While I miss family and friends back in Canada, I don’t miss freezing my nether regions! I come from a place where winter can mean -40’c without windchill… factor that in and we’re talking -60’c or worse… Brrrr!!!
Yet there is a perverse pride in surviving and thriving in such conditions and I know one of these years I’ll be back and enjoy it with immense gusto! (Confident a couple of planes later I’ll be home with palm trees and sandals).
Triple tree action at the Taj Land’s End
I last celebrated Christmas in “Winnipeg” (affectionately known as “Winterpeg”) in 2002. And as I prepared for my partner’s family to come home for a Christmas Eve dinner, I’ll admit to being possessed by sentimentality for snowy white stuff and those ever so special people who are dear even if not near!
So while blasting the Mediaeval Baebes‘ Mistletoe + Wine, cooking up an eclectic mix of khanna (food), there was lots of extra love winging its way around the world from India to Canada with many other places in between and further afield.
Happy holidays to all who celebrate this time of year!
From St Leo’s Road, Bandra
Everyday Asia 
Today, Christmas Eve, we are getting our first snow. We didn’t have any snow last winter despite the fact that we live on a plateau in the mountains. Of course this is the Cumberland Mountains of Tennessee. Nevertheless, these mountains used to get snow every year, one or two inches at a time, dry ground in between storms, happening at least five times during the winter.
I hope you thoroughly enjoy your tropical festivities. 🙂
Enjoy the fluffy white stuff! All that climate change plays havoc with weather patterns, eh? As for tropical festivities, that’s just life as normal now – but many thanks! 🙂
Glad you’ve managed to escape the cold! Snow is nice, but so is not -40! Have a great holiday!
Haha! Indeed – clearly I’m not a fan of winter. 🙂
Enjoy your Russian ‘non-Christmas’ and congrats again on getting hitched!!
We’re having bucketloads of rain, which is crap… but if I never had to see snow again, that’d be fine by me. And I come from a snowy place.
Enjoy the holidays!
Don’t get me wrong, there is a time and place for a glorious shower of rain, but being wet, cold and miserable on Christmas?? Something is just WRONG with that! However guess that is an excuse to crack open more hot mulled wine??
I’m not much of a winter person myself, even though -20 something C temperatures are the worst we sometimes get here, and I can do just perfectly without snow and all, but somehow just for the holiday season I prefer it to be white. Then snow be gone! On the other hand, this year it’s snow-less and sunny, and I have a vague feeling that I should dye some Easter eggs for this extra early Easter instead of decorating the Tree.
Anyway, merry Christmas to you! And many and many new pieces of this blog to come 😀
Many thanks for the Xmas wishes! I do understand the sentiment for fluffy white stuff… but in Winnipeg winter doesn’t just pop its head in to say hello for Christmas then leave… Nope it kicks you in the arse at Hallowe’en and then over stays its welcome for months and months. I ever remember a blizzard in May?! And people wonder why I live in India???
Hello and thanks for the visit over at CTB ;D Your blog sounds very much like mine… a Canadian living far from home with a traveling spirit 🙂 This is our first Christmas away from home and it felt strange and like something was missing. We enjoyed the warm weather, travelling adventure and sights and sounds of Cambodia this year. We missed the family, but after the snow storm after storm (5 days) then rain and freezing rain back to snow all leading up to the week we would have arrived we are glad we decided to stay away. We probably would have been stuck in an airport somewhere, as the ice storm was hitting at home, for a day or so cutting our precious days home to less. Southern Ontario hasn;t seen such bad weather maybe ever.
Funny how Canucks scatter around the world, eh? And certainly this year Ontario has experienced a tough time with mother nature.
Am sure it is different being in Cambodia than Canada – at least here in Mumbai and Bandra specifically Christmas is a pretty big deal – lots of lights on trees, Christmas trees all over, can get turkey (if that’s your thing) with all the fixings.
And I’ve been away long enough to have created new traditions. Yet obviously still miss family and friends.
Enjoy your time here, there and everywhere!
Thanks 🙂 it is very different here and they try hard to create Christmas for us. Some hotels go all out, but our low budget one hasn’t. New Year’s Eve promises to be an event though. The few tourists here has grown to a crowd. Should be a fun night.
Happy new year!
Enjoy your eve! I try to avoid hotels or public gatherings on New Years…. our original plan was to escape the city however now looks like we’ll be hosting a wee gathering at home… Funny how that happens 🙂
Lol yes sneaks up on you sometimes. Hope you had a nice time. Small gathering at home is my favourite way to bring in the new year, but this year we decided to do the holidays different, so we had to check it out.
We did indeed – both Xmas & New Years were small gatherings at home or at a friend’s home. Most enjoyable! Hope your experiment with ‘something different’ was a smashing success!
It was fun and alwayss gives me something to blog about 😉 The time away in warmer weather was good to recharge and relax, so worth it.
Ah… recharging and relaxing time are well worth taking every once and awhile! Bravo!
Yes as a teacher it is important to recharge!
I like being warm but for me the Christmas season has to be all about the snow. We’ve had such a white winter in Moscow so far – I am so happy!
What fun! There is a charm to puffy white snow too… however I much prefer my chappals (sandals)… thinking of going to Goa for some beach time in the next week or so… 🙂