Month: December 2011
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Snow falling on cedars
I love it when a journey is required to bring Christmas home. Hoping yours is holly-jolly, merry and bright.
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Leaves through the Looking Glass
The three days Nicole and I spent in Victoria were star-studded with beauty and color, but nothing was quite so breathtaking as the Butchart Gardens, just a few minutes north of the city. Now a Canadian National Historic Site, the Gardens were the private grounds surrounding the home of Robert and Jennie Butchart. So the…
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Tea for two
No stay at the Empress is complete without sitting down to Afternoon Tea. Now, I love a good cuppa no matter where I am, but leaning back in a squashy chair and gazing upward at something like this makes every sip a little more special. The Empress has been pouring tea every afternoon since it…
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Oh, Canada!
Yeah, I know. It’s a week before Christmas, and Hanukkah starts tomorrow. Our tree is up, and we even had our mega-huge holiday party last night (62 people—a new record!). But somehow, my mind is occupied with red-gold maples, not flocked evergreens. Maybe it’s the fact that everyone’s lawns are at their greenest at this…
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A rare treat
The Tailor and I were talking today about holiday traditions. In his family, it’s standard fare to find an orange in one’s stocking on Christmas morning. He’s originally from Kansas, where the tradition hearkens back to the days when citrus fruit was an exotic luxury. I remember my grandmother telling me a similar story about…