A Guest in my own House

Back In NS for Christmas

When we undertook this adventure in Toronto we rented our house in Dartmouth to our daughter Alisha & her husband Derek. She was moving back to Nova Scotia and needed a place to live while she settled back into an East Coast lifestyle and we needed someone to look after our house while we tried out big-city-condo-life in Toronto, so this was a win/win arrangement for all of us. We spent the month of August sharing the house as we packed up to move and she unpacked so, as we emptied drawers, she filled them with her “stuff”. As we progressed through this we made it very clear to her that we wanted her to treat the house as her’s and she was welcome to make changes as she saw fit to make the house their own. As we settled into the rented condo in Toronto, we were comfortable that our house in Dartmouth was in good hands, although I did compose a handy document with suggestions of how to deal with procedures I had developed over the 30 plus years we lived in the house. 

Now, over the years since the children moved out and left us in a house too big for just Regis and I, we decided that Christmas would be alternated between “home” for Christmas in Dartmouth and Christmas with the children in their cities. This worked well and we spent many pleasant holidays in the children’s apartments and houses in Montreal, Ottawa, and Toronto. This year however was scheduled for a Dartmouth Christmas, so Ryan & Ben and Regis & I were flying “home” to spend Christmas with Alisha and Derek in our old house in Dartmouth. When planning this trip, we made it very clear to Alisha that we did not expect her to give us back our bedroom and our nice adjustable king sized bed, we expected to be “guests” and would live in the guest suite downstairs. 

The sleeping arrangements were just fine, but it really was a bit odd to be a guest

Apparently it is now "Bob's Chair

in your own house. Alisha and Derek really have made themselves at home in the house and we had to adapt to their lifestyle. Bob the cat had claimed my favourite chair by the wood stove, and Mochi the dog has taken over the loveseat we left behind. We were there for three weeks and I still looked for the corkscrew in the drawer in the kitchen island every time a new bottle had to be opened. I know I left my big stock pot there, but I never found it; it must be down in the storage room somewhere among the boxes of our stuff and boxes of their stuff so soup stock had to be made in Alisha’s pot. They did not adjust to all of my suggested procedures, and Derek has his own way of lighting and feeding the wood stove that works just fine,  and they haven’t had enough snow to realize that my suggestion of always scraping the driveway clean prevents it getting icy really does work . . . .

Working together 

So, although it was odd being a guest in my own house, it all worked out fine and we spent an enjoyable three week Holiday visit back in Nova Scotia with Alisha and Derek, and Ryan and Ben joined us for a few days over Christmas. 

Christmas Trees

Back in Nova Scotia, I was always a bit of a Christmas Grinch, not putting up a Christmas tree or turning on the outdoor lights until December 1st, but here in Toronto, they start Christmas right after Halloween, and since we are coming to Nova Scotia in the middle of December for Christmas, I relented and put up a tree and lights in the condo window in November.

Today, after suffering through a few days with a Toronto cold I went out into the Toronto cold and went for a Christmas tree walk. I few days earlier I had noticed that many of the large offices buildings, malls, and banks had decorated their lobbies with tall Christmas trees and today I went in search of some of them to photograph. 

Back in Dartmouth we have the famous “Woody the Talking Christmas Tree”, and although I have not found any talking trees, there are some pretty impressive ones around the downtown area. An eight kilometre random walk around the neighbourhood unearthed over 20 large Christmas trees and I know there are lots more to be found. 

Radio City Condo (Our Building)

Collage Square Shopping Centre

Eaton's Centre Shopping Centre

Husdon's Bay Store

Nathan Philips Square (City Hall)

Bay Adelaide Centre

Adelaide Street West Building

Scotia Plaza Building

Commerce Court West Building

Toronto Dominion Centre

Royal Bank Plaza Bay St.

TD South Tower Wellington St.

