Today is a great day. It’s Christmas eve, we all stopped working early – I went for some more turns in this epic snow we’re having, I’m looking forward to Christmas Eve service at Lynn Valley Full Gospel Church tonight and birthday cake tomorrow… oh yeah, and I’m going to Cancun!!!

My morning started out with some Christmas baking… I like it when I get fudge for breakfast. What can I say? I’m perhaps a bit of a glutton, but really trying to keep to just a taste this year. I am going to make a very concerted effort to get my body back to pre-mini-man shape now that he is coming up on 3 years *blush*.

Then my boss says to go home… at, like 10:30am SWEET! I ended up grabbing my board and checking out the hill. With over 150cm of snow now when it just started snowing about 2 weeks ago, the conditions are fantastic. The snow is so deep that it’s a bit hairy and requires quite a bit of concentration (unless you get first tracks, of course, which I did not at noon) and the blowing snow and fog made it a wee bit hard to see, but all in all the snow is just fantastic.

I was saying this morning that I used to be that person who would only ski when it was sunny out. Not only did I not know what I was missing, but I really didn’t care. If I had known then that the snow is infinately better when it’s snowing than it is when the sun is beating down on it, I would have changed my tune years ago. Plus, there are usually no bodies on the hill. I didn’t have to wait more than about 4 chairs to get on the Screaming Eagle today.

Being Christmas Eve, we’re going to church tonight at 6:30pm. There are 3 services to choose from – 5pm, 6:30pm and 8pm. The Christmas Eve program is always fun – full of music and stories for people of all ages.

This year we’ve decided to go ahead with an idea that I heard on Praise 106.5 FM: someone called in one day and said they do birthday cake for Jesus on Christmas day. What a great idea!! So we’re going to turn it in to a tradition and bake a cake in the morning after opening presents, ice it in the afternoon during that usual downtime (my brother and I used to go to the only arcade in Vancouver that was open that day – Lesters) and then have birthday cake for dessert after a traditional turkey dinner (well, it will be more like a ceremonial taste at that point, but we’ll try).

We’re also going to spend the night as a family at my mother in law’s house. We didn’t set up a tree at home this year, and we’re going to do our celebrating there anyway, so we figured we’d all spend the night and get up and do Christmas in our jammies like we used to when we were all little.

Sadly, with the snow this year, my parents aren’t going to make it over to the North Shore for Christmas dinner with us, but they have been invited to their next door neighbours’ house so I’m grateful they have someone nearby to celebrate with. We also all got together for dinner just a couple of days ago and now I’m glad we did. I got some great photos of my son with my mom… good for keepsakes.

And lastly, this morning big-man and I decided to book another holiday. We’re going back to Cancun to stay at the Crown Paradise Club for a week in January. We stayed there last year and had a fantastic time, but this year we’re bringing our son to enjoy it as a family. Crown Paradise Club has a kids club for children as young as 18 months whereas most resorts’ kids clubs only take kids 4+.

We’re already planning a day of wind surfing and one day trip to Cozumel… preferably via catamaran from Cancun. I’ll see what I can find. I can’t WAIT! Big-man will be starting work in northern Alberta in late January, so we figure now is a good time to get away as a family because we don’t know when we’ll be able to do it again.

Anyway, I am praying for health and prosperity for all my family, friends and readers now and in the new year. May every day of the year ahead be filled with joy and laughter and many, many blessings.

Merry Christmas everyone!