It's Beginning to Look a Lot More Like Christmas

I don't suppose I ever feel really ready for Christmas, but we are sure getting closer as the countdown continues. My husband helped me put the lights on the tree on the weekend (I've always done it by myself before, but this year even the ladder didn't allow me to reach the top). So then my 9 year old daughter and I put on most of the ornaments (the top ones and the star were placed from the loft). We still have more we can add, and we need to add the tree skirt at the bottom, but it's beginning to look pretty good (click any of the photos for a slightly larger view):

We tried out our new "cookie tree" kit which we bought from Regal Gifts this year It turned out pretty good, except we discovered that if you stacked only one cookie of each size (which is implied by the kit), the tree turned out too short (tree on right). When I discovered this, and started stacking approx 2 of each size (tree on left), then it looks much more proportioned like a real tree.

My 7 year old son made a cute "gingerbread" house at school, except it is made from graham wafers, "glued" together with icing:

Now all that's left is to wait to find out whether our family will all be able to join us, due to the heavy snowfall lately. My in-laws recently moved out into the valley (to Agassiz), where they've had fierce winds and even the TransCanada highway was closed one day. Here in Burnaby, it has been very cold but with little or no wind. We've had more snow (more than a foot here) than usual, and certainly unusual for this early in the winter.

I understand that the Inuit have 7 different words for what we call "snow". The kind we've had is the dry-and-no-good-for-snowmen-type-snow. So instead, the kids did their best to enjoy it in their toboggans today.

Here's a few pics of the kids, trying a snowboard approach to the sledding:


They were happy to have their cousin join them today as well:

I like this photo of him, caught in mid-air as the "snowboard" is slipping away from under his boots... (Good thing the snow provided a relatively soft landing.)