Fun meme, courtesy of...

Kelly :-)

Your Name: Teresa

1. Egg Nog or Hot Chocolate? Hot Chocolate. ALWAYS hot chocolate *g*.

2. Does Santa wrap presents or just sit them under the tree? He wraps them :-)

3. Colored lights on tree/house or white? Coloured, though with the very young (and not always so bright) cats, we can't leave the tree out. Maybe next year.

4. Do you hang mistletoe? Sometimes. Depends on whether I can find some and have somewhere to hang it.

5. When do you put your decorations up? Usually the first week of December.

6. What is your favorite holiday dish? Ok, now don't all go "eewww" - but it's pickled herring followed by a shot of vodka - a staple when celebrating Wigilia if you're Polish. Followed closely by my mum's stuffing and my mother-in-law's trifle.

7. Favorite Holiday memory as a child: I have so many - the last Christmas before my aunt died (I'm not even sure we knew she was sick yet), when my uncle came from Australia stands out as we had my dad's family together - there's a pic of me and my sis with my aunt that I love. There was also a ski vacation we took to the Eastern townships with another family. Like Kelly, I didn't usually like being away from home for Christmas, but that ski holiday was lots of fun. And then there was the year I poked my way through the gift wrap on one of the packages under the tree *g*.

8. When and how did you learn the truth about Santa? Ya know, I really can't remember! Just seem to recall that by about 9 or 10 I knew the truth. Though there was one Christmas Eve I swore I saw Santa and his sleigh up in the sky as we drove home from my uncle's house *g*.

9. Do you open a gift on Christmas Eve? Yep - it's part of the Polish tradition, where people open all gifts on Christmas Eve. We compromised with one. My sis and I loved that.

10. How do you decorate your Christmas Tree? With a mix of ornaments and lights. No tinsel or garland, cause of the kitties. But I never really liked tinsel much either. And often Bob and Doug MacKenzie's Christmas album playing ("...and a beeer in a tree") - didn't know about the South Park one!!

11. Snow! Love it or Dread it? Love it as long as a) I don't have to shovel it and b) it doesn't stay longer than a week or two. Though I do love it in the mountains when I go to ski.

12. Can you ice skate? Yes. Love ice skating. Will miss gliding down the Rideau Canal.

13. Do you remember your favorite gift? As a child it was probably a tie between my long-haired Chrissie and Timey Tell dolls. As an adult, the first Christmas gift Sean ever gave me - a big white teddy bear I named Nicholas clutching a brand new Sony walkman.

14. What’s the most important thing about the Holidays for you? Family and the food - especially the traditional Polish and English dishes.

15. What is your favorite Holiday Dessert? It's a tie between my mum's mince tartlets and my mother-in-law's trifle. LOVE them both. And always eat way too much!

16. What is your favorite holiday tradition? It's so hard to pick just one, so I'll cheat *g*. The first is the breaking of the oplatek on Christmas Eve (Wigilia) and the second is the English Christmas stocking - I love both buying and receiving all the cool little things, especially the chocolate. And I'm thinking of starting the Love Actually one Kelly mentioned - it's one of my fave movies and I picked up a copy in London Drugs recently!

17. What tops your tree? A fabric angel made of gold gauzy stuff and wings. (Sounds like Kelly and I have the same one *g*)

18. Which do you prefer giving or Receiving? I really like both - searching for and giving just the right gift, and the surprise of unwrapping packages myself.

19. What is your favorite Christmas Song? Again, I'm going to have to cheat here. My fave traditional carol is In the Bleak Midwinter while my fave Christmas song is Christmas All Over Again by Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers on A Very Special Christmas, Volume 2.

20. Candy Canes! Yuck or yum? Yuck. I'm not big on hard candy - prefer melty dark chocolate instead *g*.

Anyone else going to play??

Teresa

More snow and inspiration...

Yep, we're supposed to get more snow today. Yikes!!

And I had a moment of inspiration last night, so hope to do a little more writing today, once my other work is done.

Responding to comments:

Annette - yep, it does seem rather ironic *g*. We're getting the Ontario weather and you're getting the BC weather. Go figure!! Though it is supposed to rain again starting tomorrow.

Gabrielle - that's one thing about snow on the coast of BC, even when you get a lot of snow, it rarely stays more than a few days. But yeah, it would certainly make it easy to write a lot!

Kelly - LOL. Best thing is, we don't have to shovel it. Though I did clean the car off yesterday *g*.

Ok - on with my day. I did post yet more photos of the snow, including a very cute one of Tiva the dog, over on my Windshield Chronicles blog. So feel free to hop on over there and have a boo :-)

Teresa

Currently Reading: Book for review
Link of the Day: CKAY newswatch

Snow, snow, snow & more snow...

The subject line pretty much says it all. It started snowing Saturday and didn't really stop till last night and now it's flurrying again this morning. I'm not sure of the totals, but this is the most snow seen up here on the Coast in at least a decade. We did make it back from Vancouver before things went crazy, leaving the hotel by 8 am on Sunday morning. Downtown things were fine, but we knew the highway to Horseshoe Bay would be very snowy and as traffic built, things wouldn't be good. By the time we got to the ferry terminal we could tell it was going to be a bad storm.

Things were ok here till about 6:25 am yesterday morning when a tree went down on a power line down the road, cutting off our hydro service. We camped out up at the big house with my in-laws who have a propane stove, a wood furnace and a wood-burning fireplace. My mother-in-law and I even went snow-shoeing with the dog (on paws, not snowshoes *g*) and had a great walk, though the sound of branches snapping in the surrounding forest did make us a tad nervous.

Bedtime came early last night and by 7:30 pm Sean and I were sound asleep under duvet, comforter, blanket and cats. Just as Sean was getting ready to leave for the radio station at a very early hour, the power came back on and so far, knock on wood, it's stayed on. But it could easily go out again, so I'm staying prepared.

Here are some pics I've taken over the last few days:

A sign of things to come - snow up on Mount Elphinstone, taken Saturday morning on the way to the ferry terminal:



The storm from the window of the Queen of Surrey, Sunday morning - 9:15 am:



The snow outside our cabin as of Sunday morning, around 11:30 am:



What it looked like by Monday morning:






The view outside our bedroom window (where Cleo and Chloe love to sit):



What things looked like by 3:30 Monday afternoon - LOTS of heavy snow, bowing down the trees. The lake still hasn't frozen, though and it looks really cool, with the snowy trees reflected in its surface (don't think I can capture that too well with my little camera):












The view out my in-laws deck door:




The snow seems to be picking up speed again! Could be another interesting day. Am very happy Sean has a heavy, 4WD pickup to drive!!! I was going to post another couple of pics, but Photobucket now appears to be down, so they'll just have to wait till later.

It's back up - here's what it looked like about an hour ago - if you've got good resolution on your screen, you should be able to see the lake reflecting the trees if you click on the thumbnail for the full-sized photo:



*****
Re: my story - thanks for the suggestions :-) I'm still working on what to do, so it looks like my NaNo will top out at just under 23,000 words, which still isn't bad, considering. We'll see how things go over the next couple of days.

Teresa

Currently Reading: I'm between review books - have one more to go.
Link of the Day: Articles on the Craft of Writing at The Romance Club