Peaceful and relaxed vacation where everything seems to go perfectly aren’t always the ones that are the most memorable. We all sure discovered that as we stepped off our flight in British Colombia, Canada for an unforgettable family Christmas.
The airport is the last place you want to spend your valuable hours of Christmas vacation. Yet there me, my brothers, and my dad were stuck for a couple hours to find our lost luggage. Eventually we found it and were able to gather our things to meet the rest of our family at the airport, which included nine of my other relatives. After we said our hellos, we loaded our stuff into some rented vans and began our drive to Big White ski Resort. We pulled up not to the resort, but to a quaint little house about a mile away, which I found out we were renting from a man know as “Hog”. When we walked into the house, I observed that this man takes his nickname seriously. In the living room alone were at least one hundred stuffed animal pigs, and all sorts of other crazy pig knick-knacks. As we all were walking through the house picking rooms, I noticed that a five bedroom, two and a half bath house isn’t exactly roomy for thirteen people. That is when my aunt decides to drop the news on us all that she has invited her cousin and his son, which would bring our number to fifteen.
We woke up on Christmas Eve and walked to the resort to go skiing. Me and my brothers, who were first time skiers weren’t quite up to the ability of my Colorado living, hardcore skiing cousins. My day consisted of not as much skiing as it did pulling myself out of the snow every few minutes.
As we were all heading to bed that night my older cousin Ruston and I were up making pies for the next day. At about midnight, she went to pull out a pie as flames started shooting out the oven from a fire that had started from the pie juice dripping. We managed to put out the flames coming from the oven, but not before the smoke detector woke everyone else up. That put a stop to our cooking for the night.
On Christmas morning instead of the typical breakfast and opening of presents, my uncle had scheduled a five mile snow-shoe hike. To nine kids under twenty, it’s not exactly an ideal way to spend Christmas. But we were all proven wrong. Walking through untouched snow in the woods as the rising sun was gleaming off the snow was a breathtaking sight.
That night we prepared to go out for dinner and a sleigh ride. That is when my aunt pulled out fifteen identical shirts that we were all supposed to wear to dinner that said “Christmas 2006 Big White, BC”. It took a lot of convincing but we all reluctantly put them on. If that wasn’t embarrassing enough, we all had to get up to take a picture in front of the entire restaurant.
Next we went on our sleigh ride. Which turned out to be a hilarious game of making the groups behind us mad. As we sung our Christmas carols, every time we came to the word “Hey” in Jingle Bells the horses would stop, confusing it with one of their commands. This was holding up the entire line.
Although at times it was hectic, our family Christmas in Canada has created many good memories and laughs for our family.
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