Mr. Burns' Dog Blog: Christmas is here! (and gone)

Apologies for the delay in recent updates to this web log. Hopefully the quality of this one will make up for the lack of quantity. We've been up to a lot in the past little while. There was a road trip to Seattle to see Uncle Aaron's favourite team take on the local Seahawks.

The traffic around the stadium was preposterously awful, but the stadium itself was quite lovely. The hometown crowd even cut Uncle Aaron some slack and sparred him the usual tar and feathering that ordinarily goes along with wearing the opposition's colours. Maybe it was because Tampa Bay was 1 - 13 and the locals were calling this "guaranteed win Sunday".

One of the best parts of the day was the regional delicacy of garlic with a side of French fries. Yumm.

In the end, the so-called "12th Man" made little difference. In addition to coming one "false start" penalty away from the whole stadium getting a free Great Clips haircut, the home side left disappointed as the visiting team cakewalked to a very surprising one-sided victory.

Upon the return to Canada, little time elapsed until the Christmas traditions went into full swing, starting with the customary Christmas eve eve trip to the Bamboo Grove.

As you can see, Dad's folks are in town for Baby M's second Christmas.

Madeleine's favourite part was the fortune cookie. Her fortune was: "Pass bill to person across the table".

After the dinner, the whole family rushed over to historic Steveston for the annual Santa Claus parade. Unfortunately I turned my back to take this picture of Madeleine with Pa(w) and I missed the whole parade. Rats.

On Christmas eve Madeleine sported the outfit her mother wore on her second Christmas.

Before bedtime Baby M made sure that the Santa key was in place to allow for the necessary ingress and egress of presents.

The next morning, Madeleine couldn't believe her eyes...

... through some sort of clerical error in the North Pole, she made it onto the "good list" (kidding Baby M).

Baby M lays claim to her loot.

Santa brought this skirt all the way from Australia for Miss M.

Madeleine models her new Quatchi backpack for Opa.

"Hmm, these ones say 'For Madeleine' too!"

She'll have to grow into this one I think.

Family-with-matching-pyjamas portrait time. At least they didn't make ME wear a Santa hat!

Madeleine tries her hand at taking a self-portrait.

After an exhausting odyssey of present opening, we were off to Nana and Pa(w)'s...

...for more presents!

Madeleine shows off her new boom-box to Uncle Aaron.

We've told Madeleine that chocolates are only available once per year in advent calendars. Do you think that she'll buy it?

Note the sweet Christmas sweater.

Madeleine explains the concept of "high 5" to her Opa.

She's also really keen on Hide and Seek.

After all the turkey and present opening, there was one more stop to make: VanDusen Gardens to take in the fabulous Christmas lights display, and if you're lucky, hot apple cider!