Christmas Eve pajamas

gI finally wrapped my Christmas presents this morning. I had most of them bought and hidden around my room several days ago, but just didn't get around to wrapping them until today. It such relaxing work. I also find it fun to be creative with which wrapping paper is best to go with which present for which family member and deciding to how wrap each present and if I should include a bow or not. Maybe I'm just too orderly or OCD or something, but I just find it fun to think about all that stuff.

After my presents were wrapped I went to the grocery store with my mum to get food for Christmas dinner. It was probably the fastest we've ever bought food for any big, family-get-together type of meal. We were in and out of the store in 20 minutes and that was including my mum talking to three people she knew. Yeah, I know. Pretty impressive, right? When I was over in the bakery getting baby-sized loaves of flax bread, a mother and her two kids were there just before me. The mum told the two kids they could choose which cookies they wanted to get and the boy decided on these humongous oatmeal chocolate chip cookies. The mum made sure the kids knew the cookies were for Santa. She put several in a bag, all the while apologizing to me (like any good Canadian) that they were in my way. I responded with, "no worries," and smiled at the little girl who stared up at me with huge brown eyes. She gave me a half smile back and those adorable eyes started twinkling. I'm serious. They twinkled. It was amazing to see. I was kind of sad to see those merry eyes leave when the whole group moved on to let me get my baked goods. As they walked away I heard the little boy ask if he could have a cookie and his mum told him again, "No, we're saving them for Santa." Poor kid. They looked like yummy cookies, too.

When I got home from the grocery store, I left the bags for Bryn to bring in and ran to grab stuff for swimming then drove to the H20 Adventure + Fitness Centre. Julie was waiting for me in the lobby and so I paid quickly and we went to change. Then we spent the next two hours there swimming in the wave pool, being pulled around this circular pool that had a current (my personal favourite pool in the place), racing down the waterslides (Julie won every single time even though we alternated slides), lounging in the hot tubs, and laughing a LOT. Another friend, Kristina, was there, too, and so was Julie's family. We had a great time, although I was rather pruney by the time we emerged from the water and went home.

After that we went to my grandparents place for Christmas Eve dinner like we always do. It was awesome and I was so stuffed I could barely fit any dessert into my overfilled stomach. Then we played this game where one person had to draw a Christmas phrase while the rest of us guessed what they were. It was rather hilarious. After each song was guessed (the phrase idea morphed into just drawing Christmas songs pretty quickly) we would write the name of the song under the drawing and then get a picture taken. Ty went first and got us in a giggly mood when he wrote the title of his song upside-down and it turned out as "Joy to the Worlb." My mum's drawings were also fun to guess because they got pretty complicated and then were almost impossible to guess. Ty's last one was funny too because it was a four-part drawing of "In the Bleak Midwinter." Maybe I'll try to upload some of the pictures here later, so check back if you want to see them. When we ran out of ideas for that game we taught my grandparents how to play 8 1/2, a card game Bryn got for Christmas last year. We got kind of confused between that and Pinocchio though, so we ended up just using the 8 1/2 cards, but playing by Pinocchio rules. Then I scrounged up my grandpa's crokinole board and discs to bring back home with us. We didn't have time to play it tonight, but we're going to make sure to have a few games before eating Christmas dinner tomorrow when my grandparents come over. I love crokinole. It's probably my favourite games ever. Maybe that's why I occasionally like watching curling on TV.

