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Yuletide & Gregorian new year

Yuletide & Gregorian new year

Yet another Yule has come and gone. In November, I generally wrap up all of the gift-buying I need to do, head to a local greenhouse for evergreens to decorate our home and so I start December being able to focus on friends and family events. Besides, it is our family’s favourite time of year: Advent calendar season! My kids prefer microdosing Christmas with Advent calendars rather than getting big gifts on Christmas morning, so we put a lot of energy into that.

After a lacklustre experience with expensive store-bought calendars, Mr. Tucker and I started making our own last year and the kids LOVE them. The days are mixed up with more expensive treats (ie: a locally made jewellery tray) interspersed with less expensive things (bulk purchased face masks) and every day is a surprise – often to me, too, as I always forget what I’ve put in there! We also do the used book calendars for all four of us – keeping what looks interesting and then returning the rest to the used book store. This year I also nabbed a chocolate calendar from Ikea which was fun but I think next year I may opt for one from an actual chocolatier so that there is less marzipan (we all loathe marzipan).

The first weekend of December found me heading up to Almonte for their Light Up the Night event. My friend’s husband said it best, “It’s a family event that is cheesy in all the right ways!” We headed up to my friend Katherine’s place and nabbed a Swiss Chalet Festive Feast for dinner (a Canadian classic!) before heading downtown. It was actually a pretty lovely evening hosted by Wayne Rostad (I didn’t even know he was still alive) who opened with his song, “Christmas in the Valley” (which I had also somehow erased from my memory!). Almonte is a lovely little town that is famous for being Christmastown, USA in many Hallmark films.

The weekend was also slam-packed because I ended up taking two lovely craft classes with my friend, Kri. On the Saturday we made our own wreaths as a fundraiser for a local charity. On the Sunday, we headed to a local pottery studio with our daughters to create our own gingerbread house votive holders out of clay. Both were amazing days with friends and a great way to kick off the holiday season.

The second weekend of December found The Youngest kickstarting the snowboard season with a trip to Mont Blanc for some training. It was also the weekend to bake cupcakes for The Mission for their Christmas dinner on Sunday night. Locals sign up to bake approximately 3000 cupcakes every year and we’ve contributed for many years now. During the week was The Eldest’s winter band concert featuring such timeless winter classics as “Sharp Dressed Man” by ZZ Top and Camila Cabello’s “Havana”(WHAT?). The next day was my actual birthday so we went to AYCE Sushi with the kids as it’s their favourite (and I had already had my party the month before).

The third weekend had The Youngest take her three-day course to become a snowboarding instructor – she passed the teaching, but failed the riding. She will do a retest day soon. The Eldest had to also take a tethering training course as she is volunteering this year with Canadian Adaptive Snowsports (CADS) as a ski instructor. I also made a bunch of cookies for the kids to give away to friends. I made: chocolate chai, peppermint, London fog with white chocolate, pistachio, chocolate espresso swirl, and Skor chip.

We also hosted our yearly Winter Solstice party where we did collage bookmarks as a craft and tossed our wishes for the upcoming year into the fire. Winter Solstice is one of my favourite days of the year that I get to spend with some of my favourite people. It was an absolutely wonderful night full of food, friends, warmth…and a nice sprinkling of sparkling wine with a shot of summer fruit-infused brandy. I love that my children and my friend’s children all lean into how special Solstice is.

Of course, heading into the forth weekend, we hit Christmas proper en passant. For Réveillion we have my Dad and his partner over along with my cousin and his partner. We keep it simple, usually ordering Chinese food and laughing over drinks. Unfortunately, people are onto us and are also ordering Chinese food on Christmas Eve so it was a two hour wait. Next year I think I will just do a bucket of chicken or maybe just go with the more traditional Tourtière. In our efforts to uncomplicate family hangouts we have inadvertently made the food portion take too long. It was fine, we exchanged gifts, told stories and laughed but the lack of food had us in our cups way too early (lesson learned!).

Christmas morning saw Mr. Tucker and I get up early, make a fire, light the tree and enjoy a quiet morning with our mugs of coffee while our teenagers slept. We finally got them up around 10:30am and they got to open their gifts. Now, The Youngest only wanted ONE thing for Christmas and OF COURSE they don’t ship to Canada (they used to but with the tariffs everything became so complicated that they stopped). BUT one of my oldest friends, ShanBoo was coming up from Connecticut for Christmas to visit her parents. So on the 23rd, her, her husband, their tween and two dogs drove north in a snowstorm for 12 hours delivering Santa’s good cheer. So on Christmas Eve we drove to her parent’s place (bearing gifts of scones because they deserve it!) to pick it up. The Youngest was so sure that we couldn’t make it happen that she was over-the-moon (the Crooked Moon, in fact) to discover that Santa had pulled a miracle out of his butt and delivered the RPG she coveted. We spent the rest of the day eating leftover Chinese food and reading books. Since we made the decision to not do a huge family Christmas anymore and instead just hang out just the four of us it has really brought back my love of the day.

