december 2011

december 22

trimming the tree with a little help from dad

aly REALLY likes the tree

my Richmond Family Place buddies and i painting the Windows of Hope at the automall

december 10

zoe had a great time at her rainbow birthday party. she tends to get overwhelmed with a lot of noise and a lot of people around her, so we just invited 4 close friends who we spend a lot of time with. they're all older and fortunately getting calmer the older they get! i managed to find some activities which everyone enjoyed [although all zoe really wanted to do in pass the parcel was stop and start the music which meant the distribution of gifts wasn't quite as even as it usually is when i fix it!]

i was quite proud of my rainbow cake.

zoe and justin

rainbow drinks

so sad that everyone had to go home!

december 1

wow it's a frenzy of christmasness. we counted almost 50 houses with lights up last night on the drive home from the work christmas party which made me feel better because we put up ours last weekend which i'm not keen on doing in november. in north america, it seems the minute US thanksgiving is done, it's open season. i was a bit worried about how many people would decorate this year because there was a bit of a pathetic lack of halloween decorations and nobody seemed to do anything about halloween until the day before halloween itself.

we live in an incredibly diverse neighbourhood which means a large portion of people do not officially celebrate christmas but there are still a lot of people who put up lights [and lots of other religious celebrations in december]. in the 6 houses either side of us, there are probably 2 buddhist families, 2 muslim families and 2 hindu families. our street also has a lot of sikh and christian families. it must be a dilemma for people who actively participate in a religion other than christianity when they are surrounded by talk of christmas and are under peer pressure from children. i love to hear the traditions and compromises families have come up with - particularly where people who celebrate christmas have married someone with a strong religion that does not. i love my neighbourhood - it's such a great example of how people can get along if the desire to is there, and it's great to learn about everyone's different traditions.

this year aly is snoopy in their school play [charlie brown's christmas]. it's the perfect role for her because she loves performing but hates learning lines! now she just has to learn to juggle a dog bowl! i'll let you know how it goes.

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