Monat: Januar 2018

On December 30th, Desmond and I had another performance at church 🎶, with the other musicians and the choir. This time it was only for the young and teenage musicians, but Desmond was asked to play too (he’s young at heart). We played Christmas songs again, but not the same as on Christmas Eve and we were less musicians. After the mass was a church dinner. A family, which is very active in the church, invited all the singers and musicians to their house. Desmond didn’t come, but I went with Ronnie and his mother. In total we were about 15 children and many parents came too. Everybody brought some food for a buffet and we had supper together. We had pulled pork, filled bread, vegetables,… Then we (children) went upstairs to play some games 🎲. Ronnie brought a cool game called Dropmix and Graham (bass player), his younger sister Katherine, Ronnie and I played it almost the whole time. It was so much fun 🎉! It’s a music game and you have to play your cards very fast to get points. But then we had to interrupt the game, because everybody met in the kitchen. Then we talked about 2017, our good experiences and what we are thankful for. And then everybody lit a candle 🕯 in the garden, but I didn’t want to go outside, because it was too cold, so someone else lit it for me 😂. Afterwards we finally had dessert! Ronnie brought m and m brownies and Graham and I had almost all of them, because they were so good! And then we continued playing our game and then Love Letter, which is a superhero game! Haha, we played until 1 in the morning 😊.

 

Last Thursday Patrick, his friend Ronnie, my friend Larissa (she’s Ronnie’s cousin) and I went to Montreal. We wanted to take the bus 🚌 and met at the bus stop at around 11:45 and our bus was at 11:50, but it didn’t show up. The bad thing was that it was the coldest day of the year ❄️, around -25°C (-37°C with the wind), and we waited for over 30 minutes in the cold. Then Larissa’s mum asked us if we want to wait in her car for the next bus, so all of us squeezed in, but the next bus didn’t show up either. At least it was warm in the car and then Ronnie called a taxi, which came a few minutes later and we went to the next metro station. Well, we were there in under 25 minutes but it was 80 bucks (80$) 🤦🏻‍♀️… But then we were finally at the metro station and could go to Chinatown. Pat’s other friend Matthew came too. In china town we had lunch. We went to a restaurant. The food was very good! We had two frying pans on our table and different kinds of raw food, like ham, chicken, shrimp, mushrooms, broccoli, noodles,… Everyone could make their own food. And everyone had chopsticks, but Larissa and I have never used them before. We tried to eat with them, but at the end we had to ask for forks. After Chinatown we took the metro to the Fine Arts Museum. We saw different art exhibitions and many different art styles. There were some nice paintings and we also went to an exhibition with chairs. There were all kinds of chairs in different styles. It was fun! We spend about 2 hours there and then we went around downtown Montreal and back home. This time with the bus 😂

I love Christmas. It’s one of my favourite holidays of the year and it was a great experience to celebrate it with my second family in another country 🇨🇦. Some traditions are the same, but there are also some differences, like unwrapping the presents in the morning and the Christmas dinner. But let me start at the beginning:

On Christmas Eve, my family and I went to church in the late afternoon. Desmond and I had to be there earlier, because we played some Christmas songs with a group of musicians and the choir was singing 🎶. I was playing the violin and Desmond the guitar. In total there were three guitar players, five violins, a bass player, a pianist and about 20 people in the choir. I really enjoyed playing with them and it sounded very good 😍! We played songs like: I Saw Three Ships, Holy Night and Bethlehem’s Child. The church was packed and my friends Larissa and Cassandra came too. There also was a play for the children. Larissa’s sister and Cassie’s sister were part of it. They were an angel and a shepherd and very cute. After church we went home and had a delicious Christmas dinner. Diana is part Italian and they usually don’t eat meat on Christmas Eve. This is why we had pasta and fish. It was very good 😋! We also had homemade eggnog from Tara. I’ve never had eggnog before, but I like it! For those, who don’t know what eggnog is, it’s a drink made with milk, sugar, cream, eggs and sometimes alcohol. After supper we sat together for a long time and played some games 🎲.

 

The next day everyone got up early and we opened the presents 🎁!!! They were under the tree and in our stockings. And I got some too, for example a purple sequin cushion and a mug, which is my absolute favourite. It’s white and it says Blogging Day in golden font on it. I love drinking tea in the winter and I used it almost every day so far. I didn’t buy any presents for my family, but I want to invite them to a trampoline park in the next few weeks. And I made two big origami stars, a red and a yellow one. After opening all the presents we had breakfast: bagels with cheese, bacon and egg. In the late afternoon, all of us went to a family dinner. There, we had more food, like homemade pasta, gnocchi, filled peppers and much more. Then everybody was full 😂! David, Sam, Patrick, their cousin Amanda, and I went in the basement and played some games, like Shit Happens and (later in the night) Eckolo with the whole family. My parents sent it for Christmas and everybody loves it. We played for a long time and then I played some songs on my violin: Carol of The Bells (a rock version) and Who Want’s To Live Forever by Queen. The family really enjoyed it.

 

On Boxing Day, Diana, Sam and I went shopping 🛍. We picked up Amanda and went to the dix30, but it took us more than an hour to get there, because of the traffic. Anyways, we had a great day and there were many sales! We went to different stores and bought some things: Amanda got a hat at Urban Outfitters and Sam and I bought each a ring at Pandora. It was packed in the store and we had to wait outside, in the cold, for more than 15 minutes, but in the end it was totally worth it! After our shopping tour we had supper at Five Guys and Sam and Amanda showed me Mr. Puffs, a really good place for pastries 🍰🍩

Before Christmas break I had all my exams at school and on the last day, in the evening, Diana, Samantha and I went to The Nutcracker Ballet in Montréal. It was my first time attending a ballet and it was fantastic! Diana and I took the car and met Sam in the ballet building. I was wearing my Christmas sweater with a nutcracker on it 😂. First we couldn’t find our seats because there were so many people. The hall was full! We were sitting on the balcony and had a good view. We could also see the musicians in the orchestra pit 🎶. The ballet was amazing!! The dancers were very good and had beautiful costumes 😍. There was fake snow and stage smoke too. The waltz of the snowflakes, the dance of the sugar plum fairy and the waltz of the flowers were my favourite scenes ☺️. In total the ballet was about 2 hours, but there was a break between the first and the second act. Afterwards, on our way home, we stopped at a poutine restaurant: La Banquise. It’s really famous for its poutine, because they have all different kinds of toppings. Sam had a hotdog topping and I had something with bacon, pepper, mushrooms and onion. Delicious!!