I spent Christmas Day with my mother and family here in Quebec, and we had a good time. We children now find ourselves in a kind of "between stage" in our family. We are too old for the serious gift giving business, especially as there are no grandchildren to spoil. So, we decided a couple of years ago to stop any expensive family gift giving. We still do little ones.

I think my favorite gift of the holidays was a jar of pickled onions from my mother. She has a reputation as a giver of hysterically funny presents, even though she would probably disagree. Nothing will ever beat the Christmas she gave my brother a lace doily. It was not just any doily though. She had actually wrapped one from the dining-room table at home. No one has yet figured out whether she did this on purpose or in error!

After Christmas Day, my mother and step-father headed to the United Kingdom and thence to India. The rest of us set course for the Laurentians north of Montreal. We rented a chalet in Ste-Adele and spent four days there after Boxing Day. My father and Jill managed to find a small space in their car to take me up, complete with skis, bags and clothes.

My brother David, my father, Jill and I spent four days up there in the mountains, while Kristina, Sara and Chris arrived later and we had a bunch of other visitors too. It was a brilliant holiday and it was the perfect remedy for the stresses and excesses of of the holidays. No matter how hard you try, Christmas can sometimes be stressful. It can be a time when you spend days running around trying to see everyone, and trying to get everything finished on time. The perfect antidote (honed in Ste-Adele) was cross country skiing, eating, drinking, playing board games, foosball, reading, knitting, or just relaxing in front of the fire.

In Ste-Adele, we went skiing every day even though conditions were far from ideal. On the first day we had freezing rain, wet soft trails with great crackling sounds from branches falling around us. The scenery was a little daunting. However, we all survived to enjoy an evening dinner of raclette- delicious. These Swiss know how to eat after a good ski.

The following morning our group set off for a 10km ski, and because of the conditions, it took us about 3 hours!!! The trail was unbelievably icy and fast.

Waxless skis didn't work and even klister didn't grip. The black diamond icy down hill runs were vicious, and we all took a tumble of some sort. However, the "Queen of the Wipeout" award was definitely won by my sister. She could barely walk that night, or the following day, from all the bruising. She had all of us dying of laughter with every new spectacular spill. I know that this sounds mean of us, but if you had been there you would have joined in. On one occasion both her legs, with skis still attached, were well above her head as she tried to stop her momentum by launching herself backwards - it was classic.

On our last day, we again went skiing, but this time the temperature was around - 20 degrees and that was without the wind chill. Everyone's fingers and toes were frozen and gave us agony as we warmed them up. Our ski trip was short - only about an hour and a half - but everyone was done by this point and looking forward to a hot drink by the fire.

All in all, we had a very good time together. Everything was as Christmas should be: Family, friends, laughter … oh and of course, good food. I was sad when the four days were up. The visit was short, but now we can start planning the next chalet trip in 2010. I can't wait.

We had a good transition on the way home when we all met together with friends in Chinatown and had a multi-course lunch! Now it really is time to get back to work and face the coming year. I started with writing a journal as the website now has over 100,000 hits since we started in 2006.

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