On the Seventh Day of Christmas_Visit holiday displays

We live in a great city for Christmas events and displays, and are only a sky-train ride to Vancouver for even more free family events! Here in New Westminster there are many holiday celebrations taking place. Staring with lighting of a large Christmas tree in Hyack Square at the end of  The Parade of lights  AKA the Santa Clause Parade, held in early December. 

New Westminster has a large Merry Christmas sign on City hall!

 Irving House, built in 1865, is a beautiful place to visit to experience a recreation of a traditional  19th century Christmas. A little further west you can visit The Burnaby Village Heritage Christmas.  

Spending time in this village is like stepping back in time. There is even an antique carousel and the best salt water taffy for sale in the gift shop.

Venturing downtown Vancouver there are so many great things to see! The lights in Stanley Park are a terrific for the whole family. The annual light display is put on by local firefighters and is a fundraiser for the burn unit. Admission is by donation. There is something really magical about thousands of lights in the forest! 

The Bay downtown has a seasonal floor that is a Christmas wonderland and a fantastic way to pass some time if the weather outside is frightful.  Be sure to check out the large office building's lobby's, around Georgia and Burrard and Thurlow are all pretty spectacular, Hotels are also incredible . The Four Seasons has a Festival of Trees, which is a collection of sponsored decorated trees, there are themed trees and some are pretty fun!  The Hyatt Hotel has an annual gingerbread display with world record setting large gingerbread houses and men!

 Downtown you can take the Old Woodward windows display tour at  Canada Place. These old fashioned windows are nostalgic and beautiful!

 There is a dramatic art instillation at the Vancouver Convention Center so be sure to look for that downtown too. The Douglas Coupland Orca is my favorite, as well as The Drop, although not holiday related, it is a visually stunning piece of art, and worthwhile seeing if you are walking near by in Vancouver. 

When you are downtown there are many unexpected things you can see just walking around enjoying the atmosphere. There are plenty of family friendly events that are free or reasonably priced. Many of these things run past Christmas and into the new year so enjoy some Christmas cheer and be a tourist in your your own city.

On the sixth day of Christmas; The gift of experiences

Yesterday Ava and I attended the Royal City Youth Ballet's The Nutcracker. This was our first time at the ballet! As a family we usually try to see some live performance as part of our holiday season.
It is fun to attend plays, musicals and special events like this with your family for the holidays.
There is no waste and the memories will last a lifetime, and can inspire a child in many ways.

A few weeks ago we also saw The Wizard of Oz at the Carousal Theatre on Granville Island. This is one of my all time favourite stories! It is fun for all ages and the Carousal Theatre is very reasonably priced. Some of my fondest childhood memories are from seeing live performances and participating in plays and the choir in school. The excitement of live theatre, and the feeling that you are all grown up never leaves you.

Many high schools, and colleges also put on plays you can attend for a fraction of the cost of a professional group. You can also find more affordable tickets to matinees, the opera and the symphony. Sometimes you can even get to talk to the performers and really feel like part of the action. This is not the cheapest thing to do for the holidays, but everyone is sure to enjoy themselves and share the love of performance art together.

On the fifth Day of Christmas, waste free wrapping.

For Christmas this year we are making holiday gift bags and wrapping paper from cloth.

We have some left over from last year and we are making more. These bags are reusable and fun! You can buy material on sale in the off season and save it up for this. You can also use non holiday themed prints to make everyday gift bags for birthdays and other gift giving occasions.

We also reuse our old cards every few years. We will save our Christmas cards and cut them out and reuse them to make new cards to send to friends and family.

Another green wrapping idea is to use newsprint and stamp or decorate the paper yourself. This way you can personalize the gifts and don't have the plastic and paper waste from the traditional wrapping paper packaging.

When you plan ahead these idea's are really simple and people love to get gifts you have made yourself and can reuse! It's easy being green and not creating waste.

On the fourth day of Christmas_shop locally.

So technically yesterday was the fourth day of Christmas, and we went shopping!

I have done some online shopping (LEGO.com) yesterday we went to a few local shops to pick up some great gifts.

We first went to The Urban Gypsy a shop here in New Westminster that carries all sorts of jewelry, art and beautiful furniture. The owner, Jason, travels the world and buys carvings, statues, and hand carved furniture  and ships them back to Canada. I bought some beautiful scarves for my mom and sister and a gorgeous carving for my brother and sister in-law.

Recently I discovered an amazing Folk Art shop in gas town, in Vancouver called La Sirena. All the items are made in Mexico, they support small scale artist and bring beautiful art, clothing, jewelry and more to Vancouver!

I love this bag and put it on my wish list, it is perfect for taking to the market, library or beach.

We also love to shop at Ten Thousand Villages  They have a number of stores around the lower mainland and exclusively carry fairly traded goods, including coffee, chocolate, toys, stationary, items for the home and garden. It is incredible the variety and quality at this store. You are sure to find the perfect gift for everyone on your list here.

One more great place to shop locally is Great Wall Tea, a shop in the River Market at the Quay in New Westminster, they carry over 150 types of tea and you can sample any type you like. I personally love the Cream Earl Grey and Orange Mate, my kids love the Chocolate Mint, and with flavours specially mixed for the holidays you are sure to find something you will love and will love to give. You can also just stop by on your busy shopping day and take a few minutes to try some tea for yourself.

On the third day of Christmas; Home made goodies as gifts!

Banana Bread is a popular choice, or Orange Cranberry loaf  makes a perfect holiday treat.

This year we will be giving some home made gifts as well as a few store bought ones. We have already done a lot of the work over the summer and fall when we canned fruit, made jam and antipasto!

We usually bake at the holidays. Cookies, cakes, and loaves make perfect gifts that will not be wasted!  

Peaches  in syrup from the Okanagan this summer.

Strawberry Jam we made in June.

Cynda's Antipasto made in November.

It is easy to plan ahead and make large batches of fruits, jams and even more "complicated" things like antipasto. They are colourful and thoughtful gifts you can feel good about giving to people.

On the second day of Christmas; we put up our lights; LED!

Yes we have made the switch over to all LED lights for our house and tree this year. Most people are now aware that LED lights use only 10 % of the electricity of incandescent bulbs, they will last many more years and do not get as hot, so they are safer too.

Since 2007 The Home Depot has offered a light exchange as part of their Eco Options Initiative

They offer to responsibly recycle old holiday bulbs and discount LED lights up to 50% to encourage people to make the switch.

Their results are encouraging;

• close to 600,000 light strings collected
• more then 8000 MWh of energy saved
• more then 2,227 tonnes of green house gas emissions prevented(equal to the annual energy consumption of 789 houses)

Lights are so much a part of the holidays. Maybe it is because of the lack of sunlight and the cold colorful Christmas lights always make long winter nights more cheerful and bright.

On the first day of Christmas we put up our tree...

My 13 year old son, Justin, suggested I write about the 12 GREEN days of Christmas and as it is the 13th of December we figured this is the first day! So I will share our green holiday tips.

Tonight we will decorate our tree. This year we have a real tree. After going back and forth about what is the most environmentally friendly type, we decided on a cut tree.

This link from the National Christmas Tree Association makes some good points about real tress vs artificial.

There is no lead, PVC, plastic or other chemicals in a real tree. They are biodegradable and support farmers. We bought our tree down the road from us at the local hospital fundraiser.

We brought it home on our wagon and will pull it up to the fire hall in January when they do the free tree chipping. Our house smells great, it is like we have a 7 foot air freshener in the living room.