On Boxing day, the Stepson and his girlfriend came over for our little Christmas get-together. Every year Mr. Tucker and the Stepson cook a special meal together on Boxing Day and we drink way too much wine and catch up. I had bought them some liquor and wine from my trip to Prince Edward County in November (which I haven’t written about but I should!), including a lovely strawberry vodka and a red sparkling wine. While the men cooked, the kids, his girlfriend Kim and I all played Euchre. They also brought caviar but it was a HARD PASS for me as it’s not my cup of tea.

The forth weekend saw us heading out to a hockey game and starting to settle in to the Twixmas season of nothing days. I, personally, needed a recovery from all of the heavy food and wine as I had been mostly eating chocolate, meat and cheese. So I have been spending a lot of time by the fire, drinking tea and reading books (I have many library books out – as usual!).

Of course, everything came to a head on New Year’s Eve. Mr. Tucker and I headed out to the produce store to load up with fresh fruit and veggies so that we’d start the new year off right. Then I took a nap (I am 50! I can’t stay up until midnight without a nap!) before we headed out to our friends – The Shelidans – place for a trivia-themed party! It was an incredible night and I had a wonderful time. I met some new people and joined their team (which gave us +25 stranger points!). The team was so well rounded with everyone knowing almost all of the questions. In the end – WE WON! Even without the stranger bonus we won by 4.5 points so I am not mad about it! I think it helped that I was sober because some of the rounds went super quick. It was so well organized, everyone was lovely and it was the perfect way to ring in the new year.

New Year’s Day and we were just lazy. Today I booked Mr. Tucker and I in for massages (to start the new year off right!) and tonight will be – you guessed it – fire, tea and books. I am, afterall, predictable. I will at some point do a review of the past year and discuss the year ahead but for now I am just going to chill out, eat some vegetables and catch up on some reading.

Meat space

Meat space

Apologies for a really quiet fall. I Have been spending time in the meat space as part of the GREAT DISILLUSIONMENT I have been having with the online world.

Sorry that this is more of a list than a post, but you get what you pay for!


Bringing in the herbs

It has generally been a fairly busy autumn season as Thanksgiving & Halloween are generally chaotic times and then runs smack dab into Christmastide, which is just bonkers. Halloween is also our favourite holiday of the year so we tend to do a LOT at that time of the year.

I had a free night hotel reward I had to use so we headed to Kingston for the weekend to do Fort Fright at Fort Henry. It was only a day trip but it was good to get away and the kids love Fort Fright. Our friends invited us for Thanksgiving so we baked some pies before we left to bring with us on the Monday for dinner.

Our kids really lean into it by going to a local farm for their myriad haunted houses and other activities. We also do the obligatory pumpkin carving night. I love that our teens still are into dressing up in elaborate costumes and heading out to trick-or-treat. Gen-Z is truly amazing and I really like how they are more than happy to savour every moment of their childhoods. That meant we hosted 8 children for dinner before they headed out into the night. Mr. Tucker and I stayed back and handed out candy to the neighbourhood kids and it was a pretty great night.


 

My book-slash-travel-slash-trivia-slash-craft club went to Montreal for a weekend in November. We took the train which is still an absolute treat even for my adult self. We managed to grab a table together so we could chat and it was a relaxing fall ride through the countryside. We booked an Airbnb which was mostly accessible and right in the middle of where we wanted to be. We did all of the requisite Montreal things: lunch at Swartz’s, Bagels from a variety of amazing places, and a fun trip to Notre Dame cathedral for the sound and light show. But also we just chilled out, played games and chatted. It was a lovely weekend with friends.


Ok, we ate a LOT

Mr. Tucker took a 3-day knife-making course in November as well, in which he crafted a blade from a metal ingot, sewed a leather pouch for it, and carved a wood handle as well. It was an intense three days but he ended up with a fantastic Pukka knife that he made with his own hands.

We also did a knit Viking bracelet class at the Tool Library which was super interesting. It was my birthday gift to myself and we both came home with cool bracelets. Hopefully they will host another class in the new year because even though I was slow, I really enjoyed the process.

