"Though we may have never met, we consider each other friends." These are some of the special people I met at the "Cooler", a forum that no longer exists on the net, but always will, in my heart. Thank you all for your contributions to the Recipe Book.

KIMM

Kimm is married, with a son and daughter and lives in Quebec. This is how she described Christmas:

Christmas has always been a special time for me. I have fond memories as a child,spending the Holiday Season with family and friends. As I've grown older and have become a mother,it has been important to me to instill a sense of tradition to my children. I can already see how they look forward to making Christmas cookies, decorating the tree, playing Christmas music and getting excited at the thought of Santa making a special visit to our home.

Christmas has also been an excellent time to teach my children that there are also others that have not been so fortunate.We make sure that a box of food is donated to a family in need,we also make special gifts for the needy and since we are Christian,we remember the birth of Jesus. Christmas is a time,that we should cherish and try to continue sharing and helping others in need throughout the year.

D. CARTER

D. Carter is also married, with a daughter, and teaches Grade 8 in Saskatchewan. Here is what she does during the holidays:

Our immediate families live several hours away, so Christmas for us means driving--lots of driving!--through all kinds of weather. We make a point of seeing our parents, brothers, sisters, nieces and nephews for at least a few hours during the Christmas season. There is always far too much great food, thanks to excellent cooks on both sides, and of course it is important to sample a little bit of everything!Music is very important in both of our families, so little intimate impromptu concerts and carol singalongs are special events. We always go to church on Christmas Eve.

Over the Christmas season, we try to see our gifted nine-year-old nephew play at least one hockey game. A crazy gift exchange is fun for the adults in both families, while Santa visits with a bagful of loot for the younger folk. This is the one time per year that we all haul out the board games and play for hours--rummoli, Trivial Pursuit, Scrabble, Scattergories, or whatever the latest craze happens to be. Because all of our visits are very quick, usually less than 24 hours in any one location, we get the distilled essence of happy family life, and the ideal Christmas celebration.

VICTORIA

Victoria is mom to three growing boys and very special friend to Buskboy (Al). :-) She lives in Ontario and works from home on her computer (lucky gal). Here are her thoughts:

Christmas has changed in so many ways for me and so swiftly, over the last few years that the kids and I are attempting to re-invent it for ourselves, to cover the gaping holes left by family who have passed away. This is an especially difficult one for us without Auntie Sonja. The parts that remain, that I keep as precious to us, include the celebration of the Savior's birth. I have this little ceramic nativity set. After it's set out on our table, I keep finding the donkey doing an incredible balancing act on top of the stable; or the wise men lined up like the Supremes in the middle of the street in the light-up village. That's okay. I'm happy the kids are comfortable enough with the story to want to play with the characters. They carry the spirit of it all with them as a birthright anyway.

I love the Christmas concert....my eight year old won the lead role this year - such a nice, fat little plum of a role, too - and I go every year and laugh and wipe my eyes in the ver-heated, half-lit gym, watching the kids, touched by their innocence and dedication. I stand at shop windows with them and gaze. My nose is pressed against different windows than theirs...they hanker after toys with a decibel rating of eighty or better..mom likes the stores with artist's prints and lovely rich paints. Have to admit, though, when I saw Peacock Barbie, the little girl still inside did an ooh-ahh.

Then there's the food....crisp potatoe latkes, homemade cheesecake, cookies studded with walnuts and apple jelly...the tree with all the icicles hung straight up and down until I get impatient and let it flow over individual branches like a silver Niagara. Did you know if you stand about eight feet away and blow towards the tree you'll get this magical flutter of the tinsel that is delayed just long enough to give the appearance of having happened all by itself? And how about the breathlessness of Christmas morning...where you're marshalled downstairs at five a.m. by three lads who stand frozen in the living room door for a moment, awed by Santa's generosity and you're hiding a smile behind your hand?

Not a year goes by that I don't search for meaning out of the jumble of tradition and commercialism and carols and family dysfunctions that seem to mark the season. The only meaning that appears to be constant is this: that the significance keeps changing because we do, so it really is okay to keep re-inventing it. You give some love and you get some love, and that's what the birth in the stable was about anyway.

Merry Christmas, Al. Merry Christmas, Cooler family.

AL (Buskboy)

Al also lives in Ontario and is a busker, if you hadn't figured that out. He loves to play guitar and sing the blues, although I think his blues are all gone since he met "Vic". :-) Take it away, Al:

Christmas time is very special to me because it's a time for my family to get together and "break bread", so to speak. The holiday season is riddled with Danish food made with love and devotion. Every table and horizontal surface in our homes have plates of any sort of candy -usually marzipan balls and another rolled-oat ball that I can't pronounce the name of. As Danes we live to eat and it shows in some of our family members whose bellies have seen more than a few Danish pastries. The smell of a duck roasting in the oven on Christmas Eve still melts me to this day because it was tradition in our family while I was growing up.

Of course my favorite event as a child was getting to open my presents later that evening while all the other kids in the neighborhood had to wait until morning. This was also tradition, however in retrospect I think it's better to wait til morning because it's no fun getting new toys and then having to go to bed.

I don't deserve to be as thin as I am. Food, food and more food is the name of the game during the festive season. Duck, turkey, and of course who can have Christmas without a light lunch of lobster, smoked salmon, shrimp, smoked deli meats, cheeses, pan-fried whitefish, liver pate, pickled this and pickled that and of course Danish snaps and gallons of beer. Well, that's the first course. For the second course you just start over again and continue to spend the afternoon at the table with loved ones, eating and being merry, until it's time for supper.

For anyone and everyone reading this I wish you all a very happy and special Christmas and holiday season, and if your happiness is overabundant, please fill someone else's cup, if they need it.

WILLI

Willi is married and lives in Ohio, with his wife (who is also a contributor to the "Cooler") and their son. Here is his thoghts to all about Christmas:

Christmas to me is my wife and son getting together in a cozy house when it is blustery outside and just enjoying our time together. It means gathering with our families and having a wonderful meal. It means going to midnight mass (which we havent done since Jake came into our lives, he loves the echo in our church :o) and thanking God for the family he has blessed me with. Christmas to me is having good friends...in "real life" and in my "net life".

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year....May God Bless you and your families.

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