Christmas

Christmas got a bit of a slow start this year. November was a busy month for us and Kerry and I both had other commitments on the first weekend of December which is usually when we kick Christmas off with the Christmas tree hunt, decorations, lights etc. We did manage to find time to get the tree but that was pretty much it. We've had a real tree for 4 or 5 years now and our new tradition is to go to the Dogwood Christmas Tree Farm in Aldergrove. It's a great place to cut your own tree because they have a lot of different species to choose from, there's a place to get hot chocolate and the paths to the trees are covered in gravel or sawdust so it's not super muddy.  Apparently we aren't the only ones that think it's a great place to get a tree. Kerry likes to watch Hallmark Christmas movies and we've seen this farm in at least one of them. We managed to pick our tree fairly quickly and after a bit of sawing we brought home 'Noble - Part Deux'. We also have a tradition of naming our Christmas tree every year.

This might be the last year for us to attend the BC Hydro Christmas party. Carter can keep coming until he is 12 and he remained interested in it this year but I get the sense that he may feel he is too old by next year. It's traditionally been at Science World because it has to be a big venue. They open the doors at 7:00a and we have free rein of the place until 9:30a. We can stick around past that point but they open the doors to the rest of the public and put away the breakfast. Carter had a great time in the various exhibits. He had been to Science World the week before with his class but he was probably restricted on what he could do and when. Now he could roam free and was taking in all the exhibits that he didn't get to with his class.

We did Gingerbread houses again this year. I have a mould from Lee Valley that I use to make the house parts and Callie and Carter each invited some friends over. I had to make 6 houses this year. That's a lot of gingerbread. Prep time is a lot of work but the actual event is getting easier because the kids can put the houses together on their own. In past years I've had to try to assemble all the houses. Soup cans and heavy cups along with decorating first and assembling later are the keys to success.

Christmas holidays officially kicked off with the arrival of Barb and Reg a few days before school finished. Callie is in grade 8 this year and is taking band which meant we had some additional concerts to attend. We got to go to her Jazz band concert first which is an extra curricular club she's joined followed by the overall band concert. The Jazz one was fun because it was in a smaller venue with nice seats and only about 90 minutes. The second one was more than I could handle and was about 3 hours. Luckily Callie was first and I got to leave at the intermission. I was very impressed by how much everyone had improved since grade 7 and things get really good with the seniors.

I think I've maxed out on Christmas lights finally. I decorate the eaves of the house, all of the trees and bushes and Snoopy gets his place of honour on top of the house. I may have to start decorating the back yard. 

Christmas vacation was busy with Barb and Reg with Christmas dinner and a fondue followed by my parents for New Years Eve and a few more days before they headed off to Costa Rica. We managed to get everything taken down by New Years day and are ready for 2019!

Young Entrepreneurs

Carter is in grade 5 this year and got a very exciting project this fall. (Exciting for me at least.) Everyone in his class was tasked with making something that they could sell in a craft fair. It's a formal program and after picking their craft they go through the process of market research, determining the materials they need, getting a loan from their parents to purchase those materials, designing and building their craft, creating marketing material, creating a display booth and finally spending two afternoons selling their product to unsuspecting parents and class mates.

Carter initially started with the idea of doing painted pet rocks with super hero themes. I couldn't possibly let him pick something that didn't involve something woodworking related so after tossing some ideas around we settled on painted wooden Christmas ornaments ranging from super hero badges, to emoji's to Christmas characters like snowmen and Rudolf. The ornaments were all made out of 1/8 inch baltic birch plywood and painted with enamel paint from the dollar store. I will admit I often performed the first operation of each step to show him how to do it but ultimately he did about 90% of the work by himself which included using the drill press with a hole saw for the round ornaments and the scroll saw for some of the more complicated ornaments like the classic Poo emoji wearing a Santa hat. I think he put in about 30 hours of effort over the course of six weeks and sold almost all of his product. His grand total was $90 dollars and his expenses were a year $18. A great success and a fun project for both of us. He even donated 10% of the profits to charity.

Culture Crawl

When I first moved to Vancouver in 1999 I didn't have access to a shop or a garage at the place I was renting. After some research I found a great wood working co-op where I could rent space in the evening. It was at this time that I learned about the East Side Culture Crawl.  It's a 4 day event where artists studios on the East Side of Vancouver open their doors to show off their work. It's timed for the month before Christmas as many studios also have some of their work for sale. I've dragged the family in the past however this time I asked Callie if she wanted to go since she's really taken an interest in painting and making things.

With some encouragement and an invitation extended to one of her friends from school we were off to Parker Street studios which is the largest location that opens its doors. It's an old warehouse that's been broken up into individual studios. It's an organized maze and My understanding is that when it first started housing artists they would often just put up walls wherever they wanted. Proper hallways and sprinklers came later. Callie and her friend really seemed to enjoy themselves and even collected artists cards from many shops. (They liked the pictures.) Next year I'm going to try to go again and this time check out some other studios.