Christmas 2022

 

CHRISTMAS 2022. My family usually celebrate Christmas on the 24th of December and have family get together on Christmas Eve. 

Our Christmas Eve dinner should be a festive, healthy choice and with that special roast young turkey butterball as the main course for our family table. Husband prefers to be the chef for roasting turkey, making all the stuffing for the turkey and delicious gravy from his mom's recipe is surely a favourite of my kids. My kids love turkey instead of having roast lechon (roast pork). My husband enjoyed his turkey with cranberry sauce, only for him though. I am not into cranberry sauce nor my kids.

Our turkey (butterball) is just a medium sized but good enough for our dinner.

I'm sorry that we didn't invite our relatives for Christmas Eve dinner simply because we were under the weather recently (2 weeks ago actually), not that bad but you know better that way... safer, safety first.

Then my eldest son was not able to come home because of the snowstorm in mainland Vancouver that flights are cancelled at the airport and BC ferry sailings were cancelled too. Last year, he was not able to come home either because of the tons of snow and pile of snow on major roads and highways, and snow tires for vehicles were out of stock. Would you believe that? There's no stores or shop selling snow tires because not available in many stores in BC. Even industrial salt ran out. That was last year of 2021. Anyway, winter is not really a huge problem in BC for the past years as I remember way back then that my husband usually had long drives from Prince Rupert to Vancouver island to Vancouver mainland to anywhere else in British Columbia during Winter, there were snow and it is snowing furiously but the snowstorm this year and last year is totally different from all those years. The winter snow this year had its negatives, from -5 to -7 Celsius. It can get to -30 to -40 in Alberta which could only happen in Yukon or farther the Northern Territory or through the North Pole.

Anyway, we cannot cancel Christmas. Christmas is a traditional, religious family reunion for so many of us whether you are a complete or incomplete family or clan or whom you want to spend your life with.

Dinner : Roast turkey, gravy & stuffing + fried halibut with garlic chilis sauce + shrimp ring +sausage rolls + brusselsprout + boiled potatoes + steamed rice + bacon wrapped scallops + Martinelli's sparkling juice drinks + pop

Desserts: Blueberry-zucchini muffins + orange cream cake + peach pie + Cherry-strawberry cheesecake + fresh oranges +bananas

MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYBODY!

I hope you and your family enjoyed Christmas no matter how bad the weather is.

Extra foods:

Sister and brother-in-law dropped by after 7 pm and brought a pan of leche flan + rice cake (suman)

Palabok - special noodles with pork, shrimps and boiled eggs with shrimp sauce.

Yesterday

 We usually have a 6 ft. Douglas fir tree for Christmas tree however since the past few years we opted to have just below that height. It's not being stingy or thrifty but being economically frugal. lol. The taller, bigger  the tree's worth the more expensive it is, so true! Six ft. tree is worth $60 and for a couple of weeks after Christmas have to toss it down in the community bark mulch project. While other families have to just have their old fake Christmas tree from their garage storage that they can use every year for the festivity. Artificial Christmas tree is pricey too, worth $75-150 but you can have it every Christmas holidays for the rest of your life. So which is better then?

Husband's not into artificial tree so we usually have the real Douglas fir tree every Christmas celebration. This year, he went to the Evergreen Tree farm and cut the fresh designated tree and paid for it. It's a 5.5 ft. in height Christmas tree. Perfect in all symmetry. 

My darling, lovely  daughter did the honor of decorating our 2022 Christmas tree. 

And the special visitor had so much fun running around the tree, being curious, being nosy wanting to know what's underneath the base and stick her tongue on the water spill. lol. Eko is sometimes so naughty and like most dogs always into something out of the extraordinary. She played with one of the shiny, sparkly red ball run around with it pushing it with her paws and mouth and head, running after the red ball for minutes after minutes without stop like what the hell is going on? She gets jumpy, tossing the ball here and there like as if she's playing a game sort of. I don't know how many times she terrorized the tree, so many hundred times. 😔

Later on, she gets so tired and run after me when I sat down on the sofa. Now she's after me and my pair of plushy rabbit slippers. If I wont let go of my slippers, she'll be on tip toes, scratching my legs. OMG! Stop, stop!!!! Hu hu hu! 😥

Eko is such a good puppy girl but sometimes, she gets so "weird and strange" because she wants the attention all to herself. Only her, nobody else. You have to sit down with her and she must sit on your lap. You have to feed her with your hand and treat her "that she's not a puppy, not a dog." 

Sometimes, it could be a long day for all of us with Eko. We are not complainer it's just that Eko is one of a kind. She'll be 7 months  on December 24, 2022 and had gained so much weight. Her hair still spiky and soft and her manners and attitude will still be Eko the _______! lol

Eko the incredible!😄

No matter what, my family still loves you Eko.

It was all yesterday )))

The Loads Are Too High & Too Heavy

 IN THE NEWS:

Early morning it's the news on our TV is what matter the most, you know as in routine daily "gospel sort of." LOL.

Good news, bad news just NEWS. Whatever! What are television for other than watching television shows and series and sports + news. 