105 King St. West

200 King St West Building

DBRS Tower University Avenue

Double Tree by Hilton Hotel

Collage Park Shopping Centre

Maple Leaf Gardens Loblaws

Co-Operative Christmas Dinner

 I recall Christmas' when my mother was up early to get the turkey in the oven in time for the meal to be served in the afternoon, and her Christmas mornings were spent preparing everything in the kitchen while we all tried out our new toys and tried on new clothes.

What's Christmas without Turkey?

Not so here in Ottawa this Christmas. We trained our children right, and they have both developed excellent culinary skills, and enjoy cooking. As a result the meal was a co-operative effort with everyone chipping in something. We elected to do Christmas dinner on Christmas eve because Alisha is going to Deep River with Mark tomorrow afternoon, so you get to read about our Christmas Dinner before your's.

I started my contribution the evening before. I was trying a new recipe for the turkey. Alisha swears that brining is the way to go, but my Christmas gift subscription from her last year to Cook's Illustrated” claims that salting, not brining is the best way to ensure a moist turkey with crisp and browned skin. I spent the evening pushing salt under the skin all over the 15 pound free-range “organic” turkey Ryan had purchased to allow it to salt overnight. This afternoon, I pressed herbs and spices under the skin, and Ryan and I prepared a dressing of local sausage bread and chestnuts.

Working Together

Ben prepared an appetizer of bacon wrapped chestnuts and jalapeno peppers in a delicious barbecue sauce, to keep our appetites at bay since we were not eating until at least 7:30 PM. They were hot, sticky and spicy-good! Alisha introduced us to the “Pim's Cup”; cucumber, citrus fruit & strawberries in a mixture of Pims, Ginger Beer and Lemonade over ice.

Ryan's Beans

Although not a traditional “Christmas” vegetable, Alisha decided to add beets to the meal. She boiled them, peeled and chopped them into cubes and served them with a very interesting garlic walnut butter and goat cheese. Unusual but very delicious. She also made a “nightshade” free sweet potato and orange marmalade casserole.

Ryan, along with helping with the dressing, took one of our traditional Christmas vegetables, and updated it by shredding the brussel sprouts and frying them with bacon and balsamic vinegar. They were delicious but hardly recognizable as our old favourite vegetable. Ryan also made green beans served with a shallot and filberts sauce. A bit “oniony” for me, but enjoyed by everyone else.

Regis cooked up her traditional cranberry sauce, and she sort of oversaw everything else and made sure that everything had a place to be cooked and came out of the oven and off the stove at the same time.

Now some things just shouldn't be “messed” with, so I brought my traditional steamed Christmas pudding from home ready to be heated up, but I changed the sauce, using rum instead of brandy as flavouring and added chopped filberts for a bit of a different touch.

The dishes are cleaned up, mostly by Mark who arrived too late to do much cooking. Regis has made some lunch-to-go turkey left-over casseroles for the children when they go back to work next year, and the turkey carcass is boiling away on the stove for a turkey soup later in the week. Everyone contributed to a delicious, successful Christmas meal.

White Christmas

To cold to hang out the wash.

No Problem Getting Around Here?

I’m sure there are WAY colder or snowier places, but for someone used to Halifax’s milder, mostly snow-free winters, Christmas in Ottawa is way more wintery than I am used to.

White Christmas? Not really a question here in Ottawa. Winter made it very clear that snow and Christmas definitely go together - it started to snow on the drive up from the East Coast as we got to Montreal, and some sort of cold wintery precipitation, be it snow, freezing rain, or cold nasty winter rain has been falling ever since. It snowed over 30 cm one day, and school wasn’t even cancelled - what’s with that? fifteen centimeters would have paralyzed the school busses back home.

But to be fair I do recall an hour or so of sun one day . . .

Are they kidding?

Good Idea.

While it is certainly Christmasy it takes a bit of getting used to. The sidewalks are perpetually icy,  and many street corners have huge slushy puddles to negotiate. Suddenly those Sorel  -25 rated boots are actually useful. I guess the Ottawa natives get used to it, but it isn’t even Christmas yet and I’ve had enough snow.

Now although I am complaining about the snow, spending Christmas up here in Ottawa with the children and their friends is really wonderful.