*sorry about the multiple posts & notifications today, I’m having some technical issues with wordpress…seems to be fixed :D*
Hi Guys!
I hope you had a lovely Valentine’s Day. How are we almost at the end of February already? Spring is less than a month away now and the start of Daylight Saving (my favourite day of the year!) is less than 2 weeks away. Yes! I am beyond excited.
Since spring is just around the corner, I figured I’d better share my holiday pies ASAP. Usually the cut off for anything-Christmas (for me, anyway) is early January. So this is probably already too late but a few folks have been asking about my holiday pies so I figured I’d better catch you all up. If you can believe it, several of my closest friends aren’t on social media (Facebook, instagram etc!??) so they have been clearly missing out. Just pretend it’s still January when you’re looking at my Christmas pies, OK?
We had a pretty cold start to winter and at one point in early January it was colder in Ottawa than the North Pole… AND Mars! (Seriously). Thankfully though, the rest of winter has been quite mild and we haven’t had much snow, either. We even got to 10 degrees recently– which is pretty sweet considering we’re usually at -20 in mid February. Not too shabby at all.
But I’d still rather be Arizona if I could choose…Just sayin’. My friend Kelsie, who lives in the sunny state, is keeping her eye out for any houses-for-sale on her street for me (just kidding–I wish!). That way I can be a taste-tester for all her wonderful creations. She is the Queen of amazing dessert combos (check out her blog, I seriously drool at every dessert she comes up with). I’m making her Irish Cream/Coffee brownies for St Patrick’s Day, I can’t wait. They look incredible! I’m pretty sure she’ll make the best neighbour EVER (hee hee!).
I love Christmas but as soon as the holidays are over, I don’t want to see anything Christmas-related until next November. You cannot make me watch Elf with you in April and Hallmark doesn’t tempt me with their “Christmas in July” series at all (yep, it’s a thing). Not gonna happen. It’s bad enough some people blog about the holidays in late February (hehe). But really… who in their right mind wants to see Christmas decorations (or snow for that matter) in the middle of July? It’s just plain wrong.
Which leads to my next story….
A few years ago I was in Vancouver driving down a scenic highway enjoying a beautiful, warm summer day (in early July) when suddenly I came across snow. LOADS of it–we’re not talking about the little pile you see at the back of a hockey rink during the summer. And this was nowhere near the mountains on the north shore of Vancouver, either (which can get some snow in the summer). This was near White Rock–close to the the BC/Washington border. This area doesn’t get that much snow even in the winter (well, they get a wee bit but it doesn’t stay long).
It looked like summer everywhere else— except for this particular street. Weird. And the houses and trees were completely covered in the white stuff. Was I hallucinating? Or was I having some sort of strange delusion?
I know some folks leave their Christmas lights up all year-long, but this was way too many lights for the summer. It looked more like a Christmas village.
Judging by the quizzical look on my friend Jorge’s face, he was seeing this too. Perhaps we’ve entered the Twilight Zone? Or mayyyyvbe we were in an X Files episode? The show was filmed in Vancouver, after all (I was a huge fan of the show and did an X-Files tour the first time I was in Vancouver! #nerdalert). But the show ended a few years earlier so this probably didn’t have much to do with the FBI or aliens.
“I’m not saying this might be aliens but….it’s aliens.” I chuckled, channeling Mulder.
It turns out we weren’t too far off. We later found out that this was a film set, but there was no Mulder or Scully to be found anywhere (unfortunately).
Intrigued (and nosy as all heck), we pulled over to the side of the road so that we could fully investigate this odd phenomenon. And we weren’t the only curious folks, either. There were several cars parked along the side of the highway and many other people walking around checking out this strange sight.
My nosy-ness came in handy. As we started walking closer to the main house, a couple of friendly guys walked over and started chatting with us. They were part of a film crew (location scouts) and we were actually standing on a movie set. Yep, they were filming a Christmas movie! Now this was exciting.
I looked pretty chilly standing beside the (fake) snow in my summer outfit, don’t I? Brrr.. Don’t worry, it looked cold but it was actually 25 degrees (which is actually fairly warm for Vancouver).
Do you guys remember a holiday movie that came out a few years ago with Danny De Vito and Mathew Broderick? It’s called ‘Deck the Halls’ (2006) and it’s about two neighbours fighting over who has the best Christmas decorations. One of them (De Vito’s character) had decorations that were ‘so bright it could be seen from outer space!!’
Yep, we were on the set of THAT movie. WOOO! …