winter walk

food

You can't have holidays without traditions around food. Family recipes passed down, that make each holiday feel a bit the same; new traditions that are starting to stick and feel just right; and special dishes that remind us of those that aren't with us anymore.

We had Grandmaman's gumdrop cake accompany many holiday celebrations from solstice through boxing day. Christmas Eve has started a tradition of snacks, appetizers and mushroom/sherry/thyme soup, followed by a bonfire and then back inside for coffee and sweets. And all those extra snacks are perfect for pulling out for guests over the following days.

The traditional turkey dinner served by my Mom was a smaller affair with just six adults and the 2 kids. She tried a new butternut squash with fennel, in place of the turnips with bechamel sauce. Those turnips are a classic, so she had a big challenge ahead of her in changing things up. It was a success, the butternut squash was so good, we'll be hoping for it again...good thing there is Thanksgiving, so the turnips still have a place too!

And you can't forget Christmas oranges to tide you over until breakfast which isn't until after all present opening and playing.

xmas morn

Still wading through images for the fam to see...

Here's the essence of our morning. Excitement ~ surprise ~ fun ~ slowing down.

Sipping coffee, playing with and setting up each gift for a while before opening another.

light and warmth

the shortened, colder, bleaker days make us crave light. and warmth. and colour. all these things we long for from the summer months make their way into the celebrating.

on her second christmas

There will be some reflecting back, some clusters of posts on here for a bit. We were so immersed in the holidays, and I'm just getting to the photos now. Which is a good thing. I'm not going to stop the steady flow of experiencing the day to day, just to blog about it. And sometimes that flow of life is just too full, or too hectic.

There has been a bunch of iphonography and instagramming going on, because I do love the convenience of documenting the everyday. But for the holidays and as often as I can, I do like to pull out the DSLR and go through the slightly longer process. Is iphone to DSLR what digital was to film? I still have a roll in my Pentax K1000, it has been there since 2009... there are still a few frames on it. Mmm...I love all the spectrums of photography.

So here is baby girl on her second Christmas. I guess the instagram has influenced my soft spot for the square frame...or maybe it was medium format a while back... that first roll that I put through my Grandpapa's Yashica-A (that had documented my father as a boy).