Mr. Tucker and I did most of our Christmas shopping in October and the beginning of November. This year, instead of buying Advent calendars we made them. They kids actually loved them and asked us to do that again next year. It was just things like lip balms, tea, face masks and stickers but it was fun. Right after Remembrance day, we finished all of the wrapping. Then all that was left was to nab the book-a-day Advent calendars from our local used book store and we were done for the year. I know that this seems INTENSE but December is a chaotic month between my birthday, Christmas parties, school concerts, the Winter Solstice party and Christmas that getting all of the gifts out of the way means I can lean in and enjoy the events…


Pics with Krampus at Coffin Creek


Decorating the tree


Advents

…and events there were! There were two PWHL games we got to end the year with, which was a teaser for January. I was sadly sick in bed on my birthday which was also the evening of The Eldest’s Christmas concert, so I was forced to miss it. We did manage to have cake, so YAY? I did manage to have my monthly dinner with friends from Dragon Boat and we went to the restaurant where my Stepson is chef, which was, as usual, amazing.

The parties were great: we have been having a friend Christmas get-together for around 20 years now and it has become more and more subdued over the years. In the beginning, we used to have these absolute ragers of food and drink where we were up until 6am still chatting. But we’ve become more sleepy in our old age and the party starts and ends earlier. I’m not made about it: it’s kind of lovely to have friends you can age with where you are all on the same page as the years go on. While we were out seeing friends, the kids were baking and decorating 4 dozen cupcakes for The Mission’s Cupcakes4Christmas event. They did an amazing job. I truly love having teenagers. They’re great!


We hosted a wonderfully quiet Winter Solstice party where we drank hot apple cider and made painted wood ornaments, strung dried citrus garlands and tossed our wishes into the fire with our hopes for 2025. It was low key and stress free, which is exactly how I like it. The kids invited friends so we got to share our 25-year-strong tradition with some new folks. It is one of my favourite nights of the year. A peaceful evening of fire, friends, food and introspection.

Naturally, that lead us right into Yuletide. Gone are the people-pleasing years of large dinners with the entire family descending on our home until Mr. Tucker and I were crushed by the weight of expectations, food, and alcohol. In the good way that the pandemic years turned everything on its head, we were happy to not have to host and so when restrictions let up, we…just didn’t host. The kids loved the new low-key Christmas where they didn’t have to dress up and perform like Circus animals for relatives with huge expectations. Shocking to no one: no one invited us to their houses when we stopped hosting. So it was, indeed, a fantastic decision.

Now we have a lovely Christmas Eve with my Dad and his girlfriend and my cousin (and his new partner joined us this year, which was amazing!). We order Chinese food, catch up and have a few drinks. Christmas morning starts late, we unwrap gifts and chill out drinking coffee or tea before Mr. Tucker whips up some crêpes for brunch and then we veg in our PJs and watch movies or shows. This year we watched the very last season of What We Do in the Shadows.

Finally, on Boxing Day my Stepson and his girlfriend come over and Mr. Tucker and my Stepson whipped up a feast before we have drinks and play Euchre. A perfect Christmastide, if I do say so myself.

So now we are smack dab into the Omen Days (intercalary days) or as I like to call them, “the days where we are made of just chocolate and cheese.” It ends with Women’s Little Christmas (or the Epiphany) (which I also wrote about last year). The plan is for the kids to have a NYE sleepover with their friends, a games night with our favourite folks, The Lytles and to generally putter around until school starts on January 6th.


Some last-minute wrapping on Yule Eve

Of course, so many other things have been happening including a bit of a personal renaissance (more about that soon) but it all comes down to this: I had planned to do a lot more in-person activities in 2024 and I DID IT. I had thought I was slacking on this goal but looking back even over the past quarter – I did a lot of stuff out in the Meat Space!

But I am getting ahead of myself…goals from 2024 and a wrap up is soon to come!

Winter Solstice 2023

Winter Solstice 2023

In the mid-90s my friend D started our Solstice traditions. We would all gather at her 200 acre farm in eastern Ontario (lovingly nicknamed The Pharm) and celebrate the turning of the year from light to dark, dark to light.

The Summer Solstice began with what she had called The Freak Family picnic. She had intended to gather people she had befriended from various usenet groups to coming out and camping. The beginnings of the FFP were wildly chaotic and many people came from all over the world (and in pre-9/11, some people even flew their own planes in). It was the event of the summer for years and anyone could come and camp out for the Solstice.

