Exactly a year to the day that we arrived in Canada, Mehmet and I joined the rest of my family at my brother Harley and his family’s home for our Christmas celebration. We had a beautiful day!

Look! This train set up is meant for the top of a Christmas tree, but Harley set it up over the dining room table.

Little Lilith is getting bigger!

Our tradition is to do a ‘White Elephant’ gift theme. This means everyone brings something they no longer want. You never know what you get to (have to) take home! It may be musical glass lanterns!

It could be a plastic alligator.

Or a lawn bowling set!

You might get something you really like…

… such as a bamboo whistle!

But what you really don’t want is the infamous red nightie that shows up every year. I got it last year and wrapped it up in a big box. Jared *really* didn’t want it… but got it!

Harley builds an ice rink in his back yard each year. It wasn’t quite ready for skating yet.

But walking on it was allowed.  *crack*

Nancy and Jayden

Lots of catching up to do… cousins, sisters-in-law, daughter and stepmom…

Bryce made these beautiful name cards for everyone’s dinner place.

Getting ready for the dinner

Matt’s carolling cheeseballs

The whole family

Mmm… homemade desserts!

Sophie loves the Wii. Creating her character is just as much fun as playing the games.

Boy Wii action

We ‘adopted’ a family for Salvation Army this year – it was fun to deliver the Christmas dinner food and the gifts!

Of course, there’s the annual ‘Sjoelbak’ (Dutch shuffleboard) tournament.

Each game has three rounds, and each person gets to play three games throughout the day.

Scores are kept over the day, and the person with the highest single score gets the family trophy!

This year, the award went from Harley (who won last year), to… Mehmet!

Games, games, games…

Setting up the ‘falling dominos’…

Wheee…!

We played Scattegories with small teams of 2 or 3. …A famous tourist attraction starting with ‘M’…

… a food you almost always eat raw, starting with T…

Something you store items in … starting with D…

And downstairs… air hockey!

The rink at night

We had expected to spend Christmas celebrations with a new niece or nephew! But poor Cynthia, almost a week overdue, was still waiting. So we were lucky to have her and David spend the day with us.

Baby, baby, come and play!!

Well, since our Christmas celebrations, baby has arrived. Those pictures will come soon. :)