Christmas Traditions

It had been a while since I've decorated the Christmas tree. Like years. Maybe even 10's of years. I'm not sure. I haven't lived closer than 500kms since I moved to Ottawa in 1997 so getting home to decorate is somewhat tricky. Normally I fly in a few days or maybe a week at most before Christmas to find the house already decorated and just walk straight into the Christmas cheer but this year was different.

It was our first Christmas without Dad and we all missed him. It just wasn't the same and the motivation to decorate was waning a bit. Steve and Matt had collected the tree though* and it wasn't going to decorate itself.

Technically I was supposed to start with the tinsel garland but I couldn't find it. To compensate I just used more lights. When I ran out at the top I had to switch to outdoor lights. Then I couldn't fit the Angel on the top. Then the tree fell over. It wasn't going to plan. But once I put the Neil Diamond Chirstmas CD on it took a turn for the better. Oh and Mom finshed up with her other stuff and everything started looking sparkly and Christmasy.

The Neil Diamond CD is a Christmas Tradition.** Another Christmas tradition is Egg Nogg with just a bit of nutmeg and a candy cane garnish served from a goblet. Despite only being 11am who am I to break with tradition?

Another tradition that has come to pass is the annual random, midweek Christmas trip to Peterborough to visit Sean and Karen. Poker is the traditional game but ever since the 2007 Project Chabal inspired Bearded-Garage-Shisha-Jenga,***Jenga has also featured prominently. Probably somewhat to do with alcohol consumption 2009 Christmas Jega resulted in this:

Christmas traditions are great. It's good to have a lot of them as well. That way on the years when circumstances and family considerations necessitate the discontinuance of, say a pint and a card at Shakespeare's or the Christmas Eve pub crawl, we still have the old ones to fall back on like champagne on Christmas morning:

and Catharine snooping for gifts:

and also new ones, like Christmas eve at Sylvia's house complete with excentric relatives and some basic Hungarian lessons and magnums**** of red wine:

or maybe a nice Chrismas Poem:

Merry Christmas. Missed Dad but he was there in spirit and I am very happy to have grown up in a family that values its traditions especially the silly ones:

Photos/Videos: 1) Team Christmas 2) After the tree fell over I put it back up, reinforced the hell out of the safety wire and then decorated the hell out of the tree 3) Mom helped too of course. 4) Nohing says Christmas like Jenga and poker at Sean and Karen's 5) 7am Christmas morning. Champagne? 6) Snoop. 7) Best. Christmas. Poem. Video. Ever 8) I was looking through my memory cards to see how my time-lapse-Christmas tree setup video came out - not well incidently - and stumbled on this from Cristmas 2009. It's one of those clips that makes me glad that I have 9 4 gig memory cards so I haven't deleted anything in a long time. :)

*As I recall it was about a three-beer job and Steve did most of the work.
**Neil's rendition of Santa Claus is Coming to town annoys Steve to no end which amuses me to no end and is an integral part of the tradition.

***As seen in the Big Book of Beardvember

****You might of thought I would have learned my lesson after the Movember party....but you'd be wrong.