Our Big Fat Family Christmas Party at 105 Gibson Centre, Markham, Ontario

Our big fat Christmas dinner was held at one of the community rooms at 105 Gibson

Our family has been holding our annual Christmas dinner for the past four decades. It is a great tradition and we all look forward to this gathering, especially our 92 year old mother.

Baby T. with her grandma!

Over the past four decades, our family has grown from a family of nine to close to forty people.

Though many of our grown children are studying or working outside of Toronto, they make a real effort getting to this annual family get together.

Little baby L.'s very first Christmas!

Every year, this family dinner has been held in someone's home as we take turn to organize and host this gathering.

Little baby T.'s very first Christmas too!

However, our family has grown to a size that is no longer can be held comfortably in many of our humble abodes.

The L.'s and S. ( S. and D. drove from Ottawa to the family dinner

This year, our big fat family Christmas dinner was held in a community room at the 105 Gibson Centre.

D., M. and her baby girl.

Since it was my turn to organize and host the party, I made the arrangement to contact the 105 Gibson Centre staff, to rent the room and buy the event insurance.

S. and M. drove from Kitchener for our Christmas family dinner

Though  Meals In Need located in 105 Gibson Centre does offer catering service to special events, our family opted for a potluck dinner instead.

There were a lot of delicious food brought to the party!

Every family brought a different dish to our potluck Christmas dinner

S. and his dad at our dinner held at 105 Gibson Centre

Besides organizing a delicious Christmas feast, I wanted to make sure there would be songs and games at the party. Therefore, I started planning this family event almost a month and half ago, getting everything ready and packing all the Christmas decorations, candles needed to turn this community classroom into a festive Christmas party room.

It was pretty exciting on the day of our family Christmas dinner! We picked up our son, E.who took the red eye flight from the States to make it in time for this party.

After dropping him off at home to catch some sleep, we loaded up our car with all the things we needed and went to Gibson Centre to get ready.

This was to be a dinner for 43 people all together!

We were grateful that staff from 105 Gibson was there to help us - the table clothes we rented were already on the tables and the microphone was set up.

 I just had to tell them how we wanted the tables and the staff assisted us in getting them all placed according to our room arrangement plan.

The kids enjoyed the food and the family party

Shortly after 4pm, some of the family members started arriving and they too gave us a hand getting ready.

Baby H. and his great grandma and family.

We had eight long tables arranged in a U shape in the centre of the room, three long tables against one side of the wall for all the potluck dishes, one table for drinks placed in the middle of the room and another table in a corner for desserts.

The room looked pretty nice after we lit the candles on the tables with all the flowers and decorations.





















 It made me very happy to see that our extended family and their relatives could get together at least once a year, have a good time and catch up with each other.

Tre. opening his gift from his Secret Santa

To minimize gift buying for the families, we played the Secret Santa game for the little ones.

I drew the kids' names randomly and sent their names to each Secret Santa who would only buy for that kid.

Family and guests had fun guessing the weight of the fruit basket

We also had a couple of games for the adults.

One of them was the fruit basket weight guessing game. I wrapped a basket of fresh fruits, candies and treats in a basket and asked each guest to write down his/ her guess for the total weight.

Monica had it right on the spot at the beginning but later changed it. Bill, one of our guests ended up with the closest guess and won the basket

E. tried to unwrap the gift with mitts on while Little H. rolled the dice

The second game at our Christmas party was a gift opening game.

I wrapped two gift cards in many layers of wrapping paper at home.
 ( I was watching some Christmas TV shows the night before and wrapped the gift for at least 2 hours!)

Wearing a pair of mitts, each participant tried to tear open the gift wraps while another person rolled the 2 dice together. When the two dice added up to number 7, then another person would have a turn at opening the wrapped gift. The person who completely removed the last layer of wrapping paper would win the gift.

The little kids like this gift opening game as well!

When I was preparing this game, I intended it for the older cousins and adults.

 I was pleasantly surprised that little 4 year old Ha and Ba. also like this game. They stood at the table wanting to participate; Ha. was so into it that she ended up becoming our dice thrower. Good job, Ha.!


(I have to remember how much the little kids like this game.)

Our guests had a good time at our family party too!

We were able to invite some guests to share our family gathering and their kids really had a great time at our family party.

This was what warmed my heart - sharing the blessings of God with other people other than our family members! This is the Christmas spirit and that's the least we can do in this season marked by love and giving!

R.T.
Our Big Fat Family Christmas Party
105 Gibson Centre
105 Gibson Drive, Markham

A Winter Solstice Celebration at Alexander Park, Downtown Toronto, Ontario

December 21 is the winter solstice, the longest day of the year.

We heard about the Winter Solstice Parade and festival at Kensington Market in downtown Toronto for a number of years, but we had not had the opportunity to go and watch it.

This year, we remembered and went downtown expecting that we could watch this annual parade.

However, by the time we went to Kensington Market, the parade had finished its route there and moved onto the Alexander Park close by.

Following the loud music coming from the nearby area,  we saw people going toward where a big bonfire was.

Though it was cold, lots of people were standing around watching the performers doing their tricks with  fire.




















It was a cold Canadian evening at around minus 7 degree C. People bundled themselves up for outdoor events.

However, we were surprised to see a couple of young men performing in the cold with their chests bared!

It was December 21, just a few days before Christmas and we have been busy preparing and getting ready for our big family Christmas dinner.