Then we finally trimmed our Christmas tree and put most of the presents underneath it. My dad had set the tree up last night, but it was already late by then so we decided to finish it tonight. Before we went to my grandparents house my dad had put the lights on so we just had to put the ornaments on. It was kind of fun doing it on Christmas Eve for once. Our tradition used to be to put up the tree on December 1, but that's pushed back now until we're home from college, and this year we couldn't find a time to get the tree and put it up until tonight. It was still fun though. We also listened to our Billy Gilman CD, which has been another Q. tradition since my mum bought that CD for Tyler years ago. Once the tree was stuffed to overflowing with ornaments (it's a rather straggly and spindly tree, but we all love it anyhow), we made hot chocolate and then opened our Christmas Eve presents. Every year we are allowed to open one present each. That present is always pajamas. It's so nice knowing that you are guaranteed new pajamas at least once a year and my mum always finds really awesome ones too. This year Bryn got music ones, which are adorable. Ty got ones that have cartoon animals playing a bunch of different sports and I got moose pajamas. I must admit that I knew about mine. When we were driving to the Winnipeg airport after a weekend in western Ontario for my cousin's grad, we stopped to get gas at a small town that had a bunch of random stuff for sale in their gas station/gift shop. I saw the pj's and told my mum they would be nice for Christmas. Then I forgot about them until I opened my box tonight. I also got Canadian hockey pj pants. And then, of course, my mum took some more pictures before we headed for our own rooms to finish up last minute pre-Christmas secrets. So I bid you all goodnight and a Happy Christmas Eve!! Hope this holiday is amazing for you all!

PS - I just posted this, but came back to edit this blog with some good pre-Christmas news. I just found out that my married friends, Sharlet and Brad, just had their baby at 11:35 p.m. It was due on the 28th, but Sharlet's water broke last night. She went to the hospital, but was sent home cause nothing was progressing. Apparently she was going to get an IV to induce labour this morning if nothing had happened in the night. Anyway, her step-father-in-law posted updates on Facebook throughout the day (which weren't that interesting since nothing was really happening) and then her brother wrote a new status update from the hospital when the baby was born, which is how I heard the news. (Crazy how society has changed since we were born and our parents had to actually call up their parents on the phone to let them know.) Anyway, so they're now proud parents of a Christmas Eve daughter and everything is right with the world because a new Canucks fan was born . . .

Christmas tree

This morning we woke up really early (6:30 a.m., which is early for me at least), bundled up in warm winter gear, and drove about 15 minutes up into the mountains to get our Christmas tree. I know it's only two days before Christmas, but we've been busy doing a bunch of other stuff, so this was the first time that we really had to all go get one together. When I got out of the truck I thought about not even wearing a toque, but about 20 seconds later I rethought that and was glad I had brought it along with me anyway. It was freezing up there. Surprising how 15 minutes and about a 2,000 foot increase in altitude can make so much difference. Dad had checked the temperature when we piled out of the truck and it was -16 C. That's pretty chilly, especially when we've been experiencing weather between 5 and 0 C since we've been home. We traipsed through the woods for about five minutes before I pointed out a tree I thought might be OK. My dad started to knock some of the snow and ice off the branches to see what he thought and Bryn came along, looked at the tree, and grimaced in disgust. "That one's ugly. What about the one right back there?" She pointed beyond my choice to a tree standing alone in a circle of much taller trees. "Hmm, yeah, that could work," Dad said and walked over to check it out. We both agreed with Bryn that it was better. Then we had to call Ty and my mum over from examining the hide of a dead animal. Ty was trying to identify it while my mum was trying to take pictures of it. When they finally made their way to the chosen tree they agreed that it was good. My dad started cutting it down and then each of us kids took a turn with the saw while my mum got pictures of that, too. Then the three of us followed my dad out of the forest. He cut a wider path for us so we could get the tree back to the logging road and our truck. About halfway back Ty got tired of sharing the carrying load with Bryn and me and hoisted it up to carry back all by himself. Then we posed for some pictures near the road before jumping back into the truck to warm up. My feet were completely frozen and my hands were getting cold as well. The temperature had gone down to -17 C as we started driving home. When we pulled up to our driveway I was surprised to see that it was still cold down in the city at -11 C. We put our tree in the garage to let it thaw (notice my appropriate use of the word "thaw" as opposed to the non-word "unthaw") so we could put it up and decorate it later this evening.

