Post for a snowy winter's night - the Spirit of Christmas

I was inspired by a Gordon Lightfoot song when I thought up the title and found a beautiful artistic video of Song for a Winter's Night below. Please click on this video so the song is playing while you read on. I hope you enjoy it and thanks for reading my snowy night ramblings. May this song and post make you have fond memories too. And be sure to enjoy the Peanuts video at the end of this post (obligatory dog content!)


Song for a Winter's Night-Gordon Lightfoot
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The truth is, this snow makes me feel happy because it reminds me of home and lots of snowy nights and fun walks in the snow up in my field and other places around Thunder Bay. I can't believe a year has passed in my little church house. I took these pictures when I got home (my new home, which is feeling more and more like 'home')...I just decorated my front steps on the weekend, complete with lights. I finally have an exterior outlet, and can pull my car up in my new driveway to within 10 feet of it! I don't even want to get into how hard it was last winter, with no outlet and no driveway! I shoveled for an hour and played with the dogs who LOVE the snow! The picture below is River and her bucket in my field in Thunder Bay. I do miss feeding the sheep but River still does a bucket dance every day in the yard when I come home from work! I will have to get a picture. We all crashed for the rest of the afternoon, only to wake up and find twice as much snow - as if I had not shoveled at all!! The Alberta Stockdog Association annual meeting scheduled for tomorrow is postponed. I am so sad, it was going to be in Innisfail, fifteen minutes away - and I was so excited to see everyone. I plan to spend the day tomorrow baking cookies instead. I know this sounds funny but in almost twenty Christmases in my house in Thunder Bay, above, I never baked cookies or even cooked one Christmas Dinner because it was never spent in my own home - even though I knocked myself out decorating every year because I just love Christmas - it is such a sentimental and loving holiday and a time to remember what is truly important and share our love with our friends and loved ones. In fact, aside from putting up lights and decorations, I really have no Christmas traditions of my own which makes it really fun and easy to forge some new ones here in Alberta with my new friends. One of my newest friends, Michelle, was going to come bake with me tomorrow. She still might make it - even if it not until Sunday. She lives about 45 minutes southwest of here and also moved to Alberta from Ontario - and she has beautiful and rare Canaan Dogs that herd, and she wants to track - have the stars lined up for us to meet, or what? This storm won't keep us apart for long! Above are the mincemeat pies I made last year - a great Jamie Oliver recipe. I love to cook and I am finally discovering baking. Mmmm, those mincemeat pies were so good! I am going to have to make them again! This year I plan to make Jamie Oliver's "Best Ever Chunky Shortbread Bars" and 'Chef at Home / Chef Abroad' chef Michael Smith's Chocolate Chip Biscotti.

My other dear new friends Pam and Jerry own two quarters (I talk Alberta-speak now...that is around 300 acres). I met Pam through my SchH buddy Dan and we have just hit it off in the most wonderful way, and her husband is so nice. Last night they treated me to the annual Canada Country Christmas Concert in Olds. What a great night with the best music - about four Canadian singers and back-up musicians teamed up to entertain in down-to-earth Canadian fashion - raising money for World Vision.

Well, since I have was not blessed with children of my own (not including the furry ones) I always wanted to join a plan like World Vision. Pam and I both signed up - we were the last ones in the lobby at the end of the evening. The singers were just hanging out with the crowd. One of them was an award-winning Canadian singer named Jamie Warren (what a great voice). He told me he used to perform in Thunder Bay a lot. Funny, I remember Bruce Cockburn and Dan Hill being in Thunder Bay all the time, but in recent years lost touch with the music scene in town!

It was so warm and informal. I told the new young singer Codie Prevost that he made me cry with his song 'I'm OK' about missing someone you have lost, and letting them know you are OK. He actually gave me a hug. It was very sweet. Sean Hogan another singer (do you know the song Suck it up Buttercup? that's him!) was the organizer of the tour and he has such a good heart. He manned the World Vision table. I thanked him and told him he had a good heart. You could tell he is one of those sincerely kind people who is expressing his love through song and service.

I looked over all of the beautiful children and my heart just burst with wanting to share what I can, as my life is so blessed. I saw this little guy, and now I am his sponsor. Watch for updates!