Winter Solstice you could only attend if you had already come to the picnic and had become friends with D and the others. Because Canadian winters could be bitterly cold, there was limited space in the house for people to warm up so you had to get along. It was no time to make new friends. Those gatherings were more intimate and quiet, with most people spending time going back-and-forth from the giant bonfire outside to shaking off the chill inside. We stayed up all night, watched the sun come up on the ridge and it was very much like pushing the reset button on your life.

The Solstice celebrations worked because it gave us a way to celebrate but removing a lot of the religious aspects. Since our friend group is a multi-faith group, it only seemed right to create something that we could all celebrate together. We chose our own traditions and rituals around what people have celebrated since, well, since there were people: the movement of the sun and moon across the sky.

Of course, life moves on and D has moved away from The Pharm (the last celebration being summer 2009) and it has since (sadly) been sold off. D has lived in various places around Europe and North America in the past 12 years and is now settled in upstate New York. There was a lapse of in-person Winter Solstice celebrations for awhile but we still managed to do a lot of online video meetings. Then, in 2017 a rare confluence of factors found that many of us could make it to a Winter Solstice, and so we hosted one that year. 2018 and 2019 were more subdued but many Americans came and local folks joined and then, of course, 2020 happened…


The last Winter Solstice on the Pharm, 2009

This year I was determined to host one because I felt that since the Summer Solstice we had a rough go. Between a broken foot, two surgeries and the destroyed condo, I needed to welcome the light back into my life. What better way to do that than good food & drink, great friends and a roaring fire? I wasn’t sure that anyone could make it but I put it out there anyway, and figured at the very least I would celebrate.

Shockingly, people came to town from Pittsburg and Toronto and stayed the night, friends I hadn’t seen in a very long time decided to stop in and we ended up having three generations of people join us – all descended from the original crew of Freak Family Picnic people. It was the exact right amount of new and old people and while some people did crafts, many of us just talked and caught up on many years of post-pandemic information. There was food, laughter and light, just the way it is supposed to be.


My baby playing with the baby of a woman who I played with when she was a baby

I don’t know what the next six months holds for our family but it did feel good to shake off the stress of the last six months with a celebration of light. Like many people, we are heading into Christmas and all the stress it can bring but I feel more grounded and relaxed now that Winter Solstice has rejuvenated me. I wish love and light to your families no matter where they are in the world, no matter what you celebrate. I hope the final days of 2023 see you closing out the year with reflection and with calm before the world kicks back into gear in January.

For those of you interested, we did a Celtic Omen Days craft this year where we made bookmarks to represent the upcoming year. There is still time to do it as the days technically start on December 26th.

2023 holiday preparations and my birthday

2023 holiday preparations and my birthday

Yesterday was my birthday. So because the Wordle is my love language, I told myself that the Wordle of the day would guide my birthday:

So Mr. Tucker made me breakfast that featured bacon!

Last week was a whirlwind of activities with friends and I am constantly grateful for the amazing people I have in my life. I forgot to post tree decorating pics, which happened earlier in the month. Last year one of The Americans* put together all of the pie pieces from the various thrifted Trivial Pursuit games she has and sent all of us our colours to be used in ornaments! They remain – to this day – some of my favourite ornaments.



Also, our friends The Cohens invited us over to celebrate Hannukah with them, which meant a lot of delicious latkes and donuts that they made for the occasion. We also got to hang out with their amazing babies, which is also a pleasure. The Cohens have such a lovely, close-knit family that it is such a joy to be around them all. I am grateful for their continued friendship – especially since they also live in the neighbourhood!

It’s funny because my friend’s daughter** married into the Cohen family and we have always stayed relatively close/in touch. It’s strange and beautiful that my babies are now holding/babysitting her babies when I used to hold/babysit her when she was a baby. The circle of life, Simba.



My birthday weekend was pretty great, all told.

Mr. Tucker and I chatted on Thursday evening about how things were looking financially. That came on the heels of him trying to install the microwave above the stove in the condo with a friend of ours…and it not working out. So now we have to find someone who will install it for us. SIGH. Finding someone to do the complete condo renovation was hard enough as it was because it was such a small job, which is why Mr. Tucker just DIY’d it. So now we’ve tripped at the home stretch.

But instead of getting down about it all, we’ve just decided to roll with it, assume he will have to work longer than anticipated, and then we promptly decided to free up some money in our budget for more fun things with the kids this holiday season.

