Wintery Wanderings

When you turn to the weather station and the current weather says -17 Celsius with the windchill, you certainly don't feel like you're in Victoria. When you look out the window and see drifting snow swirled around by fiendish wind gusts, you don't feel like you're in Victoria. Despite the weather harking back to my childhood years on the prairies (yes I know, it's minus one hundred and thirty there right now) the nasty work of Jack Frost uncharacteristically hit Victoria this weekend. This was the sight Saturday night.


We decided to start a roaring fire and pour some 'adult' eggnog while watching some TV and listening the blustering wind. In the morning, this was the sight - 3 inches of the white stuff!


Now in Victoria, 3 inches is like 3 feet... unless you're talking about the Blizzard Of '96 (which everyone has such grand memories of!) I wasn't here but they talk of feet of snow falling in hours, calling in the National Guard, people eating their last can of Heinz beans while being housebound for days... I remember my first winter here schools closing on less snow than this, so I am pretty sure that the Blizzard Of '96, while scarring the minds of Victorians everywhere was not quite as dramatic as some tell it.

Nolana and her Gospel Choir were singing Sunday in a Christmas pageant (of which I have no pictures due to my hands being full of baby) and the congregation was half missing, the drummer was missing, choir members were missing, the brass was missing - all for 3 inches of snow. We take this stuff seriously here in Victoria!

That afternoon we put up the Christmas tree and I only broke 3 ornaments...


So Nolana made me pose for a picture and then politely told me to back away from the tree, NOW! Daija enjoyed her first tree raising - it will be a memory she will never forget. She was mesmerized by the lights, though.



Today was bitter cold. It is in fact -17 with the wind which is unusually bitter for Victoria. They don't really get days like this in Ethiopia....

To end with, and on that Ethiopia note, here are my two favorite Christmas decorations - both brought back from Ethiopia and made by disabled people there.

Angels on our tree.


The Christmas scene hanging.