A Life, Lived

Putting up the Tree

This meme is so accurate. We will experience this today when we drag the tree upstairs to put together and decorate.

Advent Calendars

An Advent calendar is a special calendar used to count the days of Advent in anticipation of Christmas. Since the date of the First Sunday of Advent varies, falling between November 27 and December 3 inclusive, many Advent calendars, especially those that are reusable, often begin on December 1, although those that are produced for a specific year often include the last few days of November that are part of the liturgical season. The Advent calendar was first used by German Lutherans in the 19th and 20th centuries.

We always had an Advent calendar when my sister and I were kids and we would take turns fighting over who would get to open the door and eat the piece of chocolate behind it. It was a tradition that has really caught on in recent years and now you can find Advent calendars for almost anything.

Here are our Advent calendars this year:

I have two cheese ones. If I had purchased a wine Advent calendar life would have been perfect! :-)

The two chocolate ones are for Paul.

Of course we bought Advent calendars for the cats. We hadn't intended on buying two but you can see from the one on the right happens when I buy a package containing freeze-dried liver bits and don't hide it away immediately. I know, bad Jerry. In my defence, I had to go to the bathroom really badly. By the time I had finished washing my hands the damage was done. Of course I had to buy a replacement which might have been their Machiavellian plan all along.

The countdown is on . . . the stress is rising!

Christmas stress for cats . . .

Travel Tuesdays - Venice at Christmas

9 years ago (my lord, how is it that long ago?) Paul and I spend most of December and the first week of January in Italy. We visited Venice, Bologna, Florence for short trips and then stayed in Rome for the remainder of our time. European cities go all out at Christmastime.

Here are some shots of Venice at Christmastime.

We're Getting Ready . . .

It is difficult to believe that Christmas is one month today!

I will say that trying to stay on top of the Christmas preparations as a retiree is a hell of a lot easier than when I was working! I don't know how parents manage it. It's no wonder the festive season is so damn stressful for so many.

Last week I was focused on making cookie dough. We now have logs of dough to slice, tubs of dough to scoop, and dough to roll and cut as we need it throughout the holidays. It sure makes things easy!

Each one is labelled with cooking instructions to I just have to pull out what I need, slice (or scoop or roll) and bake. Easy peasy.

I also made Christmas cakes.  They are in a cool spot, wrapped in brandy drenched cloths, waiting. I made a large cake this year that I plan on icing in the old English style. I mean, if you have time in retirement why not try new things?

One thing that has NOT changed in retirement . . . I am still challenged by food colouring and end up with more on me it seems.

:-)

 

 

Travel Tuesdays - Florence

I mentioned a couple of weeks ago that a friend of ours is flying to Florence today for a short week away. Her husband died a year ago. With the anniversary and Thanksgiving all coming quick an escape to lovely Florence seemed to be just the ticket.

It probably comes as no surprise that I follow a lot of folks from Italy on Instagram. One of them was posting pics of the light displays over the weekend. Paul and I took these pics when we were in Florence in December a few years ago.

These are the type of lovely sites that Sandi will see.

My Kind of Advent Calendar

I saw this advent calendar at Dennigers this morning and I grabbed one immediately. Other people can have those advent calendars made with mediocre chocolate - I'll take this one!

A COVID-19 Christmas

I hope that those who recognize Christmas had a great holiday. There is no doubt that things were a bit different in the pandemic world we find ourselves in . . . there is a part of me that thinks that COVID has reinforced for us the things that really matter.

Just before the holiday, in the face of out of control cases, the government announced new lock down restrictions that were to come into effect on December 26th. Even though it wasn't required they suggested that we try to follow the guidelines before the 26th.

If course we did (which further fuels our rage at those who did not. LOL).

We were allowed to socialize with our own household. We could also socialize with single people who live alone and who don't actively interact with other groups of people. This is exactly what we did. Paul, myself, m mom, and a family friend made up the big gathering. :-)

We decided to try and support local restaurants and bakeries as much as possible, particularly as they are headed into a full lock down. If I could I ordered prepared food and picked it up in the 24th. There was a happy offshoot of this support for struggling local businesses -  there was a little as possible for me to do on Christmas day!

Mom stayed over for three days. We used to go to her house for Christmas Eve and then have Christmas Day at our house but it just became too much for all of us. Now we pick her up on the 24th and she puts dinner together with our help. Then she is at our house for a relaxing Christmas.

When we woke on Christmas morning there was a layer of fluffy white snow. It was the perfect white Christmas - enough to layer the ground with a clean and pure layer of white but not enough to make shoveling an onerous chore and driving a hazard. We shoveled quickly, took the obligatory pics and waited for mom to wake up.

We were getting a bit antsy and thought about slipping 'bad' Jake into her room to wake her when we finally heard some stirring from the spare room. FINALLY!

When mom got up we opened our stockings (apparently the 'let's cut back on the candy and chocolate' rule was forgotten by all). I served assorted pastries and a lemon cranberry loaf cake for the stocking opening.

After we had dug through our stockings an cleaned up a bit it was time for brunch.

Quiche,  fruit, peameal bacon (AKA Canadian bacon for my American readers who won't recognize it based upon when we have seen passed off as Canadian bacon and sold in American grocery stores), fried potatoes, and sparkling wine with pomegranate juice.

Delicious and filling.

I didn't have to cook a thing!

Once we had everything cleaned up it was time to open presents!

YEAH

It was weird trying to shop and stuff this year. Normally we buy things all year and tuck them away for the big day. It was hard this year because we weren't out wandering, visiting craft shows, or going into stores. Instead, almost everything under the tree was purchased online. Luckily many of the craft shows we'd normally visit and the artisans we usually buy from created online shopping portals.

By now we were tired so it was time for a nap!

We had a zoom call with my sister and her family at 2:00.

I'll admit that as much as zoom tires me out for work it is nice to have it available to connect with family this way. It was great to talk to and to see everyone down east.

Our friend Leslie was arriving at 4:00.

Before she got there we tidied up and set the table.

When Leslie arrived we set appetizers (leftover from Christmas Eve - shh, don't tell anyone we served leftovers on Christmas Day LOL) while I heated dinner up.

Dinner was all prepared by a restaurant. We started with an amazing winter salad (no pic) followed by lamb, potatoes, and roast carrots. For dessert we had Buche de Noel, cookie platter (about half of which we had baked), Christmas cake, and mincemeat tarts.

Even in the midst of the pandemic we managed to enjoy an amazing Christmas. We are lucky - none of us had lost work, been ill, or been seriously negatively impacted by COVID (knock on wood) beyond the regular inconveniences of restrictions and lock downs. We appreciate that this affords us with considerable privilege. I was happy that we could use that privilege to support small local businesses that are struggling.

I think the theme for Christmas 2020 was finding joy and happiness amongst the chaos of the pandemic!

For Those who Struggle with Gingerbread Houses

There is plenty of pressure to create a perfect gingerbread house in the Instagram era.

Here is a solution for those who just can't manage to create a structurally sound house.

Travel Tuesday - Christmas in Rome

I've been AWOL for the past week . . . busy retiring. More on that later.

For Travel Tuesday this week I am heading to Rome. These pics are from the year we spent Christmas in Rome.