Saturday, December 22, 2012

Christmas Rain



We’ve talked a bit about Vancouver rain and how going out and about on a fall rainy day is a very Vancouver thing to do. Christmas rain is a bit different. It’s hard to get into the spirit of Christmas in the rain. I think it’s a little easier to get into the Christmas spirit in the Okanagan or back east where there’s snow. We occasionally get a white Christmas but not often. We recently had snow in the city but the rain quickly washed most of it away as usual.

Yet one thing we need to remember about Christmas rain is that as long as it’s below 8 degrees Celsius, all that Christmas rain in Vancouver is fresh powder on the local mountains. If you’re not there you miss it completely. As I’ve said before, driving up the mountains and crossing over the freezing point where the rain becomes snow is magical. After spending the day on the mountain in fresh snow then returning to the rainy city below is like waking up from a pleasant dream.



Nevertheless, today we went to the Vancouver Christmas market which is something fairly new. It’s a traditional German market with hand made crafts and lots of traditional food and drink. This picture is a local guy originally from Toronto dishing up some traditional German noodles. One is plain spaetzle for the vegetarians, the other is spaetzle fried with ham and Swiss cheese while the other is a different type of noodle with some potato mixed in. They’re quite nice. I’m not a big fan of sauerkraut though. I prefer the plain ones with a little glazed sugar. I like the spaetzle with ham and cheese. They had a girl from Switzerland glazing the cheese and the sugar with a small blow torch. I kid you not.



The chocolate fountain is a family favorite. I’m not big on fruit dipped in chocolate myself but I think the idea of melting chocolate and putting it through a fountain is cool. So even in the rain there are things to do to help you feel the spirit of Christmas.

I remember speaking with an Australian guy on one of the local mountains one winter. He said they’re not really big into the turkey dinner at Christmas back home. I asked him what a Christmas tradition was for him in Australia and he lit up and said we always have shrimp on the Barbie at the beach. Barbeque on the beach at Christmas I thought? Then I clued in, oh yeah Christmas is in the middle of your summer. That would definitely put a different perspective on it. Rolf Harris and the six white boomers. My father used to listen to that all the time at Christmas.

Speaking of Christmas, there’s a video going around of Nina Grewel saying how as a Sikh she is not offended by Christians celebrating Christmas. It’s a powerful video and pretty much sums up my definition of multiculturalism. Someone else’s traditions don’t diminish mine any more than my traditions diminish anyone else’s. She claims we can still use the C word and she is absolutely right. Merry Christmas everyone. May it be a peaceful one.

4 comments:

  1. Merry Christmas Agent K,

    Thank you very much for all your work and for putting so much effort into making our Canada a safer and better place to live.

    Thank you for bringing up one of my very favorite dishes I grew up with, "Spätzli", as a born and raised Swiss this brought back tons of fond and special memories, thank you...
    Spätzli is definitely Swiss not GERMAN :)

    Have a Very Merry Christmas and very HEALTHY New Year.

    All the Best,
    Maggie

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  2. lol I think it's popular in that entire region just like goulash. I worked with someone who went to Switzerland and said they visited a place where they carved a cave in a glacier and had a huge christmas tree set up with lots of lights. It sounded awesome. Christmas around the world is interesting to discover. Recently I was talking with a friend about christmas dinner and he was going on about how you need to have olives, pickles and perogies for the christmas dinner. I know about perogies but I asked where on earth do they have pickles and olives as a christmas tradition. He said Russia and the Ukraine. He's from here but he said that's a tradition he grew up with. I had never hard of that before. Merry Christmas.

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  3. Have A Merry Christmas, Agent K.

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  4. Merry Christmas to you. It's not always sunshine and rainbows when he have lost loved ones but surely the ideal is worth aspiring to.

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