brought Jacob a piece of the official Canadian national luggage, the hockey bag. He loves it.

He also got his own personal Big Ben. This is the ultimate watch for him. I think he might be loosing his eyesight and does not want to have to strain to see the time. The watch, from his Aunt Tante Nina Yvette (being translated as Aunt Aunt Aunt Yvette) and includes important information for a young man going to school in Idaho, like High and Low Tide times.

She also bought Samuel and Joseph snow shoes. they however do not come with built in Tide info. So sad.

And this year's winner is...Joseph!! That is right, he won the Yellow Calzones this year. He almost screamed when he opened the box. Hooting and Hollering, and dancing around, he could not get them on his booty fast enough. Bad luck for him though, the movie theater in town was closed today, so he could not wear them to a show.

Hoo ray!!

Sam, or old-whats-his-name from Star Wars Cloud City scenes (the dude with the head band that followed Billy Dee Williams around all the time), posing for the camera. This is his "can you see me now?" shirt, and he thinks is really makes the outfit with his flannels PJ britches.

Looking like Mr. Incredible, Jacob strikes a pose for the ladies, and fear in the hearts of the family. He strutted around for about 20 minutes showing off his new long handles. Note the California socks. He whined about being cold all day, but refused to put on real socks.

After the trial run in the snow shoes, the boys pose one more time for the camera. We shot video of them. Samuel says it is fun, but is "quite the workout" trying to catch his breath. Joseph looked like a cat with tape on his paws,walking very tentatively in the snow at the local neighborhood park. At -24 degrees, they did not want to stay out too long, and the batteries in the camera did not want to either.

Christmas Eve

As it turns out, Santa Claus lives about 2 blocks form here. No, really! Last night I went to pick up Samuel at the ski hill, and saw a few white tail deer, and then tonight, at a family party, Santa brought presents for the little children of a local family. We were there to see it, and here is the proof.

Later in the evening, we were invited to another party where the main attraction was also the Jolly Old Man, this time magically turned in to a huge chocolate statue by a renowned chocolatier. So we cut off his bottom and had him for the fondue party.

Bailey, Samuel and Joseph laugh about a joke about the treats

The table is set, and the fondue is ready. There was fresh fruit, and pretzels, and a few fingers. We even tried dragon fruit. It was the most interesting thing most of us had seen, and quite tasty too.

After hyping up all the young ones on chocolate, we had skipping races, wheel barrow races, horse back rides, tickle contests, and almost every other form of revelry you can imagine. We also played a few board games, including two different cranium games, and good old dominoes and "Go Fish."

In this cranium game called Whoonu (who knew) you had to choose things you thought the "it" person would like best. The "it" would then assign points on a good better best scale, and the next round would start. There were lots of laughs as we all tried to convince people why our idea was the best one and deserved top honors.

As you can see, it was allot of fun trying to convince people how much they liked your chosen idea for them.

More hyping up the children, which quickly degenerated into a wrestling match. Guess who won.

Dominoes on this end, more cranium on the other end of the kitchen table, and laughter all around.

Where there are little girls, there will be head bands and hair-do's. We all got our fair share of the attention.

Merry Christmas to all and to all a Good Night.

Activity Night

The cooks are in great form tonight. And perhaps more importantly, there are fresh-ish corn tortillas in the stores again. That means chicken enchiladas!! And thinking that perhaps I may have died and gone to heaven, there is chicken mole too.

Kiss for the cook?

The YW and the Bishopric enjoyed the meal. Holy guacamole, Batman!

The first councilor back for another helping.

There was a white elephant gift giving, with a story about some elves: LEFTY, RIGHTY, and SKIP. So you had to pass the gift you started with one person to the left, or right, or you had to skip one to the left or right. If you want to have the story, we can forward it in an e-mail.

You can tell it is Christmas time at our house when the stockings get hung for the season. Ashley made some replacements and some new ones to fill out the family this year. She did a great job copying the originals.

See some old ones and some new ones here.

And a few more.

Getting ready to go play hockey on one of the out-door rinks. It is after 10 p.m. and the temp is right around -28 degrees C.

Coming home after the game. A good time was had by all. The icicles had already melted from the eye lashes, and the frost had fallen from the hats and shoulders. No broken bones, or chipped teeth.

Winter Solstice

Sunrise: 9:24 a.m. Sunset: 3:48 p.m. That is a little over 5 hours of official sunshine today. Accounting for the fog in the morning, and the clouds on the southern horizon in the afternoon, we actually saw sun for a little over 3 and one half hours. The low temperature this morning was -36 degrees C and the high was -26 degrees C (-33 F to -15 F), which was significantly better than yesterday.

So to celebrate, we had the missionaries over for Prime Rib Dinner.
Elder Rowley from Saint George, Elder Tengelson from Boseman, Montana, and those Simpson boys.

Jacob and his posse. The Elders sang for the Young Women in church the other day, and only 2 girls swooned and fainted (just kidding)

This is how we recruit helpers to clean up after a pretty good meal.

Our home teacher brought over some goodies for the family

Sam was elected to go get the mail. The California in these boys dies hard, although I think the snow board boots and the parka are cheating.

The boys and few of their closest friends were invited to a decorating party today. There were sugar cookies, gingerbread people, and decorations of every kind. We were reminded of the years sharing fun with the Hopkins family and all the other friends caroling, and making gingerbread houses.

Some of the spoils of the day.

Rebecca, the hostess, with her version of her husband and herself.

Samuel decorating in grand teenage style, or the "I can put more stuff on my cookie than you can, so give up you amateur" style.

The basics

The end results. Rebecca and daughter Victoria.

And daughter Kate.

Sam cleans up after himself. just kidding. He did help out with the mess left by some of the crayon gang. Thank you Mr. Clean Magic Eraser.

The Flying Tomato as seen by a fan (Samuel). Note the fine detail on the Burton snow board, the matching pants and parka of the USA snow board team, and the now famous shock of red hair.

Michelle and I. Notice the painted nails, and the brown Redwing work boots.