The World Vision website is http://www.worldvision.ca/ - I encourage you to consider this. I have thought about it for years. I feel so proud of myself to finally take this step and share my blessings with a child in need.

I think this is what the true Christmas spirit is all about. It is about love - not just talk, but love in action. Sue Medley sang the song O Holy Night and these words jumped out at me from the lyrics...

Truly He taught us to love one another,
His law is love and His gospel is peace.

My sister is coming here for 10 days - and I have the whole time off. We haven't seen each other for over a year. I've been busy making plans including cooking a Christmas Dinner (finally!) and two days in Canmore and Banff - which as as close to me as Grand Marais Minnesota used to be, back in the day. I always wanted to spend a Christmas in Grand Marais or Lutsen which are beautiful winter areas on Lake Superior - just playing in the snow. In fact, I realized tonight that the last time I was in Grand Marais in the winter there was a storm then, too! Here are some pictures I took...

There are tunnels like this along Lake Superior - we see them in the mountains to protect the highways from avalanches. I took this picture last summer coming home from my BC trip...but the mountain passes actually close if it gets too dangerous - and they are all closed right now with this bad storm passing through...

This year - I am going to make that wish for a fun winter Christmas trip come true - talk about a Rocky Mountain High! One of the stops I am planning for my sister and me is the famous Snowy Owl kennels for a dogsled ride, in Canmore! I took the picture above and below of a very neat sled dog trailer in Grand Marais in front of one of my very favourite stores, the Trading Post.

There are so many similarities between the north shore in Minnesota with the scenery and unique shops - and the mountain areas in Alberta! But I can't even find as nice a store in Banff! Sometimes you don't know what you have till it's gone.

Of course not a Christmas will ever go by that I don't cry for Thorn who died on Christmas Day in 2007 in the most tragic of circumstances. And every Christmas I miss my Mom and my grandparents terribly, as I was so close to all of them and lost them all within a very short time frame. This Christmas I am going to make my Mom's Pineapple Cake...I actually found her recipe! I might also try making my Grandma's Cardamom Coffee Bread when Lori my sister is here. Then she can take some home for our Dad.

Now that I am having my Alberta adventure but I miss my family and friends in Thunder Bay all the time. Still, after a year or so, I am really starting to feel happy here in my 'new home' away from home. I catch myself laughing a lot all the time now, at work and with my friends. Sometimes it is a bit of a shock to feel so peaceful and happy, but it is a wonderful feeling.

I believe that friends are people you choose to be your family - especially when you are away from home. All of my Schutzhund training friends in Calgary are feeling like family these days - they are all such warm and giving people. And of course there are Dan and Susan, and Nancy and Bob, my "realtor" Barb in Sylvan Lake, Annette from Calgary, who put on the retreat at Gull Lake - and all of my friends near and far, virtual and otherwise, through tracking and herding. I am thankful for each and every one of the friends in my life and want you to know what it has meant to me - Christmas seems like a great time to say so!

I just finished watching Notting Hill, one of my very favourite romantic movies with Hugh Grant and Julia Roberts, and had a little sniff - and my dogs all gathered around me wagging - of course they are my family too and I don't know what I would do without them! Thanks to Sigrid Appelt, Nancy Anstruther, Scott and Jenny Glen and Bill and Sandy Wilson - my exended family - for enrusting such wonderful dogs with me.

As I mentioned above, when I thought about what to call this post, I thought of Gordon Lightfoot's Song for a Winter's Night. I think it is one of his best songs. For the obligatory dog content, please enjoy this original Peanuts video clip featuring composer Vince Guaraldi...being a piano player, I appreciate his stuff so much! Go Snoopy!



Oh my goodness, Snoopy reminds me of Jet, right down to missing teeth! I laughed when I watched this. Christmas is not Christmas without Charlie Brown music - and in Canada you need to throw in hockey too. For a few minutes when you watch this, I am sure you will feel like a child again, which is also what Christmas is all about.

I want all of my friends and family at home to know that "I'm OK." I hope you are too. I wish everyone peace and love this Christmas, and may you also find the true spirit of Christmas this year.