Playing Hockey with the Edmonton Oilers

Okay, so I did not quite get on the ice with them, but it was a bit of a surprise to see them playing in front of my house, on the ice in the middle of the street, in running shoes, but with hockey sticks and Oilers shirts. A player happens to live next door to my parents, and every year on Christmas Day, a neighbourhood game goes for hours and hours, with young and old and mostly men, but some girls are playing with the professionals. We were asked to join in, but I was sure my lack of skill would hurt either team, so I chose to watch and cheer and enjoy.

Eric, Maya and Tara and I were out for our walk to the river valley in the snow. Maya had been rolling around in the back yard for hours waiting for us to join her. We slide down to the river on our bottoms along a steep ravine path, and walk past cross country skiers and snowshoers and mostly walkers with their dogs. We brave the shoreline where the ice is thick, and walk until it is too cold to walk further and return along a slightly less steep incline, passing the hockey players still on the ice in front of the house as we join my mother in preparing the Christmas meal. She has chosen turkey for the occasion, but I had started a stuffing recipe hours earlier, only to discover that she had few of the ingredients required. I tried to make do with what I found, but was uncertain after I made cornbread with corn flour as opposed to corn meal. My mother was confused and forgetful and had her own ideas about the meal, disregarding the menu plan we made. She had been in a foul mood all day, and nothing seemed to help her pull out of it. The turkey was way overcooked, but the gravy and the stuffing saved it. I put too much garlic in the salad, which almost killed my mother but no one else objected. In truth, the meal worked out well enough. We had bought a massive apple pie at Cosco, which was yummy when smothered with whipped cream.

Tara, Eric and I went to the new Coen brother's movie, True Grit, which was not particularly interesting , although the performances were solid. Our evenings are long discussions in front of the Christmas tree, going in all sorts of tangents. Opa talked about his childhood in Yugoslavia, and Eric found the town he grew up in on Google Earth.