In the early afternoon, when my mum, Ty and I were out shopping, I saw the cutest sight. We were in Lululemon, a yoga apparel store (no, I'm not into yoga, but the clothes are super comfy) and I was putting something back on a hook when I turned and saw a baby sitting on the floor of the store. He was probably around five or six months old and wearing a dark brown snowsuit that covered his entire body except for his adorably chubby face. His mum was standing beside him looking at a table of sweatshirts. She was in between me and the baby. How she was standing was exactly perfect for her son to peek through her legs to watch the customers in the store. As soon as I saw him I couldn't look away. I grinned down at him. He stared back at me for about three seconds and then broke out in an infectious baby smile. I kept grinning at him and he kept smiling back. It was the absolute happiest I have ever seen a baby look. We just stood there happily gazing upon each others faces. Then my mum walked up behind me and I half-turned to tell her to look at the baby. She looked down and gasped. "Oh, that would make the most gorgeous picture!" she exclaimed. "Why don't I have a camera with me." I looked back at the baby. He was so roly-poly-looking in that brown snowsuit that he looked like a cuddly little brown bear cub. I just wanted to walk around his mum and scoop him up and cuddle him. Then he started to kick his legs in glee, all the while still giving my mum and I a toothless grin. Ty came up just then and glanced over to see what had captured mine and my mum's attention. "He looks just like a seal pup," Ty said. It was true. His snowsuited feet looked like the end of a seal's tail. Several seconds later the baby's mum reached down and picked him up off the floor and the moment - and perfect photo opportunity - had passed. But I'll never forget that exuberantly happy little baby's face when he first started smiling at me.

After leaving Lululemon, we walked across the street to Mosaics, "the largest independently owned bookstore in the Okanagan Valley" (according to their motto or tagline or whatever that's called). It used to be my very favouritest bookstore when I was a kid. My mum would drive all the way downtown just to shop there and if we were already downtown for an appointment or other shopping, she'd take us there as a treat if we were good. I like it less now that it's moved to a new location. I especially feel that their kids selection has gone downhill since then, but maybe it's just the quality of kids books as a whole that I'm not as impressed with (what is with all this magic and sorcery in kids books these days anyway?). So, in any case, I still like to stop in there to see what gems I can find. Mosaics usually has quite a good selection of Canadian books so that makes me happy. Today I saw my dream book there. I had actually just read about this new book that is newly released during finals week. I went on CBC.ca to check out some Canadian news (something that I have been extremely delinquent in doing this past semester) and saw a link to a story and soundslide by the editor, Mark Reid, about the book. It's called "Canadian History: 100 Photos That Changed Canada" and I desperately want it. My mum told me she'd had it in her hands to buy for me yesterday but then put it back before getting to the till. I told her that I wouldn't mind having it, despite all that. She reminded me that I also have a birthday coming up soon. So I guess we'll see what becomes of all that.

Later in the afternoon Bryn and I picked up my dad early from work (these days he usually walks to and from work) and then went to look for snowmobiling boots. We tried the place that Ty and I went to yesterday to buy boots for my dad. I was a little scared the guy that helped us yesterday would recognize me and say something about our purchase to my dad but, although he was in the store again today, a different guy helped us, so it was all fine. They ended up not having any women's boots at all and the smallest size they had in men's was a seven, which our feet would be swimming in. So we went to the place the guy suggested we try and they did have women's boots and they fit. They're rated for up to -100 C weather (year, I was shocked to hear that, too) so I'm pretty excited to try them out. I've never not had my feet get cold when participating in a winter sport, so I'm really curious to see if these boots live up to their rating. I do have to say that they were the most comfortable pair of boots I have ever put on in my entire life. It was like putting my feet into their own little quilt-covered beds (bad analogy but if I think of something better I'll come back and change it). I kind of just want to walk all around town in them, but I have a feeling that it's not quite cold enough down here in the valley for my feet to like that too well after a little bit. I really wish that we'd bought the boots yesterday so we could have tried them out this morning as we got our tree. Oh, well. Along with the boots, I also got my first pair of Smartwool socks. I can't wait to try out the socks and boots when we head up to the mountains on Sunday!