While I am not a person who enjoys receiving gifts, I do enjoy experiences a LOT. So with the stress of this season upon us we made the decision to eat out not once, but TWICE this weekend. We had already planned to go out for all-you-can-eat sushi on Sunday for my birthday but we also went out to a mid-range steakhouse for dinner on Friday before hitting the mall. The Eldest was having a Christmas gift exchange sleepover at a friend’s place the next night so she wanted to grab some gifts.

We had an amazing time Friday night just having a leisurely dinner, hanging out as a family and chatting about our respective weeks. Was it expensive? I think I physically cringed when I saw the bill (don’t tell teenagers that they can order “anything they want.” Especially if your teenagers love lobster). Do I regret it? Not at all. It was a fantastic night, The Eldest got a steal on her friend gifts, we bought the kids Christmas pajamas as well and it was an easy night all around.

Saturday found The Eldest baking cupcakes for our yearly Cupcakes 4 Christmas donation for The Mission’s Christmas dinner. The Youngest spent the evening decorating them, and Mr. Tucker dropped them off bright and early Sunday morning.



While the kitchen was turned into a cupcake factory, I snuck out for an intro pottery class! I share a birthday with one of my closest friends and so three of us decided that we would celebrate together by trying our hands at the pottery wheel. It was…an adventure! While I loved the class – and it flew by so quickly – I feel like I would like more instruction and more skillbuilding that a short one-off class can give. I may look into longer classes next fall.



Our pottery will be fired and glazed and in a few weeks we can pick them up from the store. I am looking forward to it!

Sunday – on my birthday proper – I basically spent the day playing video games, as I requested. For dinner we had AYCE sushi at a (surprisingly great) restaurant near us. The food is good and they have robot servers, which is just charming. It’s less of a relaxing hangout type of dinner and more of a HOW MUCH CAN I GET INTO MY FACEHOLE type of event. I have long learned to not overdo it but my sushi-loving children went overboard and suffered greatly for it. I am still surprised at how much the kids can shove in there, it feels almost like it defies physics.

Back at home, Mr. Tucker and I had a few celebratory birthday drinks while the kids readied themselves for the school week ahead. We haven’t had a lot of time to just sit and BE so it was a lovely way to end a whirlwind of a week and a really great birthday.

Today I am in full planning mode for our Winter Solstice party on the 21st. Since people of all ages and from various places will be joining us after a long hiatus, I want to make it the best one yet. We haven’t had one since 2019 so I am very excited to host one again.

I hope you are all well and I wish for a non-hectic week for all!


*These ones are my Americans. Get your own.
**The daughter is the child of the woman who used to live on the 200 acre farm mentioned in the Wordle link.

Have yourself a merry little update…

Have yourself a merry little update…

We are fully in our #12DaysOfChristmasMovies era. So basically our evenings are dinner and a movie every night!

Today my friend K dropped off a fruitcake for Mr. Tucker – who loves the stuff! Her fruitcakes are particularly special because she candies all of her own fruit. He is very judicious with the fruitcake and savours every bite.

Tonight we are heading over to our friends The Cohens for dinner and Latkes and we are so stoked to see them! Life has been busy with all of our kids getting the flu and colds all through the fall so it’s been pretty impossible to make time to hangout. Since I had so much medical drama we haven’t really even seen them since the summer.

I am planning to host a Winter Solstice party on the 21st but I am trying not to get my hopes up that it will happen (but I bought food for it anyway, because I am an optimist!). It’s been canceled for the past 3 years for obvious (covid) and non-obvious (also covid) reasons. My hope is to have a wee party with crafts and fireside chats. I have also convinced The Eldest and Mr. Tucker to perhaps play some music for the event. Solstice is my favourite part of the holidays and it’s sad that I haven’t been able to celebrate it. I will send the invites out today.

Other than that, I am basically just playing The Witcher, reading books, hanging out with the family, and trying to plan for the new year. I have a few things I usually do and while I am not a resolution person, I am a planner by nature and have some plans for 2024.

To round this off, two links:

I cannot disagree with this list of books to buy for the beginner. In fact, I lost my OG copy of The Wealthy Barber and just bought a used one online. I still maintain that it is one of the BEST (albeit dated) books for a young adult to read if they are just starting out.

When the foundation is broken: Both Taylor and Britney had great success early on. They broke records and appeared destined for Great Things. Two decades later, Taylor is TIME’s Person of the Year, while Britney spends most of her time isolated inside her home and putting out weird Instagram posts. She is, by her own admission, struggling to put her life back together…I know we all know this, but it bears repeating: It is really, really hard to make a success of your life if your foundation is broken. It is hard to be “a source of light” when you are constantly fighting darkness, both inside and outside of yourself.