Happy Hogmanay!

Wishing you and yours a joyful and inspiring 2008.


God be here, God be there,
We wiss ye aa a canty year;
God without, God within.
Lat the Auld Year oot
An the New Year in.
-Traditional

Steeple Bells be Swungen...

Okay, a quick tree update. Turns out, Superstore trees are quite fine. It is fairly symmetrical and smells wonderful. So, no complaints here, it just lacked a little romance...

And now, because it's Christmas and because I am a sucker for good Christmas music, I present to you my TOP CHRISTMAS PICKS 2007. (please note: these are not necessarily my favourite Christmas songs, just a few that I think you should all try to listen to. 'Cause they're good.)


To help you with the whole "Spirit of Christmas" thing...
"In Praise of Christmas" as sung by Loreena McKennit on the album "To Drive the Cold Winter Away".

To be reminded of the beauty of the Nativity...
"Silent Night" as sung by Gene Autry and
"Silent Night" as performed by Over the Rhine on their first Christmas album "The Darkest Night of the year". (Note: there are two versions of Silent Night on this album. I mean the second one, "Silent Night (duet)".)

Both of these renditions will move you to tears, if you let them.

For your annual dose of Social Justice...
Forget "War is Over". Try Over The Rhine's new version of O little Town of Bethlehem, "Little Town" on the album "Snow Angels". You can hear it on the streaming radio ("Over the Rhine Record Player") on their website. Go listen. Really.

For Some Good Clean Christmas fun...
"Come on! Let's boogey to the Elf Dance!" from Sufjan Stevens' "Songs For Christmas vol. III, Ding! Dong!". Oh yeah.

There you go. Happy listening. (I am very sorry I could not find a good link for the Gene Autry one. Very sorry indeed.)

O Tannenbaum

We tried to buy our Christmas tree last night. It should have been an easy task. There is a place only a few blocks from our house that sells Christmas trees every year. They have lights strung up across their yard and often a fire going. The plan was to walk down there and bring a tree back in the sled. The only problem was, a few days ago we noticed that there were no trees in the yard. Okay, so they are out of trees, but surely they'll be getting more. After all, it is still two weeks to Christmas. Not so, apparently. We called to see when they would get more trees, and they told us they weren't. That's right, the Christmas tree place was ALL OUT OF TREES.

So we made a few calls to some people who might know where we could get a tree. Another lot we didn't know about, perhaps, or someone with a country property where we could cut ourselves a fine Charlie-Brown-ish specimen. The last thing we wanted to do was drive to the next town and get a tree at Canadian Tire, or, worse yet, SuperStore.

Long story short, we bought a tree at, ugh, SuperStore. Apparently there are no other trees to be had 'round these parts. I told The Music Man I want to start a Christmas tree farm and I was only partly kidding.

I will try to forget where we bought it and how much we paid as we set it up tonight and decorate it tomorrow. And then I will expend vast amounts of energy keeping Monkey from tearing it down. But it will have lights and ornaments (of the non-matching variety, of course) and a funny little angel on top, and our house will be Merry in time for Christmas.

Snow falling on Cedars

There is a large, overgrown cedar outside our bedroom window. It looks beautiful these days, dusted with snow. When we first moved in our neighbours (whose driveway it hangs over) hinted that they would not be at all upset if we took it down. It is a bit on the ugly side, but looking out our bedroom widow one can imagine that the house is deep in the woods somewhere. We are due for another winter storm tonight and The Music Man and I (not so) secretly hope for a snow day tomorrow. It snowed all day on Saturday, my birthday. It was snowing when we woke up and was still snowing, a gentle steady snow, when we went to bed. I think it was my birthday present from God.

I had a lovely birthday. It was a relaxing, at-home sort of day. The Music Man made chocolate chip pancakes for breakfast. The three of us played outside in the snow and Monkey was reacquainted with his sled (which still has a bow on it from last Christmas). I worked on some Christmas goodies in the afternoon. The Music Man made supper. We watched "How the Grinch Stole Christmas". Then, to top off the evening the three of us went out to a little coffee shop in town where I drank a perfect cranberry apple cider and ate Nanaimo bar. After Monkey was in bed, we watched the first part of "Love Actually", which we've seen a gazillion times and is still great, and which we first saw in the Cinema on my birthday when we lived in Edinburgh.

My birthday gifts seemed particularly noteworthy this year as well. We had a party with my family last weekend. My dad's birthday is two weeks before mine, so we often have a party in between. My parents gave me a new Paderno muffin tin (which I needed) and a cookie sheet (which you can always use). They also gave me socks, a Christmas ornament and three little bubble baths from Fruits and Passions. My brother, bless his heart, gave me "The Womanly Art of Breastfeeding" (which I need for my application to be a La Leche League Leader. More on that another time). Now, just take a minute to imagine your own brother going into a book store and buying you a book about breastfeeding. Exactly. What a wonderful brother I have. Monkey and the Music Man gave me a beautiful hand-knit poncho. It is a perfect shade of red and so cozy. And a box of chocolate truffles. I feel so blessed.

So here's hoping the coming winter storm is a whopper and that maybe, just maybe we'll be snowed in tomorrow.

Things I *Love* About a Manitoba Winter

Bearing in mind that it is actually technically autumn for another three weeks.

*How my car won't start, because we didn't plug it in. And then how it still won't start after being plugged in over night.
*How the back of my head hurts from the cold when I'm out walking, because the elastic in my toque is all worn out.
*How getting dressed to go outside now takes approximately six hours (give or take...)

Okay, but now some things that I actually love about a Manitoba winter...
*How everything is so pretty and white.
*How tomorrow is my birthday.
*How all the Christmas songs about snow actually mean something here.
*How a hot chocolate or cider is essentially mandatory after being outside for any length of time.

******

Some blog-business - -
Apparently NOBODY cares about the Blue Bombers losing the Grey Cup. For my American readers, a little translation...
Winnipeg Blue Bombers = a team in the Canadian Football League
Grey Cup = CFL equivalent of the Super Bowl

Some Monkey-Business - -
He is walking and talking like a crazy man. He says well over 20 words now (we lost track around 20). He is so much fun and has such a great sense of humour. He likes the snow ("no") so far, but he hasn't played in it very much yet, due to the ridiculously cold temperature. We are getting a little bored though, so if you have any suggestions for activities to do with a 13 1/2 month old, let me know...

A Blue and Gold Mourning

Why?

Why do you do it Blue Bombers?

You get our hopes up. Really up. And then you let us down. Always letting us down. But we always hope. Maybe next year. There's always next year.

You were supposed to do it for Milt. If you couldn't do it for him, how will you ever do it at all?

Oh, Bombers.

BREAKING NEWS

Music Man stumbled across what is, officially, the BEST BLOG EVER.

Go check it out. I "guarantee" it will make you smile.