Christmas 2023

The Mother wanted a nice Christmas photo of me. I was accommodating as usual.

We headed to the Great White North for Christmas. It is a good thing we have a minivan because we brought everything…even the air fryer and knives.

Our destination – Silverstar Resort. Same place as last year.

We chose a different condo this year. The Bigs were worried it was a mistake. It was not.

We have lots of room and can cook all our meals – which makes The Mother who is ‘frugal’ (euphemism) happy. The Bigs had concerns about our ‘vacation’ based on my Christmas card to them. The were worried it might not be relaxing.

No naps and alpine and cross country skiing every day!!! Well Day 1. Here we are downhill skiing…

followed by some skate skiing in the afternoon.

I am not even vaguely tired, cruising by the camera so fast I am a blur.

Day 2. Alpine.

Followed by some nordic classic skiing. Don’t worry, I did NOT ride the lift behind me.

After all that skiing, I needed to hit the hot tub.. Perhaps as not as bad as The Bigs…

Next up, I insisted on playing Life, ( I opened a lot of my xmas gifts before we left), thanks Uncle Jim. I feel like Pop played this game as a kid and internalized the message – he who retires with the most money wins.

Day 3. New snow and a sunny day.

I attacked a double black diamond and survived. The Mother is smiling for this picture, but she is crying inside – she is so tired.

I let The Bigs off easy and did not demand a x-country day on Day 3. On Day 4, we fueled up for a big x-country ski at Sovereign Lake. I made my breakfast look like The Mother’s new hat – see pictures later in this post to understand.

Sovereign Lake.

After skiing over 10 miles, I needed to refuel with some poutine. Fries, gravy, and cheese curds. Is there a better combination?

After that quick pit stop, it was time to ice skate.

See The Mother’s new hat? Ear flaps. Guess she is tired of being cold.

After ice skating, the hot tub? Nope. Time to tube.

Let’s just say the tubing was terrifying (for The Mother, at least) in a ‘fun’ kind of way.

While we brought all kinds of food and the air fryer, we decided to try a restaurant while we were here. We went to the Spice House (Indian Fusion). We had

Vegetable Pakoras (vegetable pakoras with mint aioli, mango pickle dressing, papadame and cucumber).

Basmati rice bowl. Tumeric rice, fried onions, radish, mixed greens, tadka dressing, mint aioli, tomatoes, red cabbage slaw, chutney, avocado mix, pickled onions and pumpkin seeds with butter chicken.

Butter chicken (butter sauce with fried onions and chicken thighs, served with naan).

And chana masala (chickpea and cumin curry topped with fried onions and coriander served with rice).

The Bigs have been making some pretty good meals too. For breakfast before our big x-country ski they made an omelet, homefries, and LCLOB bread.

They also made an amazing Xmas eve meal

of broccoli, tuna, shrimp, pita,

and mussels.

Santa was able to find me, despite being 581 miles from home.