There were several Powell gatherings around Christmas. Travis, Victoria and Adam came on December 8th to make cookies and decorate the tree, including the all-important “spearing the Christmas Angel” ceremony. David attended Bruce’s party on Dec 16th (see photos) as Anna was working and Mary-Jo was beginning to come down with some kind of tummy infection.
Victoria, Adam and Travis visited again on Anna’s birthday just before Christmas to give Travis and Victoria their presents and free up 10-20 cubic meters under the tree. Our cunning ruse intended to rid the house of all the wrapping paper debris failed, as Travis opened his presents here. Anna, Mary-Jo and I went out for dinner at a Japanese restaurant to celebrate her birthday and Mary-Jo’s recovery from the tummy thing. Unfortunately, by this time I had succumbed to the bug, but managed to enjoy some fine teriyaki salmon, and Anna had more oysters than you could shuck a stick at.
Anna made sure the floral department where she works had a profitable year by buying enough flowers and greenery to decorate several Christmas gatherings, and designed and built a centre piece that was Christmassy, elegant and low enough for everyone to see everyone else.
On Christmas day the Oakville contingent got to sleep in, and Adam arrived after noon before we had even opened stockings. Victoria and Travis were doing the rounds of her family in Kitchener. For dinner, Carolyn brought Gloria, Courtney and Nicolas, and Rob and Chloe filled out the table to ten which is about as full as it can get. I didn’t get any photos on Christmas Day – there were more important things to do! Besides, I was still traumatized from the annual exercise of trying to find a combination of photo equipment which would work with a remote clicker, and ended up with the old “press the button and try to run back, sit and smile in ten seconds” routine, which at least gets everyone else laughing at my efforts.
So it took two “kitchen waste” pick-ups to get rid of all the foliage and flowers, and a couple of weeks to get around to sorting and editing the photos and deciding on the family photo. In the end we had to steal a head from another photo to get a picture with everyone with their eyes open and smiling. Hint: the same smile appears in both group photos.
All in all, a very Merry Christmas!
One response to “Christmas in Oakville”
Always a pleasure to hear what’s happening at the Powell residence. Thx for sharing your Xmas blog. Geo