On Christmas Eve a few years ago, when we were living in Ottawa, me, my wife and mother in law had a fairly sad Christmas dinner. I can’t remember exactly what it was but something along the lines of take-out pizza, fries and onion rings from the only food place near us that was still open. We were set to fly out to Europe to visit family and friends. Apparently, Christmas Eve and day are good days to fly as there’s not a lot of demand for those days.
We spent a few lovely days together in London, enjoying a European Christmas that even included a performance of Wicked, plenty of good food and more. Not much later, we visited some friends, before flying to the Netherlands to visit some of my family and friends. My wife was shocked at how green things were in the Netherlands in January, although in all fairness, the Cariboo isn’t exactly a perfect picture of a white Christmas either this year (so far anyway).
For many people, Christmas is the ultimate time to be home. For me, I think it’s an excellent time to be travelling abroad, as long as you have your loved ones with you. Going abroad really tends to cut you off from technology a lot more than when you’re at home and makes you focus on your actual interactions.
However, we did spend a lot of time on activities we rarely do in Canada, including cycling outside, getting milk fresh from the farm and visiting a town similar to Barkerville. We also spent a lot of time eating foods my wife and mother-in-law had never tried before, like frikandel speciaal, which is a sausage in a bun (like a hot dog but a slightly different type of sausage) with raw onion, mayonnaise and Dutch “curry.” They both consider the latter three disgusting by themselves but somehow thought the combination tasted really well. Unfortunately, the whole endeavor ended in how a lot of my stories seem to end, which is by breaking off a front tooth.