a very traditional christmas

"traditional" to me is 4 things: snow, carolsinging, real fir tree (branches) and home-baked goods, and every year here i've strived, more or less, to accomplish what i could out of this list. obviously snow is not up to me, but this time around we were truly blessed - abundant snow on christmas day, on top of an already existing layer. and i think i did really well on the other 3.

nativity scene in front of the antiochian orthodox church at jean-talon, on christmas day

the weather last week made all sorts of adventures possible. first of all, B.'s skating plans: the lake in the parc is still not "resurfaced", as far as i know, but they opened two small rinks mostly for hockey-playing purposes. they accept lone skaters though!

kids getting ready: it takes about 20 minutes to put on skates properly, especially at -20C

attempts at hockey playing: the ice was a bit bumpy in this rink, so most people left for the other rink after about 10 minutes, leaving more space for B.

B. re-teaching himself to stand upright on skates, after one year. last winter he went skating on the lake about 3 times, and by the end of that he was pretty good. this time it took him about half an hour to catch up

after i felt pretty sure he wouldn't break his head, i went to take a tour of the park, because one simply can't stand still at that temperature. this is after 4 p.m. already (yay to daylight growing!). also the paths in the park were kind of icy, so i walked like a penguin, but apparently the more tiring it is, the more beneficial the exercise. i don't know when this lake will be ready for skating, but i'm guessing in 2018

next day, on mont-royal, in an attempt at window-shopping. not much to see around, mostly because i was looking for tree branches and their metro station tree market had already been dismantled. luckily i found my branches at jean-talon market (guy is breaking small branches and throwing them into a trash can. me: "please don't throw those, give me a couple! - guy: "2 dollars!" - me: "oh alright, i'll just take some from the trash then!" - guy: "2 dollars and i'll give you this bunch of mistletoe too!" bargaining, blah.)

to kick off the "silly in the kitchen" section, this is a hot drink that B. made with milk, almond paste, saffron and cardamom. he gives me to drink and tells me this is what pregnant women in india used to drink in order to have fair-skinned babies. hey, wait a minute!

 cornuleţe, first time attempt. dough gets rolled over the filling of walnutty goop inside. my filling was too liquid, but still turned out pretty decent. i overdid it so much with the walnuts!!!in everything this year

final stage is rolling them through icing sugar, whereupon they get a very "finished" look, like they're real pastry; by the time i took this pic half of them were already eaten.

also first attempt at gingerbread, which turned out to be shockingly easy to make. no actual ginger in the recipe, just lots of honey and spices; and yes, the glaze for a finishing touch

then you have to let them dry a bit, but they're supposed to stay soft and taste not-stale for about two weeks - though i guess weĺl never know.

cozonac - not my first time, but a very involved recipe. i've mentioned that before this year i hadn't really experimented with yeast - for some reason the previous times i made sweetbread it didn't rise properly. still no idea why, and why this time it did.

the middle of this thing is more walnut filling than cozonac. aaaand there was one more cake, classic-type, that got eaten without pictures, because classic cakes are not picturesque enough.

snow on christmas morning. since i had so many branches, i decided to split them into multiple decorations - i mostly want them for the smell anyway. checking out pictures of last year, i see that i did pretty much the same thing as now: light ornaments (paper cut snowflakes et co.) on the big branches, most of the other ornaments in a basket (from where tina loves batting them down, but only at night when she gets bored). an innovation this year was the branch i put outside on the back porch (it should have been on the front door, but i'm shy) - it quickly got lost in the landscape! (ah, and behind it that's a crane, in case you couldn't tell)

this orchid always has a very good sense of timing

i can't carolsing with B., so i did it with my parents on skype, on christmas eve. but i did take him to church on the 25th!! as usual, for the last 5 minutes of the priest's address, just enough for me to light a couple of candles and say a very short prayer. so i guess this snow-spattered photo is our official christmas family picture??

after which, in a new-twist tradition, we crossed through the park to go and have lunch in an indian restaurant, since all eating places in villeray were closed. damn it, almost all indian restaurants were closed too! christianity - so evil.

do not feed the squirrels! they are fending very well for themselves and don't need your food.