Joyeux Noël

Here are a few pictures of the past two days spent with my wonderful family.

Christmas Eve afternoon - Luc is assembling all the different variety of candy in the appropriate candy dishes.

Christmas Eve - our traditional lobster supper.



Christmas Eve - gift unwrapping...



Beautiful warm winter hat from my daughter. And the stole was hand knitted by my very special niece... that's what was in my special gift. I love it very much, it is something I will use often.



Our daughter's fiancé, André.




Christmas Day - my brother Ken joined us for Christmas dinner.

... so did my mom.

Christmas Dinner.

MERRY CHRISTMAS TO EVERYONE !!!!!

Pre-Christmas activities

We are having a wonderful and joyful time as a family. Ginette and André arrived safe and sound from Moncton, New Brunswick on Friday afternoon.

Below - Friday evening, Ginette helping her papa bottle red wine.

Puss is also visiting from Moncton.

We had two amazingly sunny days (Friday and Saturday). Perfect Christmas weather - snow covered fields, sunny, no wind and all the roads were clear. However, forecast for tomorrow (Christmas Eve) is for rain :-(



This evening while I was cooking and baking (something I love doing very much) the rest of the family had a ''family game night''.

One last picture of all the unwrapped gifts under the tree. Tradition in our family is that we open our gifts Christmas Eve.

Hope everyone is having a grand old time with family and friends. And please, let's not forget those that are ill and in the hospital.

A gift

Another pleasant surprise... received this wrapped gift from my niece yesterday. Now believe me when I say I am not one to open gifts or peek inside a gift before Christmas Eve but this one is ''driving me crazy'' :-) but I will hold on to just a few more days.

Old

This cute little guy has adorned our Christmas tree for almost 20 years. It used to belong to my husband's father when he was a young lad (and I think it was given down to him so it dates many years). His suit is made of cigarette box foil. He is very delicate so we are very careful with this family treasure that we hope to pass down to our kids.

Rag Quilt

This is my first attempt at making a rag quilt (or any quilt for that matter) and my first attempt in over 30 years at trying my luck at a sewing project again. It was to be a surprise for my 26 year old daughter that is arriving for Christmas in two days but I just could'nt wait to share my finished project with you all out there in blog land.

I will be honest with you - I think I ''might'' enjoy sewing and I'm thinking of starting another project after the holidays.

Sweetness

Mother Earth Sweetness...





Homemade sweetness...

Made this cherry pie this afternoon and this morning I made a huge batch of old-fashion molasses cookies (my grand-mother's recipe).

Birch tree skin

Never, ever have I received such a special Christmas card (besides cards given to me by my two adorable children). Seriously, when I got this card in the mail yesterday ''it blew my mind''. It is the very creative thinking of my cousin Aurèl and his lovely wife (and my friend) Clarisse. Everything you see (except for the two feathers and the deer skin twine... and the postage stamp of course) is made of birch bark. And the message is sooooooo touching.

The back of the envelope.

The contents.
The story of the two feathers - last February this same cousin showed and helped me make a deer skin drum (I have pictures that I could post but I can't find them at the moment). The knowledge that Aurèl has on the history and traditions of the Mi'kmaq is amazing. He is a very talented person and I am so lucky to have him in my family. OK, back to the two feathers. On my drum he engraved the image of two feathers and he told me my new name was ''Victoire (yes, my official name) Deux Plumes (two feathers)''.

Tonight at yoga class when my instructor is going to ask us to think of each an individual happy thought while meditation - this is it... hands down !!!

I am over flowing with tears of happiness. Thank you ever so much. You've made this a very special Christmas.

Yoga - Home practice

Last year, after doing yoga for some time, I decided I needed my very own personal home practice. I was used to going to a yoga center a few times a week or I would do my yoga routine at home in the living room. The first thing I did was locate a place in which to practice in a quiet and comfortable location in our home. I cleared a corner of our moderately large bedroom, put down my mat, pillow and comfy blanket and I made an altar space on which I placed a statue, incense and a soy candle. I knew I had to do whatever I needed to do to make the room appealing so that I would want to be in it.


My husband made these two paintings for me. He is a very talented artist - as a musician since his teen years and three years ago we discovered he was just as talented at creating art. These two paintings hang in my corner also. The first is pretty self-explanatory and the second is an abstract entitled ''The Joy of Yoga''.

5 minutes at Frenchys

Dave and I stopped at Frenchy's tonight for not more than 5 minutes and look at what I found.

In the past I've affirmed to everyone that I hate sewing, I've hated the idea of sewing all my life. But you know what, this blogging thing is slowly but surely making me change my mind about sewing. I see all the neat stuff bloggers are making and... (ok, I will say it) I think I'm going to try my hand at it. I've borrowed by daughter's sewing machine to work on my first sewing project which I can't post about before after Christmas because the person it's for sometimes reads this blog.

Now this fabric just blew my mind away when I found it in the scrap bin at Frenchy's tonight. There is over two yards. I know what you're thinking - it looks like a painting.

What kind of ''easy'' sewing project could I tackle with this beautiful fabric.

Tickets and a cute card

Dave and I have such wonderful friends. One member of this group gave us tickets to a Christmas Concert Sunday evening. Members of this group and another group are performing. The concert takes place at the theatre at the university where I work.

I got this cute Christmas card in the mail yesterday. It's from my childhood friend Maureen.

Tree

Every year when I open the box of Christmas tree ornaments I get so excited at seeing what I find in the box... each and every one of our ornaments are very sentimental to us. For instance, the candy cane on the left was made by my daughter's tiny hands first year of pre-school and the reindeer on the right was mastered by my son in first grade. You bet these two ornaments have a very special place on the tree.

Poor Miss Tabi - we have no other place to put up our tree but where her bed is usually.

Well, I must leave you for tonight... I have a tree to decorate. Will post pictures tomorrow.

Yoga

Yoga... this is a new label for my blog. I am going to integrate the subject in my blog postings, because it is very much a part of my life and blogging is all about journaling one's life happenings - right ! Here is the cutest most dedicated yogi in my repertoire. My niece's daughter, Jayla.

I practice daily at home, I go to our local centre once a week to practice with an experienced instructor and I go to about 5 workshops a year. My plan is to go for my teacher training... sooner than later I hope. But for me, yoga is soooooooo much more than the asanas (poses). It's a lifestyle. I will post more on my yoga lifestyle later. (Please keep in mind that all opinions on the yoga subject expressed in this blog are solely "my opinions" not everyone will agree with what I say and that is still fine).

For now, I shall leave you with - Shanti, Shanti to everyone !