Despite the Omicron variant that scuttled some of our plans, we still had a good holiday break. Highlights of Christmas this year included:

A trip to the Festival of Lights to get into the festive spirit.

Decorating Gingerbread cookies to give to Astrid’s classmates.

A delicious vegan Ukrainian Christmas Eve dinner with 6 dishes (all homemade) – borscht, bread, perogies, cabbage rolls, beans, and salad.

Christmas morning was fun but surprisingly calm. Astrid slowly opened her gifts over 3 hours with time spent playing with each one and breaks to eat. A far cry from the mad dash to open everything I remember from my childhood. Astrid loved all her gifts – including the fairy garden, smoothie bar lego set, Barbie cast clinic, LOL Surprise dolls, and books.

We got two new board games this year Zombie Kidz Evolution and Wingspan. Both are excellent and have been played multiple times a day. They have quickly become our favourite games. I’ve been impressed with how quickly Astrid has picked up the the mechanics and strategy of both games.

As per our tradition, we got a new set of matching pjs.

White Christmases are rare in Vancouver, but we got a lot of snow and cold weather this year. We made sure to spend plenty of time outside tobogganing and enjoying the white stuff before the rain comes back.

Our Vancouver home is not designed to handle temperatures below -10C and we found ourselves purposely baking to get some more heat. We also placed blankets and towels next to doors and windows to prevent drafty cold air from coming in. Luckily we didn’t have any problems with frozen pipes like many others Vancouverites did.

The heated blankets I got Emily helped keep us cozy and warm during the cold snap.

Omicron caused us to adjust our Christmas plans and we delayed our family dinner to give Astrid’s runny nose and cough time to clear up. Emily and Mairy have since become sick with mild symptoms. Hopefully it stays that way and no one else gets sick but Omicron seems to be everywhere these days. Emily and Mairy both had rapid tests that showed negative for COVID-19, but they can be unreliable. We’re hoping 2022 brings good health and an end to the pandemic for everyone.

School has been delayed a week, so we have more time to rest, enjoy the snow while it lasts, and play more board games, but while juggling work commitments.

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