Christmas Wrap Up

Well another year into the pandemic and trying to stay optimistic is getting hard. Just when things looked like they were improving along came Omicron and we're very nearly back in lockdown. Many businesses have capacity limits again and we're being told to upgrade our masks to N95 or KN95's.  I was able to get my booster before the province opened it up to everyone 18 and over but getting tested is hard, we're told just to assume we have COVID and isolate until symptoms improve or to go to hospital if you have chest pain or difficulty breathing. 

But overall it was still a pretty good year and it ended with a nice family Christmas. Well, more family than could get together last year. My youngest sister came up from Kingston and stayed with me; her husband decided not to join us. My niece and her family had moved back to her parent's place as they had their townhouse up for sale in preparation for a new job and a move to Halifax, Nova Scotia.

I invited friends to join me in decorating my tree. My sister and one of my friends did join me. I was a little late getting the tree this year. The  tree lot that I go to had very few trees left but the ones they had were still nice. For the first time that I recall, the tree lot actually closed before Christmas Eve as they had sold out.

I hosted Christmas Eve. The menu was seafood chowder with cornbread, followed by meat pie and Greek salad, finished up with mince tarts and ice cream. The boys had McDonalds Happy Meals. It was nice hosting on Christmas Eve since it meant I didn't have to pack up the dogs and drive home. We just had to put on our PJs and sip another glass of wine before heading to bed.

Christmas morning the dogs got to open their stockings before we headed out to my sister's place for Christmas brunch, opening gifts and Christmas dinner.

We had an enjoyable day, hopefully next year it will be more normal with less worry about getting together with family and friends but then some of us will be further apart so who knows who will be able to get together next Christmas. 

Boxing Day was kind of spent relaxing. In the evening, my brother in law, my two sisters and I drove down to Parliament Hill to see the Christmas light show. After seeing the show, we all just went home and had left overs. My youngest sister and I had meat pie and shrimp with a few more glasses of wine and watched some movies. My sister left the next day and I took the dogs to an agility practice in the afternoon.

In years past I have invited a number of my girlfriends over for New Years Eve, last year I decided not to host the event but this year I thought we would be able to get together for a couple hours for a drink and a chat. But Omicron squashed that, I had hoped the surge in cases wouldn't be here until after the holidays but no such luck. I could have gone to my sister's place but I decided to stay home and have a SALY New Year's Eve. SALY is an expression I learned on one of my military postings when describing the organization of an event. It means Same As Last Year. I made myself a nice charcuterie board and opened a bottle of Prosecco. I didn't think I would make it until midnight but I did.  

I did go to my sister's place for New Year's Day dinner. I've started taking down decorations. I don't like to do it all at once; the house feels so drab when you do that. I leave the tree up until Epiphany or Little Christmas as my mother used to call it.  

So while COVID still dominated our lives, life wasn't all bad. For me, there still was no international travel again this year but we did get out and do some camping last summer right into the early fall. Next summer, the plan is to go west to Alberta with my youngest sister and her husband. No one in the family has yet to be sick with COVID. We welcomed to new family members, two little great nieces with another one on the way. I was able to continue with agility classes with Teddy and Liam. Teddy was able to get three Jumpers Qualifying scores in the two trials that we entered. Liam will be old enough soon to compete but we're going to hold off entering any indoor trials until the positivity rate comes down. Hopefully we'll be able to enter some outdoor trials before we start our summer trip. 

So I'm grateful for all I have and am looking forward to 2022 being a much better year.

 

Holiday Review

Well, Christmas 2017 and New Year's 2018 have both come and gone. I'm on my last day of vacation before returning to work; the weather has warmed up considerably but with the warmer weather came the snow so sometime today I'll be out doing the driveway and making trails for the dogs.  Thankfully with a snowblower and not with a shovel.

I took two weeks off this year; it made for a really relaxing holiday. I didn't do as much as planned but that's okay too.  I did go with some friends to see the light show on Parliament Hill. We lucked out with warm weather. We had dinner at the food court before heading up to the Hill to see the show. It was our last Canada 150 event.

Rideau Centre Christmas tree

Canada 150 Lights Across Canada

Christmas Lights Across Canada

I thought I was all prepared for Christmas quite early this year and, the last week before Christmas, was busy in the evenings wrapping gifts; then one day I came home from work to find a strange powder all over the place and empty plastic bags. It took me a moment then I realized that the dogs had eaten a bag of dried pasta and two bags of pasta seasoning that I had brought home from Rome as a gift for my brother-in-law. They had also opened some stocking stuffers.  Now in the last weekend before Christmas I needed another gift.  I also had planned to buy a flower centerpiece for my sister and brother-in-law but had mistakenly thought Christmas was on Tuesday. It really was on Monday so I didn't have enough time left to have an arrangement made up and it turned out the florist, that I used to go to, had closed. Anyway I found another gift for my brother-in-law and bought a Christmas centerpiece at Micheal's where they were all on sale being so close to the holiday.