Daily news of stabbing incident/accidents? Don't really know if stabbing anybody in Vancouver is just normal in Vancouver. Crazy as it is probably that's the weapon of choice for madkillers without guns. Guns are mostly used in the U.S.A. Knives and machetes are for Canadians. 

It is the same news since from two years of the pandemic, on and on as if most television news network follow the same theme of annoying their own viewers. Maybe that's a plot for us to stop watching news and let those news networks just annoy themselves. 

The news on the war in Ukraine vs Russia has reached its 10th month. Is Russia being greedy on why the need to invade Ukraine? Knowing History, Ukraine belongs to USSR (Union of Soviet Socialist Republic) and most people living in Ukraine are Russians and Jews, there are few populations of Orthodox Christians. Looking at the map of Russia, it is the largest country in Europe, sure, but part of such country lies in the Arctic region, on tundra (freezing frigid zone, permafrost, windy and inhabitable as if you are in another planet far far away from civilization), part of which are wastelands too toxic where you can mine the land for uranium, plutonium, and other radioactive carbons. Hey those minerals are beneficial for batteries for rockets and missiles and other weapons of destruction. Just like North Korea, Russia is the land that accept your toxic waste so that you wont have to deal with it in your own countries. You think they are greedy but they are feeling the brunt, the burden of white men's burden. So, why Zelenskyy's fighting against the invasion or military exercises against them? When they were just trying to protect the Chernobyl.  He's a comedian! Maybe he wants to be Charlie Chaplin in revising History. 

SECRET. Secret. We don't really know the secret behind the invasion. Maybe the loads are too heavy and too high.

 

Memories

 16 DAYS TO CHRISTMAS. Haven't gone shopping yet. I am the kind of person who shop at the very last minute...lol when there's no choice anymore. 

Whatever. For as long we have plenty of delicious food on the table for the family to share with what could be other things you need?

Oh, okay so many of us would like seeing boxes and bags of gifts under the Christmas tree!

I know it is always that tradition that resonate with the holy festivity that after the Christmas Eve dinner, after the Noche Buena or the midnight snack the next morning is the unwrapping of gifts.

When my kids were still young, there were boxes upon boxes of gifts coming from my in-laws, from us their parents. The whole living room is full of gifts. The boxes are bigger because what's inside are bigger stuff: toy truck jeep 4x4 battery operated that can fit in two toddlers. A rocking angel fish that can fit in a toddler and another toy truck, a playhouse tent full of balls to play with, mostly toys, Nintendo games and videos or DVD's, small appliances, new TV or anything that fancies curiosity or whatever that makes us happy. As time progressed, boxes are getting smaller and much appreciated. Of course my children appreciated all those computers from Windows 98 to Vista to Millennium then up to Windows 10, so many iPads, cellphones, digital cameras from Canon, Nikon to Sony. 

Recently when computers are too pricey  and almost un-affordable when it's time not to purchase any computers anymore. Thank God! My son Cade knows how to do computer repairs. Things that go haywire, clocks and wristwatch that don't work or stop functioning, we have him do the repair and he can fix them all. He is the technician and mechanic of our computers and would you believe my computer is now 10 years old? Because of my son's technical knowledge and skills, our computers still function perfectly and at the level of high speed. So, thank you my smart, dearest son Cade. I always ask him to apply for work at Staples at the Technical Department knowing they really need technician. lol. But at their store, they will always offer the option to buy new computers. Weird right?

Anyway, what else to discuss? Opsi, gtg we have a special visitor here.

Ciao.

 

December 2022

 The first day of the month of December 2022. Hello December, goodbye November!

24 days from now is Christmas Day. Yey!!

Are you excited? Maybe or maybe not eh?

First, with tons of snow added from last night and some of you still busy shoveling the ground at your front yard, sidewalks and whatever is in front of you ...on your doorsteps. I know the pain, been there done that. I asked my hubby where all the snow shovels we had because I want to shove the snow outside. "It's gone!" he told me. Ha? How could that happened? He only uses one shovel and he takes it to his work. Did you know that every driver must have one or two shovels in their car's compartment/bunker just to make sure that if they get stranded on the high pile of snow on the streets or highways they could shovel themselves out and their car out from the snow hill. Every driver should at least a reserved thermal blanket , first-aid-kit, food/water as in snacks for the time that they had out there once they got stranded on the roads when the snow is not plowed. To make it even safe for motorists or vehicle owners to have their snow tires and snow chains for their tires, for their vehicles. How much could it be for snow tires then? I think the cheapest 4 wheel snow tires would cost $1,000. Well, that was 2 years ago. Now  that high cost of living and high inflation that could be more than that amount. That's why some people would rather stay at home and they don't drive when there's snow. Good that classes in schools are suspended in times after the snowstorm. But for the city workers, the work continues as they plow the roads and highways out of snow. Take care and be safe!

It's the calendar event of the month of December 2022:

December 8, 2022 - HAPPY BIRTHDAY CATHERINE!

 

December 19, 2022 - Happy Hanukkah

December 21, 2022 - Winter Solstice

December 24, 2022 - Christmas Eve

December 25, 2022 - Christmas Day - HAPPY BIRTHDAY BABY JESUS!

 

December 26, 2022 - Boxing Day

December 31, 2022 - New Year's Eve