Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, or Whatever

However you say it.....its holiday Season everywhere! Snow on the ground, decorations hanging, and sales all over the place. How could you NOT be in the mood? oh right, work.....always gets ya through the holidays. Everyone is working for those dollars, which are immediately spent on the weekend for Christmas gifts, more decorations and of course FOOD!

Nothing taste sweeter over the holidays than food. Seriously. The amount of times we make the same jigs dinner throughout the year and its just never the same as at Christmas. Turkey, ham, salt beef, potatoes, carrots, turnip, cabbage, peas pudding, and stuffing (my favourite!!). This year we had such a big turkey - we had to name him. Jeff (that's what we named him) sat at just over 32lbs - probably one of the bigger turkeys we've had in a long while! It wouldn't be Christmas (or Boxing Day) without Turkey dinner for lunch and dinner; its always better the second day!

Adriana absolutely loved Christmas!! She's starting to understand the whole Santa comes with presents and we eat lots of food. She was definitely spoiled again this year. I seriously have to make room for all the toys she got plus clean out her dresser to make room for the clothes! Toys will take more time as I have to figure out which ones she doesn't need anymore - probably all of them lol I want to put a bookshelf in her room instead of the massive toy storage she has right now. The baskets are handy for things but half the unit isn't being utilized proper.

It was nice to have Kim and Tim back for Christmas! Feel the love <3

It was Loni and Chris' first Christmas with the Decker;s too

 

 Adriana is Grandad's sookie girl!

The boyfriend and I

Adriana all decked out in her Princess Sofia outfit with Aunt Loni

This is Jeff and he weighed over 32lbs!!

I must admit that the days leading up to Christmas day wasn't as festive as I had hoped. Saturday the boyfriend and I gave our time to hand out turkeys to the less fortunate. It was an unreal feeling to see the amount of people who were grateful for a decent size turkey for the holidays. There was no specific age or gender or size of family - we saw it all! From older people to young families who trekked out to pick up their turkey in the cold rain. For the entire day week I was very emotional. It was my first time volunteering with this turkey drive and I hope to continue helping out - even include Adriana next year or the year after.

If you haven't heard on he news about the Toronto Ice Storm December 2013 then you may not know there were hundreds of thousands of homes without power. We were one of those homes. The ice storm hit Saturday night and continued overnight - by morning there was no power. We were actually at my parents house keeping the dog company. The boyfriend had come home to let Tyson out, feed him, shower and shave. Well he made it through half of the shaving part before the power was gone. We obviously couldn't stay here with Adriana - not power means no heat! We stayed at my parents house for the night where it was warm and had lights at least. More than half of our street ended up getting power back late on Sunday night but we were not one of them. We carried on thinking it will be on my the next day - nope.

It was a hard day at work because I couldn't stop thinking about our house with no power. At this rate there was a possibility of not spending Christmas at our home. During the day, The boyfriend was back and forth between our house and his moms (she lives down the street and had power) On the way home from work, I cried. The ice was all over the tree branches which had weighed down so much they broke off. Some landed on the ground but others landed on houses, cars, or signs. It turned our beautiful neighbourhood upside down. The picture isn't even the more recent ones.....a lot more branches are down and some are still stuck on other branches. This happened 5mins after bringing Tyson inside - we turned around and watched 5 big branches fall. Scary to think if we had left him out for a few minutes longer what would happen. We are all okay - very thankful for family close by and the space to take us in on short notice. We weren't the only ones without power - Kim and Tim who at least had a real fireplace to keep warm for the night. As well as Loni and Chris who had to climb the stairs to their 19th floor apartment with their dog!

Christmas has always been about spending time with family and friends. This year more than ever we felt the true meaning of Christmas. Family was around and very grateful to share that time. We don't see each other every day so the few days we did have (and didn't have to work) was very nice. We shared drinks, ate food, snuggled to watch movies and just relax. I thought of those who still didn't have power on Christmas day and my heart definitely went out to them. Not everyone is as lucky as we are to have family around. Despite the damage, the spoiled food or the lack of heat - it was a beautiful Christmas. Thank you.