Christmas Parade!

Montréal has a big fancy Christmas parade every year in November and while it seems like it would be a fun family outing, it was a little too cold for us that day. Luckily, there is a much smaller (but still cool) Santa Claus parade in our neighbourhood that happened last weekend when it wasn't minus 15. Always a bonus when you're hanging around outside with a 1-year old.

The parade started with horses, natch:

Followed by the official Christmas pooper-scooper!

Then we had all the usual suspects...

These guys are running in the provincial election we're about to have out here. Can I vote Obama?

Politics. Meh.

(Note her new to us Burberry snowsuit that Manon passed along. Nice, right?)

Liliane was into the sled dogs:

And these folk dancers:

And this guy:

Oh my goodness! It's Toupie and Binou! Our - I mean - Liliane's favourite cartoon characters!

I was trying to show enthusiasm for her sake. I mean, it's all about the kids, right?

There was even something special for the nerds:

Check out my festive red light sabre!

Nerd-in-training?

Look! It's Santa's accountant!  Her name is Scroogia McCrankypants.  She doesn't show up much in Santa's entourage...

And the big man himself...

Auto family portrait:

And that was the parade! Lots of fun, no frostbite, everyone was happy.

Otherwise, we're swinging into Christmas gear with lists and baking and parties and the whole thing. Stéphane's work party is tomorrow night already and he's excited and nervous about screening his project for everyone that he's been working on. I think it's going to go over BRILLIANTLY and he'll stagger in at 4AM full of compliments and all around good cheer. And relief. And red wine.

On Sunday I got to hang out with my pal Deb who drove in for the day from Ottawa. We went to the mall to do some very relaxed Christmas shopping (a bizarre but completely enjoyable sensation! Try it this season!) and some very much needed girltalk/catching up. I also put up our new solar powered Christmas lights on the front balcony on Sunday which seem to work about half of the time so far. I'll get the good old fashioned electric ones up on the back balcony this weekend.

Our new cleaner came today! She is not only sweet but it turns out that she does a great job. She even folded our toilet paper into a fancy point! I can already tell that my naive plan of having her come once a month will be scrapped. I booked her to come two more times before Christmas. Did I mention that she will clean my oven?!! 

My plan was to now get the Christmas decorations up but it's already 10:30 and here I am typing away so I guess they will wait until tomorrow. Or the weekend. 

Liliane is walking around more and more these days and looking less and less like Frankenstein when she does it. She says Papa more and more and seems to be a little less crazy about me in that she doesn't freak out when I leave the room, etc.  Phewf.

Will do my best to keep up over the next month or so. I should have my other baby back from the shop soon (my Canon Rebel camera) so I'll breathe easier once she's all fixed up and ready to go for the non-stop photo op that is Christmas... Also Stéphane's birthday is coming up! If anyone feels like babysitting, please drop me a line!