Canada Dreams

we are looking into starting skiing for the little one, but none of us has ever don it before, so i guess we will be off to ski martock, to have some lessons

purple80

Our first christmas here as well, I was dreading not being with either my parents or the outlaws and extended family. I tried not to think about it too much and really concentrated on the children and the food. Children opened their stockings first thing, then we had sausage rolls and mince pies, after that we all got ready so by the time we were getting to the main presents it was approaching 11am, this broke the morning up and meant that everything was not over and done with too quickly.

For the childrens main present they got a Wii with lots of bits, we had financial contributions off all the grandparents. I wanted to try and make this more memorable so instead of just wrapping and placing under the tree, I did a treasure hunt and they had to get all 12 parcels before they could open them.

(Slight panic half way through the morning when having put the oven on for the sausage rolls, I remembered that their was a numchuk in their, OH was having hysterics as I juggled a hot parcel out of the oven, appears none the worse for it's ordeal.)

This all took about half and hour, the children had a great time and were absolutely chuffed to bits to get a Wii. I took a video of the last bit of the treaure hunt and have sent to all the grandparents, so although they weren't actually there, at least they can see the reaction.

We then skyped family in the UK and France, I fully expected to get upset and cry but I didn't. I had a few sparkly eyed moments during the day, the worst one was when we were are the neighbours house in the afternoon, she had bought be a digital camera frame and a beautiful card.

In the card she had put a couple of beautiful comments that made me cry, but it was a nice cry, I am amazed by how quickly we have settled and consider my family and I extremely lucky to have this opportunity.

We still have many challenges ahead, the UK house completes the week after next, and then we have to wait and see what happens with the exchange rate. We hope to buy in the spring, have not completed PR yet and I would like to get another job.

But hey ho, one thing at a time!

Charlie

ireland2canada

*** moan alert ***

I think I had the lamest Xmas, ever! I've only been here for 2 weeks, so being away from my family & mates is still a bit raw.

On Xmas Eve, the people I share a house with had a party which I really didn't want to participate in much (they are very cliquey and we have quite the language barrier). It went on till 4.30 am.

I then got up at 7am to call my Dad. Feeling very guilty for buggering off half way across the world.

Then off out to meet two random strangers off the internet who also had no Xmas plans. Bit like the 'orphan dinner' mentioned above. The dinner was nice & we saw a movie afterwards. So it was all very.....polite and civilised. Not at all like my usual drunken mess of a Xmas back home, but given the circumstances it could have been worse.

Then back to the house to watch my favourite ever Xmas movie (Bad Santa) before passing out with exhaustion.

So there you have it, the lamest Xmas ever!

*** moan over ***

Canada Dreams

maybe if you were a bit closer, we could of met up, and mad your christmas even worse only joking

BristolUK

I always went to my parents for xmas, then just mum after my dad died in 77. All my brothers were married while I stayed single. The only constant was me and my mum, joined by a brother and wife or two until they had their own kids or another relative or friend of mum.

Occasionally it was just the two of us. The brothers, daughters in law and grandchildren put their appearances in at tea time or other days. One brother's Boxing day appearance depended on whether his football team was at home or away and what the kick off time was for a home game. My mum hated that; coming second to a football team.

Anyway, I moved to Canada in 2004 and our first xmas here was spent with my new family. We were living with the inlaws for the first few months.

When we moved to our own home (new province) we had all three inlaws (her mum and dad and my mum) come to stay for xmas.

The last two have been just us. I had expected the brothers to have stepped in and taken mum for at least xmas dinner; between them it would only have been once every three years. But none has so far.

She's been going to another relative (more friend than relative, really) and she enjoys it...but I know she feels let down.

J-A-UK

Just like us last year! We arrived on the 13th Dec 2007 and the priority was to buy a computer, a car and a Christmas tree!

We had a really crap time - and I see here some similarsituations where people are looking forward to buying houses etc. Good on ya. the house buying was the turning point for us too.

This time last year I couldn't see what the hell there was to look forward too, we were loosing $5000 a day on the exchange rate, being stitched up by people holding our money in the uk etc etc etc.......... There's pages of crap that when wrong for us.

But now a year on........... Our eldest daughter bailled out and at 18yrs old and in love has gone back to the Uk which was a bit of a bummer but our other daughter (14yrs) absolutely loves it here. Alison has now set up her own business and is "full" and I somehow landed myself a quite amazing job that I never would of imagined I could do let alone be offered.

Here I am, pleasing myself when and where I work for a salary that gives us $500 a month savings over and above all of our expenses - Although at Christmas we were all sick, we were warm and not hungry, New years we will be travelling out to a party and we are quite looking forward to whatever 2009 throws at us...........

I'm pretty dam sure that whatever it is, having gone through the immigration process it'll be a walk in the park !!!!

Good luck to all of you that might find yourselves troubled and lacking direction at this time of year......... We know what you're going through and if we can help in any way, just ask.

John & Alison xx