It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas (well from the movies anyway)

So happy holidays to everyone all around the world. So as many know I have been over in Canada for Xmas once before but it was in Whistler with a million Aussies and was more or less the same as home just with more snow involved really. This time around I headed back to Lloydminster where Suzy is from. Her hometown  is located in the north-eastern part of Alberta where we headed on the 23rd of December for Xmas and for me to got a real Canadian Christmas feel.

As many can obviously guess it differs quite greatly to back home in Aus. I mean to start off with it is less of this....

And a little more along the lines of this.....

As such the weather seems to govern the way the day goes. Back home outside all day, backyard cricket or football, at the beach and playing around in the surf if your near the beach. Whereas here it is more along the lines of snowboarding if you are staying at the mountains, sledding or what we ended doing was playing in the snow and playing hockey on the lake (was also my first time skating on a frozen lake which to me seems totally unreal, just such a foreign idea to think that it is that cold that the top layer of a massive body of water has frozen and there is still some water underneath..... Loco). All these Canadian activities are all based on the premise that it is not deathly freezing outside and was a lovely crisp -5C this year so was perfect for all these activities. Below are some videos of playing round on Xmas day....

The food is also different as you know back home cold meats, seafood and salads are the common food groups mainly due to the heat at this time of year. Here it is a heavy feed of roast turkey, cooked ham, baked/mashed potatoes and everything is hot and warm. Apart from the activities and food the day remains the same this far across the globe, plenty of family time, heaps of food and def too much xmas cheer and ended up with Suzy sleeping curled up with her dog's (in their bed not hers haha).

But all in all we had a great time and I gather Suzy's family are keen for me to stay in Canada as I got an array of ultra Canadian gifts such as a racoon hat, snow toque (toque is Canadian for beanie), lumberjack jacket, hockey cap and a number of other funny Canadian grabs. As you can see I'll be getting my citizenship before you know it.

The hardest part of the trip north was coming back home. The 5.5hr drive back took close on 9hrs after we got caught in a snowstorm about 4hrs into the drive (the craziest storm Suzy and her friend had seen and they had lived here for all their lives), and yes the Aussie was driving. We drove for about 2hrs at 30-40km/hr, almost off the road by a truck that didn't see us and not being able to exit the highway where we wanted as a snow drift up to my waist decided to cover the hwy exit. That night we saw as many as 35 vehicles incl trucks and semis in the ditch and was just insane... Was not a nice introduction for me to winter driving. But we pulled into a place 150km north of Calgary into a motel for the night and got up and drove back in the morning when it was still pretty slow. We couldn't get the camera out at night as we were all a bit preoccupied with staying alive but below shows how it was in the morning and this was about a 400% improvement on the night before. We could barely see 20m ahead the night before....

So kids stay safe and have a great New Year. More Canadian adventures and lifestyle coming soon, this post was pretty relaxed but more exciting things in the coming months. So catch ya soon.

#anaussielivingincanada

#dingotravels