Sarah and Rob’s Christmas gift for our family this year was a weekend at the Banff Springs.  If there is a better way to enjoy time with my kids and grandkids than a winter weekend in the perennially majestic Rocky Mountains, than I have yet to find it!   What a wonderful idea for a Christmas gift, made doubly more enjoyable and relaxing in late January after the hustle bustle busyness of the season had subsided!  The older I grow, the more precious and poignant these kinds of moments together become.

I remain thankful that our family continues to keep the ritual of the Sunday dinner.   Little did I know decades ago, that this simple act of gathering family around a dinner table would grow into the tradition it enjoys today.  From those early years, when both Brian’s and my parents were still alive, we have accumulated a lifetime of many fond memories, sitting around that Sunday dinner table, sharing the stories of our lives.  Extended family sometimes joined us … lively political debates were often the order of the day … all such good fun!   As we continue to evolve as a society, where communication in this fast paced electronic age can too often be limited to a text or a brief phone call, how comforting to know that on a Sunday evening, we can gather, face to face, break bread, savour a glass of fine wine, or a tasty stew, a casserole, a roast, all the while sharing our week’s adventures!  Viva la family dinners!!