This year again I joined a Sheltie card exchange as so few of my friends and family send out cards any more.  This way I received many cards from all over the US and Canada as well as some from the UK and Australia.

Sheltie card exchange

Sheltie card display

This year saw changes in how we spent the holiday; in the past most of it was spent at my sister's place but now that her kids are out on their own things changed. My nephew and his wife hosted a Christmas Eve dinner. It was the first time I had been to their place.  We had an enjoyable evening with dinner before they went to Mass while I took my dogs for a walk then started a puzzle until they returned, then we had dessert and opened a few gifts.  Christmas morning was a bit more relaxed too as my niece and nephew planned to have each their own Christmas morning so we were able to sleep in a bit. I got up and let the dogs open their stockings. For two dogs who had opened other people's gifts on their own they certainly weren't in any rush to get their own gifts opened and I had to help quite a bit.

Afterwards I loaded the car and headed over to Juanita and Joe's where we had a late Christmas brunch with just the three of us.  We spent some of the rest of morning doing a puzzle while waiting for the rest of the family to show up. My nephew and his wife were the first to arrive around 1 pm; we knew they didn't have a lot of time before going to her parent's so we started opening gifts then my niece and her family arrived. It worked out rather well, we finished with Dan and Katie's gifts and then continued on with opening gifts for Jessica, Zini and Adrian. And of course some for us too. I had put a little note in with the pasta spoon, all that was left of Joe's pasta gift, to explain what had happened; everyone got a little laugh from that.

We enjoyed a wonderful dinner as always and even the dogs enjoyed their turkey dinner. After dinner, we played a Christmas dice game that Jessica had planned which was quite fun. Keltic couldn't seem to settle for some reason and I had to take him out twice, once he did do his business but the second time he just went up and down the street; because of that we headed home but it was already about 9:30 pm and I had a brunch to prepare for anyway.

Boxing Day, I had a few friends for brunch. I used to do a brunch for family but most all have their own plans now so I hadn't had a brunch in a few years.  It turned out rather well. When I got home on Christmas night, I cooked the potatoes for hash browns so they would be ready in the morning. Brunch was very relaxing and we sat and chatted for a number of hours.

The day after Boxing Day I did a bit of shopping. Most stores had already sold out of much of their Christmas stuff, they put the sales on so early. I did find some stocking stuffers and a couple gifts for next year.  I was looking for a Smart watch for myself; after checking online, I visited the two Best Buy stores near me. Not a single sales person approached me in either store so I decided to order online but at least by going to the stores I was able to pick out which model I liked best. I got the Asus Zenwatch 3; it has 55 different faces you can choose from.

Smartwatch with Starry Sky face

We had an extreme cold snap so the dogs didn't get much time out of doors between Christmas and New Year's, we kind of just hibernated.  I built my Lego.

For a number of years now on New Year's Eve, I've hosted some friends for a pot luck and gift exchange. Last year, we had to cancel because of a snow storm but this year, other than the fact it was so cold that the Canada 150 New Year's Eve on Parliament Hill was cancelled, the weather was clear. We had a nice evening of food, conversation and fun. Finishing up 2017 (Canada 150) with a little Frisky Beaver; it seemed appropriate.

New Years's Day was spent with family; first at my nephew's again for a brunch with both our side of the family and his wife's family too. It was actually traditionally her parents who hosted a family brunch but I guess now my nephew and his wife will make it their tradition. New Year's Day supper was again at my sister's place; some people were a little worse for wear from the previous evening's activities but everyone enjoyed dinner. There was super moon on 1 Jan 2018. The camera in my phone doesn't do it justice; it was huge.

The tree and most of the decorations are down now. The tree will be out at the curb tonight for pick-up tomorrow. I left some decorations and my village up as it seems so bare if I take it all down at once.

Looking forward to 2018 which will be my last full year of work; I retire in 2019, the planned date is 5 June 2019 but with vacation time I could be done in early May 2019.   We start back at agility next weekend, I haven't done any trials since August as my Achilles tendon took so long to heal. Hopefully I'll stay fit this year as Nationals are just an hour away in Maxville, Ontario. It may be Beckett's last and hopefully Keltic's first.