Christmas Eve was the epic cooking session which I really needed. After going to the gym in the morning I spent a good six hours cooking pavlova, wild rice salad, shortbread, florentines, mango and prawn rice paper rolls, and last but not least ice cream to use up the egg yolks left over from the pav. Oh, and pancake batter was also whipped up ready for Christmas morning! My biceps definitely felt like they had had a decent work out after all that hand whipping as we don't have an electric beater! This was all done just in time to take some of the baking and the rice paper rolls to my coach Adam's for Christmas Eve drinks.
The party was nice, lots of families with their adult children and everyone in a great mood. I had fun meeting some real 'locals' not just seasonal staff or racers. We also all enjoyed stuffing our faces with too much guacamole, meat balls, rice paper rolls and different varieties of cookies. No better way to prepare the stomach for Christmas Day itself!
Christmas Day I got up early for pancakes and then headed off for a little snowboarding. Given the conditions at the moment I wasn't that excited about going snowboarding. However, I am of the view that only a spoilt brat wouldn't go skiing on Christmas Day if the opportunity was there. Getting a ride on Christmas Day proved a little difficult, but a van containing 2 South Africans, 2 Irish People, a Kiwi, an Australian and 2 other hitchikers came to the rescue. Here are some of the legitimate passengers crowding in - I was on the floor!
I made it eventually...
Although conditions are not great I am glad I made the effort to get there. The weather at Sunshine was glorious, people were happy, and I was snowboarding. No matter what the snow is like or my mood beforehand I LOVE snowboarding. Getting to Sunshine for some free-riding was a good way to reaffirm why it was exactly that I was spending Christmas away from my family and friends - and that I had made the right decision. Who needs Christmas presents or church when all the glory of the mountains is right there in front of you?
The family that brought me home from Sunshine were kind enough to drive me all the way up to my house. This saved me a full hour walk and so, to show my gratitude, I managed to palm off a package of shortbread. Bonus! Now I don't have to eat it!
I got spruced up, got the pav and rice salad ready and walked down at dusk to Adam's parent's house for Christmas dinner. There were 11 of us there to enjoy the evening. To celebrate Christmas Lyn and Jim had cooked up a Turkey and a Ham and all sorts of side dishes. The night was great fun, and the food delicious. The wine just kept flowing, and as it did so did some hilarious story telling. We all also enjoyed a little macadamia liqueur and scotch to finish off the meal. Desert was my pavlova and an apple and Saskatoon crumble. A Saskatoon is a local type of berry, it was like a small, slightly sour blueberry. It was strange not having Mum's plum pudding and brandy butter, but the crumble a delicious alternative!
The night progressed into a game of Cranium. Given the number of althletes in the room as you can imagine it got fairly competitive. You will be please to know that I wasn't going to lose to be polite and my team did end up smashing all the competition. Winner winner turkey dinner!
At about 1 am it was well and truly time to head home, get to bed and sleep as late as possible. I am currently lying on the couch on Boxing Day still trying to digest all the food I ate, but I am content and looking forward to training tomorrow. We have a the start section of a course set up so it should be a good couple of days to really focus on starts and getting used to pulling out of the gate.
I hope you all had as much fun as I did for the holidays and have great plans for the end of this year and the start of next.
Sending smiles and prayers for snow from Canmore!
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