Chrystos rodyvsya

The holy-days have nearly come and gone. Ukrainian Christmas is just around the corner.

"Chrystos rodyvsya!" is the traditional Christmas greeting which is translated to "Christ is born!". You answer this with "Slavite Yoho!" which means "Let Us Glorify Him!".

On Sunday we're going to have a simul-celebration of Uki Christmas, Mikale and Rik's birthdays.

My heart aches for my snow-less Ontarian family and friends (although not all of them are complaining;). My dad is the maybe the saddest of the bunch. He asked me to email him a picture of snow - "I've forgotten what it looks like". Sniffle.

Here's a picture (taken on Dec 12) of Talka's car coated in snow. The snow under the windows reminds me of saggy under-eye-bags. Looks more like a basset hound than a beetle. The snow on the top looks like a massive afro... snowfros everywhere I go.

Our sweet suite #6, is in the background. It's nice to have a home that doesn't sway and roll. Though I miss the Airstream dearly.

It is turning out to be an epic winter. There's already 261 cms (103 in) at the ski hill. Yip-yip.

Rik, Mikale and I went up today to play in the powder. Mirek led us down a beautiful backside run (Mikale's first). These deep powder runs just keep getting better.

Yesterday I got a bit tripped up on the start of a backside. I didn't watch the leader closely enough and when it was my turn my eyes made a quick turn to follow a set of tracks (was that the way?). My body and board didn't make the turn in time. I ended up in a tree well (which is the deep hole under the boughs of a pine tree). Since my board went in first I was totally safe, but perfectly stuck. Luckily there were three guys behind me. Two grabbed my arms and the other pushed from behind. Quite hilarious and humiliating. A great lesson in abandoning my ego.