wish you were here

Hope everyone's Christmas was merry and bright! We are having a lovely time here in Banff, AB. The snow is absolutely perfect - light and fluffy and clean:) It was a bit chilly yesterday, but much more comfortable today and as long as you have a hat and scarf it's just fine! I've always wanted to spend Christmas somewhere cold and blanketed with snow and I finally got my chance! It just feels more like Christmas up here.

Our flights went smoothly on the way up. We had rented a car in Calgary and started driving for Banff by about 3:30pm! By then we were starving and hadn't eaten in about 8 hours, so we stopped along the way at some hole-in-the-wall pizza and salad place and ate in the car. The food was surprisingly delicious! Once we got to Banff we checked in to our hotel, drove around the little downtown for awhile, and got ready to Christmas shop. We had planned to buy each other a nice gift in Banff to open on Christmas morning ... something to remember our trip by. The only problem is that we didn't take into account that everything would be closed early on Christmas Eve! The only thing open was a gas station. I was determined that we have something to open on Christmas morning, though, so we bought some "presents" for each other there at that lonely little gas station:)

I wanted to have a tree for our room, but again, everything was closed, so my sweet husband snapped a little branch off a pine tree for me, and that became our "tree". We put it in a water bottle, made a tree skirt out of Kleenex, and I made a little angel out of a dime, bobby pins and doilies from under the coffee cups. while my husband made candy canes out of coffee stirrers. It's our own little Charlie Brown tree, and it's my favorite tree I've ever had.

After that we went to a church service at the church I mentioned yesterday. Oh my, was that a treat! It began with a Cantata by a professional opera singer from England. She was phenomenal. She was accompanied by a woman playing the harpsichord, and they played and sang traditional Christmas carols from the 16th to 19th centuries in the language that they were originally written in. It was just breathtaking. The midnight candlelight service that followed was very sweet, and it was so amazing to be worshipping alongside tourists from all over the world.

This morning we watched It's a Wonderful Life, and opened our little gas station Christmas presents. I gave Mr. F a notebook, and inside I wrote and illustrated (with stick figure people) "The Story of Us", starting on the day we met and ending at present day. He loved it! He gave me a calling card so I could call my family today (very thoughtful!) and we both gave each other chapstick. Oops! I called my sweet parents, and it was wonderful to be able to tell them Merry Christmas!

We wanted to have a fancy Christmas lunch, but the only thing that was open was McDonald's! Oh well ... it was tasty (McDonald's tastes the same in Canada as they do in America, in case you were wondering) and there's always tomorrow! This afternoon we drove up to Chateau Lake Louise, and toured around the hotel and surrounding areas. It was just gorgeous in the snow ... absolutely gorgeous.