Happy Friday!

Hello lovely friends! What do you have on your weekend line-up? We're going to give little miss her first sneak peak at Santa Claus as he arrives in town tonight. One of our American friends has also invited us for a delicious Thanksgiving feast. With the rainy, cold weather, I've been craving a lot of soup. I tried out this recipe for Broccoli soup last night. It was delicious.
I'm putting together a few holiday gift buying guides for you, although I am impressed that so many people I talk to are already done their Christmas shopping. I'm sorry, what? I haven't even started.
What kinds of Christmas traditions do you look forward to?
I can't wait to take our little girl on her first Christmas train ride through Stanley Park. I also can't wait to bundle her up and show her all of the Christmas lights at Van Dusen gardens. Basically, I am a sucker for a beautiful display of lights, like these at St. Paul's hospital. Look at this sparkling walk of lights in Japan. Stunning.
Do you have a tradition when it comes to decorating your Christmas tree? We always buy a fresh tree and have done it up like this for the past few years, but I'd like to try something different this go-round.
One of my funniest tree decorating moments was when I was growing up. No matter how hard my dad tried, our Christmas tree would not stand up in that $&#*@& stand. In the night we heard it fall over with a loud crash. My dad got up, took one look at the tree and tossed it over the balcony. Spectacular.
The right stand is half the battle, isn't it?
Thanks again for all of you lovelies who take a moment to peek at this blog. I am always heartwarmed by how many of you are out there and how far across the globe you span. A lovely reader from the Philippines asked me the other day if she could use one of my photos as her Facebook cover photo. I was so touched. This is my favourite hobby and I am always happy for any little slice of time I get to work on it. Have yourselves a lovely weekend!