Christmas Eve this year was celebrated in Sherbrooke, about an hour and a half east of Montreal near Magog. We recently met a Polish family, Artur, Beata and little Karolina, which moved there just a few months ago. Artur has a post-doctoral position at the University of Sherbrooke working on top secret nanotechnology to efficiently harvest solar energy for use in satellites (really!).

We arrived about noon on December 23rd with the whole family including dogs. First thing was to have a cup of tea and then head out for a dog walk before daylight ran out. Parc du Mont-Bellevue is a large natural area bordering the University. A loop about 5km long provided us a couple of hours worth of dog sledding, luge practice, canon balls into the snow and plenty of go-fetch.

Upon returning it was time to get to work with preparing the next day's feast. The responsibilities were divided as follows:

• Beata: Dough for perogies, soups, cakes
• Artur: Cooked fish, helped with home-made noodles.
• Bogusia: Perogy stuffing and herring.
• Alex: Stuffed buns

This year I figured out that making the bun-stuffing a day early was what I was missing from my dad's recipe. Beata made perfect borsch and the best home-made noodles, but unluckily her cakes fell down every time.

Jakub and Robert loved to play with their new two year old friend Karolina. Karolina's mother talked to her all the time and she picked up cute comments that didn't sound like they should come from a toddler: "Oh how wet the dogs are." "Oh what a huge meal". "Oh what a big racket." She's a delightful and intelligent little girl.

Robert loved all the musical toys in the house, especially the dancing santa. He danced with Mr Clause for hours. During the rare times that santa got boring there was always the house with all the real-life sound effects.

Dec 24 was all about finishing the food and then eating it. Everyone was pretty tired for some reason and we were moving a little slower than the day before. When the kids had their nap we also wrapped all the presents to put under the tree,

Another Polish couple and their boy came over for dinner. They brought desert including a delicious "Poppies and Macaroni", which was some kind of a sweet layered construction topped with whipped cream. I think I'll try to recreate it in the future. My aunts deserts from the Calgary Christmases were still king in my opinion, but these were pretty yummy.

We quickly gave up trying to make a dent in the food. I am not exagerating when I say that after everyone had gorged the serving plates looked practically as full as when they started. They must have had leftovers for weeks.

Then came presents, which just turned into a crazy free-for-all. There were two remote controlled cars. The fathers tried to handle the remotes, but the kids handled the cars directly.

All in all a great Christmas for two families alone in Quebec. I would go for it again next year!