Merry (Belated) Christmas!!

Hello, hello!

I hope everyone has been having a great Christmas holiday! Being my first Christmas away from home, it's been kind of strange, but all in all I'm enjoying myself.

The family I live with doesn't really make that big a deal over Christmas. They're not super close to their extended family and they don't believe in giving excessive amounts of presents so it's been pretty laid back. Marielle (the mother) worked all day the 24th and 25th, so we celebrated on Christmas Eve. We didn't have turkey, but it was definately a feast! It involved shrimp, smoked salmon, lots of cheese, soup, salad, lots of dessert... it was basically a neverending meal which they tell me was small compared to most families' Christmas dinner. After dinner, my parents called me so I got to talk to them, Tim and my Grandparents for a while which was really nice :-) Then we proceeded to the present opening where it seemed like I had more presents than anyone else! From home I got a very nice Canadian Olympic team sweater (no longer Roots?), some shower stuff, a Tim Horton's mug and hot chocolate, a couple of cd's and a stocking full of goodies :-) Then on top of that, Marie made me a very nice bead bracelet and a collage of pictures from in and around Les Gets to put on my wall and take home with me when I leave and the family got me a pair of gloves to wear around town (not ski gloves). It was fully enjoyable and I received WAY more than I ever thought I would being half way around the world.

Christmas day didn't feel like it at all. I got up in the morning and went skiing for an hour or so, but it was the worst conditions since I'd arrived so I didn't stay out for long. The rest of the day was spent lazing around. Then I had to try to stay awake until my parents called again. It was tough, but definately worth it when I got to talk to my whole family including aunts, uncles and of course many cousins :-) After that was when I really wished I was home not missing Christmas dinner, but it was nice to talk to everyone!

What else have I been up to? Lots of skiing... not really a whole lot... I pretty much have all my own ski gear now (although I haven't actually paid for my skis yet :-p) and it's great to be able to go skiing whenever I want even if it's just for an hour (I can basically ski in and out of my house without walking more than like 3 minutes). I'm still getting used to the trails closest to me and haven't gone too far away by myself yet (being too scared to get lost :-p) but sometime in the near future I'm going to take a picnic and see if I can get all the way to Avoriaz (2 towns over) and explore some. It's snowing a little now, so hopefully we'll get enough to cover up the bare spots that have started to appear (since it hasn't snowed in a week and a half... poor me, we ONLY have a meter of snow :-p).

Other than that not much has happened... starting to feel more and more at home in the house here and getting to know the rhythm of how everything works. I've finally splurged and bought a cd/mp3 discman so that I can listen to all the music I got off the Pig computers and the cd's that Tim gave me for Christmas :-)

I think that's it! Again, I hope everyone's having a great break from whatever they've been up to! Have fun on New Year's Eve, I think I'll just be babysitting.

Talk to you soon!
Kaila