Mommy cut the pie and as she lifted the first piece she smiled and said, ?Hey, is this farine pie or fruit cake?? She and everyone else at the table saw the fruit throughout the pie and laughed. I guess fruit was not the missing ingredient but the pie was made with both Granny?s and my love. That is why they ate it and will never let me forget it!

Naturally mom was the overseer and always gave us instructions and directions letting us know if we had stirred the ingredients long and hard enough. It always seemed like we had been labouring all the day. Mom could be heard saying, ?keep stirring, just a little longer it?s not quite ready yet.? We?d long for the time when we could add the eggs, that made the stirring a lot easier. Then we?d keep asking ?is it ready yet??. Finally, we?d hear her say ?girls I think it?s ready for you to put the eggs in now.? That sentence of hers was music to our ears.

When we are almost done I ask, ?Can we make two more trays of farine pie?? She says, ?Girl you crazy!? I just moan and say ?okay?. When we take a break my nana goes into her room and shuts her door as soon as her door is closed I dash out into the kitchen and start eating the farine pie. As soon as I start walking back into the living room my nana comes out of her room and sees me with farine pie all over my face. Now you know how well my nana?s farine pie is.

Every Christmas my family gets together and has dinner. We normally have wine for the adults and very strong juice for the kids. For dinner we have steak and mushrooms with green beans. We also have beef Wellington with broccoli and lettuce. For dessert we have cheesecake, ice cream and moose banana bread. (Poor moose!)

I like Christmas because it is when I can see all of my family and friends together. My family is very fun. They like to do a lot of things, but most of all they love to eat. My Auntie likes to make a lot of good food like my favourite rice and chicken. She makes a lot of foods that we all enjoy. I love Christmas!

If mom found us not playing with or enjoying all of our Christmas gifts, they were taken away and were wrapped and placed under the Christmas tree for the following year. It is often said ?things are better the second time around? and they were. I can clearly remember some of my ?second time around? gifts like my 8 ball, view master, and a doll whose eyes opened and shut whenever her head moved.

Back at the house, my grandmother always asked my father to start a fire in the fireplace with the ?Yule Log? or more accurately, the dead branch that had been the object of many a quest on our nature walks at Spittal Pond or along the Railway Trail. Most Christmases we had to turn on the air-conditioning to offset the heat from the fire, but Grandmother had to have a traditional Yule Log burning, as though we were characters in a Christmas story by Charles Dickens.

My Christmas is always fun because we can pop the Christmas poppers, eat cassava pie and thank God for bringing Jesus to Earth to die for our sins.

I think Christmas time is about celebrating the birth of Jesus Christ (Christ is where we get the word Christmas). I love when we go over my grandma?s house the best. Christmas is my favourite time of the year. I love celebrating the birth of Jesus. That is what Christmas is all about.

Christmas to me means having fun and respecting others. I love my family. On Christmas evening I go to church at St. Theresa?s Cathedral. Church finishes at 1 a.m. After church I go to my family?s house and eat so much food. When I get to my house, I get so full.

On Christmas day the owner came. I gave her the dog. I felt sad, and then she said I could keep the dog. I felt so happy. I played with the dog all week long. Every day of the week I feed him. I walk him, and I wash him. I love my dog.

After we get dinner the kids stay up all night and watch TV. In the day we sleep until someone wakes up then we take water balloons and throw them at each other. After we get busted and we do it again.

Scooter tag is a game we made up about three Christmases ago. In order to play this game you need to have at least two people. They both have to be on scooters [the non-motorised kind we presume and the person who is it has to catch them. But the catch is there is no base, so you have to keep going until they gave up or you caught them. As you can picture in your mind, scooter tag kept us occupied for hours and hours at a time.