Pre-christmas time

Christmas time in Hamilton has started for me when the first real snow came – about two weeks ago. From that point, it got colder and colder, I even got out my winter boots and am wearing them until now. The Canadians say that the snow now won’t go away anymore! That’s how I like my winters :) I spotted beautiful icicles next to the second waterfalls I visited in Hamilton.

Pre-christmas time here is a little bit different from what I am used to. People here don’t celebrate the advent time as much. But then they do have Christmas parades and decorate their houses with lots of lights, air-blown snowmen, igloos, Santas and so on. Some houses have exaggeratedly many colourful lights and stuff in their gardens, and some also look very nice! My colleagues told me that most families with young children do the decorations, to make the kids happy ;) Moreover, Christmas markets are not a big thing here, although I visited that one in Toronto, which was nice, but extremely crowded. And they didn’t have Glühwein/Glöggi (or well, they did, but it was just too expensive!). So, the first and probably one time that I had real Glühwein was today. We had a Christmas carol singing gathering with lots and lots of musical people. Everyone brought some food, there were many kids around, old and young all mixed up, and we sang a lot of wonderful traditional Christmas songs from different cultures. A few German, French, and mostly of course English ones, some of which I didn’t know yet. So, it was also culturally a very nice afternoon. I met very kind people there, which again confirms that Canadians are very open and welcoming people.

As also at home we had Christmas parties with the colleagues, which are always nice to get to know your colleagues more, to talk about something else than work. This time, there was one department party and one party for the ‘smaller’ lab group only. The department party was organized at the university premises and they did have very good food! It was a good opportunity to meet some people from other groups, and chat nicely. The one for our lab group was held at Laurel’s house. Laurel is my supervising professor from McMaster University. She invites her group every year to her house. It is organized as a pot-luck party, which means everyone brings some food. With that concept, we had a great buffet! Many familial faces attended, and it was a lovely atmosphere, very homely with the Christmas tree already up and decorated, a piano, a cute dog… altogether those events made my pre-Christmas time memorable. I even got a few little gifts from some colleagues, who I only know for two months. I shall get them something nice from my Christmas vacation!

Christmas plans are as follows: As I cannot be with my family in Germany this year, Antonio decided to come over and spent the holidays with me :) We are going to go skiing in Quebec, Mont Tremblant (probably there are a few apostrophes missing here), and then see our American friend Ben in his hometown close to Chicago for New Year’s. When coming back, we will of course stop by the Niagara Falls! I shall tell you how it was after our trip!

I wish you all a Merry Christmas, my dear family and friends! This is the time to calm down, be with your loved ones and ponder on the wonderful things that happened during the year. Enjoy!

pictures to be uploaded later...