It was nice getting a break for a few hours from all the holiday preparations.

Feeling cold after standing for a half hour show, we took shelter in a vegetarian restaurant close by to warm up and enjoy a rare night meal.

It was a different evening out for us and we enjoyed the experience!

R.T.
Kensington  Market
Toronto

A Free Ride Day to Celebrate Toronto's Subway Line 1 Extension

The Updated Subway Map of the Toronto Transit System

Dec. 17, 2017


Though the population of Toronto and the GTA area has been increasing steadily annually and the traffic congestion is getting worse,  TTC, the city's transit system has not had its subway line extension in over fifteen years.

We celebrated a new subway extension recently in Toronto

Recently, Torontonians  and residents in the surrounding area, particularly in Vaughan, have a reason to celebrate - the newly opened Line 1 extension to the city of Vaughan.

The first TTC Subway Station in the City of Vaughan, Ontario

On Sunday, Dec, 17, 2017,  the weekend where we had our staycation at H. and R.condo, the new extension was opened.

To celebrate its grand opening, the  TTC - Toronto Transit Corporation allowed passengers to ride free for a day so that people could try out the new subway line.

We got on the free TTC ride to visit the newest train stations

After Sunday Service at our church, we went with R. and rode on the brand new subway line.

Vaughan Metropolitan Centre - The  new and the last TTC train station on the Line 1 Extension

Interior of the Vaughan Metropolitan Centre Station

This TTC Line 1 extension is  8.6-km long running from Toronto to the York region.

It consists of 6 new subway stations, built at a cost of over 3 billion dollars. The last new train station is called the Vaughan Metropolitan Centre.

A Staycation With Old Pals in Downtown Toronto

A view of downtown Toronto from our good friends' 33rd floor condo unit. 

I am grateful that we have made some good friends in our younger days. Though we changed schools a few times, and now we are retired,. we always try to keep in touch with our good friends from work.

Just a week before Christmas, we were invited to spend a weekend with our good friends at their downtown Toronto condo.

My husband chatting with our friend in his Toronto condo 

When we go away from our house, we normally go out of town for a weekend but accepted this staycation idea from our friends.

R. gave me a cooking lesson on making ab apple cake

H. and R. were glad to see us since we hadn't seen each other for almost half a year. They had planned activities for us to do together this weekend.

R. is a very good cook. Whenever we visit them, he always cooks up a storm and prepares a lot of delicious food for us.

This time he got all the ingredients, and gave me a couple of cooking lessons.

A yummy apple cake was made from scratch in an hour's time

I am not a good cook; I was glad to learn how to make this easy but very delicious apple cake ready to serve in less than an hour!














We spent time enjoying good home made food and conversation.














While R. shared with me his expertise in cooking, H. and I spent time catching up and reminiscing our good old time in our teaching days. H. was immensely proud of his daughter. He showed me a newspaper article about an award his daughter received recently.

Enjoying some after dinner wine, R. shared with us the pictures of his nephew's wedding in a tropical resort.

We had a really good night of sleep at their condo!

My husband was delighted  at the 5 star cuisine prepared by our host

When we were up the next morning,  R. already set the table and prepared us a full delicious breakfast!

We went to church on Sunday morning and returned to our friends' condo for our second night of stay there.

It was a great staycation weekend for us!

R.T.
Staycation in Toronto

Some Fun Wedding Activities at Destiny Banquet Hall

We attended a wedding dinner recently at Destiny Banquet Hall in Vaughn, Ont.

We attended Haley's wedding recently at the Destiny Banquet Hall in Vaughn, Ontario.

Guests waiting  to enter the banquet hall

Attending a wedding used to involved food, wine and dancing while celebrating with the wedding couple. However, these days, a wedding banquet seems to involve more things than just dining.

The first thing guests were asked to do at this wedding was an invitation by the bride and groom to write something such as:

1. words of encouragement
2. future date ideas
3. guests' favourite bible verses etc

Guests were encouraged to be creative and wrote something on the paper provided. 

We did and dropped our ideas into a box specially made for the guests' input.

Props available to the guests for their pictures.

Another things guests could do was to choose some of the props available on a table.

The picture booth for guests at the wedding dinner.

They put them on for a few pictures with their friends.

We did that too!

The head table at the wedding banquet

After we had our pictures taken with the props and deposited our words of encouragement, we proceeded and entered the wedding banquet hall.

The celebration started with grooms men and bridesmaids danced into the banquet hall followed by the bride and groom.

Haley and Raymond dancing their first dance at their wedding reception.

The waiting staff ready to serve guests their first course at Destiny.

We  are friends of the bride's parents therefore we did not know the groom at all.

The theme colour for the wedding was blue.

The elated parents enjoying their daughter's wedding reception

There were some fun games at the banquet too.

All the single guests were asked to go to the dance floor to do the chicken dance.

The happy mother in law!

It was delightful to watch how happy the parents of the bride were, especially the mother of the bride.

The bride thanking her maid of honour and bridesmaid

There were touching speeches given by the wedding couple.

The bridesmaids sang and talked about their long lasting friendship with the bride since kindergarten.

Guests were encouraged to enjoy the fine pastries and sweets laid out on the dessert table and take part in the dancing after the dinner.

It was a great celebration and at the Destiny Banquet Hall!

R.T.

Vaughn, Ontario