A few of our favourite things

Contributed by Emma Callin

I am often overwhelmed by the constant advertising that I cannot avoid, especially at this time of year: "Buy now!" or "Must-haves!" or even "What they REALLY want!".  And yet I have never met a single person who listed the gifts they received as their favourite memory of this season.  

Don't get me wrong, presents are nice.  But there are so many ways to make the holidays feel less... 'consumer-y'.  So without further ado, here are a few things we love about the Christmas season.  

Christmas markets in Calgary are wonderful for finding fun and meaningful gifts but are also an event to attend in themselves.  There are always musical performances and at least one food truck will be present if you find yourself feeling a bit peckish.  While the Spruce Meadows Christmas Market and the Festival of Crafts are done for the year, Market Collective is still going for another two weekends if you're still looking for presents or just want to browse the local artisan goods.  

One of my favourite finds from the Spruce Meadows Christmas Market was the Untamed Feast Wild Food booth; mushrooms are a big favourite for our whole family so of course I got several packets of their dehydrated wild mushrooms.  Having friends and family over for dinner is one of our holiday traditions so making something special - like morel mushroom risotto - is always a great idea.  Thankfully my husband doesn't mind me testing out new recipes on him first!  

Decorating the house for Christmas is another much-loved holiday event.  Christmas ornaments in our family are given to represent something that happened that year; unpacking the ornaments from years past involves a lot of happy memories and re-telling of funny stories.  If you're looking to start your own ornament tradition, there are many locally made ornaments available at the Christmas markets and plenty of Fair Trade options at Ten Thousand Villages.

You can also make your own decorations.  There are plenty of DIY tutorials on the web - I particularly like the quirky, non-traditional designs of Aww, Sam - and the simple ones are a fun way to include any children in decorating for the holidays.  Letting them personalize their decorations makes for great keepsakes for future Christmas seasons.  Crafting decorations is fun for grown-up 'kids' too!

ZooLights at the Calgary Zoo is another great Christmas outing.  The weather this year has been particularly mild so far but it's definitely worth bundling up to see the light displays if it does get cold!  There's always hot chocolate available too.

Sending well-wishes to Stuart McLean and hopes for a speedy recovery!

This year's Christmas celebrations will sadly not include going to The Vinyl Cafe Christmas Tour as Stuart McLean has been diagnosed with melanoma.  We have still been enjoying previous recordings and podcasts at home though - we like listening to them while cooking for friends, decorating the house or while driving to meet family!  There's always something to make us think and make us laugh.

~Wishing you all a healthy, happy Christmas!~