Hurray for happy holidays! We enjoyed a multi-day visit with my parents. New Year’s Day = visiting Mr. GeoK’s parents. We shared Christmas dinner and an after supper board game with our youngest. But thanks to a glitch in “the system”, we had to make do with a Christmas Day video call with our oldest & partner. For a bunch of reasons, an extended family get together didn’t happen this year. That’s okay. Here’s hoping everything will line up for a whole family gathering next year.

Meanwhile, here are some highlights from our 2022 Christmas season:

1. In Search of Christmas Spirit

We kicked off the holiday season with an immersive light and sound experience in Banff. Called “In Search of Christmas Spirit,” the outdoor experience is set up in a lovely garden. The illuminated sculptures, story and sound effects tell the story of the wildlife of Banff National Park.

For the second year in a row, we ended up with tickets for a “bad weather” night (it was colder than -30C/-22F). The free tickets sell out quickly when released to the public, so you just have to choose a night and hope for the best. Or in our case, dress as warmly as possible. And bring hand warmers!!

This is one of my favourite photos from our December 1st visit. To see more, check out this Relive video.

2 and 3. Back in the Bird Feeder Business!

I wrote about our short, first attempt to support overwintering birds here. Thanks again to Brome for sending replacement bird feeder parts. And thanks to Mr. GeoK for making three trips to the hardware store to get the bits and pieces to relocate the repaired unit to more than 3 meters/10 feet up one of our pine trees. We hung a suet block holder higher up on the original post .

We are really enjoying the chickadees, nuthatches, woodpeckers and Clark’s nutcrackers that are now regularly visiting our backyard. One of our resident squirrels busily scavenges dropped sunflower seeds from below the feeder from dawn ’til dusk. Occasionally, a black-billed magpie pecks around under the suet block holder.

There’s one backyard visitor attracted by dropped sunflower seeds that I’m not happy about. If it’s a recurring thing, we’ll take the birdfeeder down for good. This photo is a bit “soft” because I shot it through a triple-paned window.

4. Christmas Star

The Christmas Star is a key element of Nativity story. Over the years, I’ve learned what camera settings are needed to create a “star” from a bright light in a photo. So I used a favourite isolated stand of trees to frame a sun star during one of our many sunrise photo walks in December. We had a lot of great sunrise photo walks this month – despite the extended deep freeze!

5. Taking the Bad with the Good

That’s life, isn’t it? We have no choice but to take the bad with the good. Our only choice is how we respond. So grateful that my circle of family and friends almost always chooses to respond by finding the silver lining, generosity, and/or a simple smile. Like Mr GeoK, when his inner child opted to crawl under a tree across the trail! 🙂 I didn’t even notice the title of the sign until we were back home. Serendipity!

Those are just five photos from another month of noting joy and practicing kindness – habits that help keep the happy holidays feeling alive all year.

Hop on over to A ‘lil HooHaa for a peek at the happy holidays experienced by other photo blogging challenge participants. While you’re there, please consider joining us for 2023. We’re a small, friendly and supportive community. All you need are five photos each month. The amount of accompanying text is up to you. Host PJ publishes the next month’s theme at the bottom of his monthly posts. I’ll add it here, as soon as it’s available.

Thanks for reading. If you have a few more seconds, please drop a comment sharing one thing that made your holidays at least a little happy. I’m always open to new ideas. 🙂