My Christmas Holidays

Last year, my family and I spent Christmas in New York and I shared some bits of my trip here. Looking back, these were great memories for my blog, so I decided to do the same this year even though we didn't go anywhere and relaxed at home.

P.S. Some pictures were taken with my phone that has a crappy camera, so I apologize in advance for the quality of some.

December 22nd

My sister and I went to Magog to walk and do some window-shopping downtown. On our way, we stopped at La Fabrique de Bagels Café Noir since my sister wanted to buy sesame bagels. Other than bagels, there's a cute little bakery inside. The atmosphere was quite festive for the holidays.

Downtown, the sidewalks were really slippery which we didn't expect. 

We stopped at Alessa Trattoria to eat a pizza and enjoy some warmth. We chose the Capricciosa which has cheese, tomatoes, olives, artichokes, basil and, I believe, ham. It was okay, but the crust is probably one of the best I've eaten in my life. It has a "grilled" taste to it and the texture is very light.

December 24th

On Christmas Eve, my family and I went to church in the late afternoon.

I was a bit hesitant to take pictures inside of the church, but the church service had not yet started and I wanted to show its architecture. We basically never go to church except on Christmas Eve, so I took the opportunity to snap a few pics discretely at that moment. The reason why I wanted to post pictures of the church here is that I've always liked the inside of it, the colours and especially the work on the ceiling. I don't know anything about castles, but the interior reminds me of one or another major monuments.

We can only see one on the wall in the above picture, but if I remember well, each "wall sculpture" depicts the crucifixion of Jesus. There are also on the other side of the wall, but I really can't remember if they illustrate the same event or a new story.

After church, time to eat... or so we thought. I had a dish I wanted to make, but because I wasn't advanced enough in the preparation, I made everything last minute which delayed the time we actually sat down to eat. Oops.

I made smoked salmon, cream cheese & beets tortilla rollups by Marilou (Trois fois par jour). In my hastiness, I forgot to look at the recipe picture and ended up making very thin layers of cream cheese and beets with not-so-thin slices of smoked salmon. This made the rollups taste mostly smoked salmon and nothing else. It was alright, but nothing amazing.

The following morning, the juice (of the beets/smoked salmon?) had started to impregnate the tortillas which gave them a very particular texture. It was like chewing something wet and juicy. It wasn't nice, but the taste was still okay. IMO, this dish should be eaten on the same day that it is prepared. I'm still happy to have given it a try, though.

The rollups the following day, with better lighting and cut in smaller bites

That evening, there was also cheese fondue, sausage rolls and cold meats. I mostly ate sausage rolls and my rollups. I found there was too much kirsch in the cheese fondue for my taste.

My sister had bought a yule log from Les Vraies Richesses.

It is so good. The white part is like milk and vanilla mousse with berries and soft chocolate cake inside. It's probably the best yule log I've ever eaten. It's very light, not overly sweet and goes down well after a heavier meal.

December 25th

Chicken, stuffing and mashed potatoes: Our Christmas meal.

There were also carrots and cranberry jelly (we call it atocas here), but I'm not a fan of these...

The stuffing was incredibly good. There wasn't any celery because my mom didn't have any, but it was still savoury.

I had a stuffing crave a few weeks ago and bought two boxes of Stove Top stuffing after watching videos of it on YouTube. Both flavours were chicken, one being lower in sodium.

I was, however, disappointed. I don't like the dehydrated vegetables (reminds me I always throw them out when I cook instant noodles) and the food tastes too much like chemicals and has too many spices (there are boxed foods that don't taste too chemical to me, such as mashed potatoes).

So when I ate my mom's homemade stuffing, it tasted like heaven compared to Stove Top. Just my personal opinion. I asked my mother the recipe so I can make it at my apartment.

December 29th

Delicious onion soup. I think it's the second time I've posted a picture of onion soup on my blog, but it's probably my favourite soup and meals. I always eat yummy and comforting homemade food when I return home.

December 31st

My sister had invited us for supper for New Year's Eve (she had also invited us last year and I had planned on blogging about it but didn't which I regret now.)

Our main dish was filet mignon with oven-baked carrots. The meat had been covered in salty spices (I forgot the flavour) and it had made a sort of grilled crust on the surface. It tasted amazing.
For dessert, we ate a Chocolat Favoris yule log my mother had bought. It tasted good, but it was way too rich and heavy after our meal.

January 1st

My father helps a friend with his sugar shack and brought us to visit it (it's a small sugar shack where they collect, produce and sell maple syrup, but it isn't "opened" to visitors.)

I absolutely love this picture. It looks like a painting.

On our way to the shack where the maple syrup is collected and produced

I don't know if it's clear in the picture above, but the snow was quite deep and there was no proper "path". It was thus tough to walk in such deep snow and after five minutes, I was already a bit fed up. Normally, the walk to the shack takes about an hour, but in these conditions, you could reasonably add 30 minutes. Fortunately, we walked like this for about 30 minutes; it was planned that my father would join us in the Argo to take us faster to the place.

Sadly, my Motorola froze during the walk due to the cold. I had to turn to my Huawei which takes pictures of lesser quality (but doesn't do that bad outside, at least).

We can hear the water flows when we come across these small streams.

It's really soothing.

Very generally, to my understanding, the maple water is collected through a hole in the tree and circulates in these small tubes connected to other trees (also with holes), and eventually to a bigger tube, everything going down a slope (gravity is necessary for the water to flow down). The big tube heads to a big container (shaped in a tunnel) that can be connected to another container to begin the transformation into maple syrup.

I had only seen maple syrup being collected in a metal bucket through a hole in the tree before, so it was interesting to see another method. However, the process wasn't clear at times, especially since the sugar season (saison des sucres) comes in a while, so the tubes weren't "in work" yet and some things still needed to be added.

It would've been a good picture had my hand not been in front of the camera.

I like how it goes darker in the middle and the contrast with the white snow.

Between those moments shared here, I also went to thrift shops with my mom, drove around town to see the Christmas decorations, played card games, watched movies, did nothing in particular, and other things.
I'm now back in Montreal and my Christmas holidays are pretty much over. It was pleasant and I really liked spending time with my family, although I didn't fully regain the sleep I had wished to retrieve during the holidays. Stress is pretty much the reason why, but anyway. For this year 2020, some of my personal goals are to develop my style and my interests, pursue my hair growth and set aside more money than in 2019, notably but not exclusively by being more reasonable in my purchases.