Our Winter Wonderland Cottage Vacation

I’m not a winter person. If I was given a choice between going to a chalet to ski or going to a beach resort, I would choose the latter EVERY. SINGLE. TIME! But having spent the majority of my life in Canada, the winter has grown on me, especially now that I have kids. I’ve come to have a love-hate relationship with winter. There is one thing that I look forward to every winter and that is our family vacation at the cottage over the Christmas break.  There’s nothing better than sitting in a cozy setting, surrounded by snowy woods and staring at a wood burning stove while sipping red wine and reading a book.  Okay, most of that description happened pre-kids, but there’s still something magical about being up in cottage country during the winter WITH kids. This has turned into a a annual tradition and I can’t imagine being anywhere else (sunny or not) than at the cottage for the holidays.

As a Nikon Mom Ambassador, I’ve chosen to document this experience as one of the five events I’ll be sharing with you on my blog. Here’s a little glimpse into our vacation and what we typically do over the holidays, through the lens of my Nikon camera.

There is nothing better than when the weather cooperates.  Meaning, the temperature goes below freezing and the lake freezes over. The frozen lake adds the benefit of enjoying some more time outdoors doing what we love doing best; skating and playing hockey! This year, we even went cross-country skiing and in years past, we’ve also gone snowshoeing. Luckily, we enjoyed two great days on the lake during our time up there. It was amazing to see my oldest, Kyle, skate so well independently and play hockey with the “big” boys (aka, his dad, uncles and grandpa). While we did bring Ryan, our middle son, on the ice with us a few times, he was mostly held. He did skate a little while being held and hopefully by next year he’ll be skating on his own.

The night before we open up our gifts, I usually dress up the kids in matching onsies.  It’s one of those things that I kind of did without thinking about the first year, but now it’s turned into a little tradition.  I love this year’s Fox theme  pajamas.

Our typical Christmas morning at the cottage, which may or may not actually be December 25th, begins with a run-in, once everybody is awake. All of us (me, my husband, the kids and my husband’s brother’s and wives), line up by the bottom of modern metal staircases, and run in to where the gifts are in the living room.

I love the camera effect on this pictures; everything is blurry except us which is cool because we’re the ones that are actually moving! After a few circles around the main floor, we eventually land on the floor and gift opening begins. Since the adults only do a secret-Santa gift exchange, the gifts are mostly for our two oldest boys (yup, we didn’t even buy anything for our 3 month old).

After we opened up the gifts and we just sat around, someone grabbed my camera to take random pictures. I’m kind of glad that they did because they captured some great candid pictures of our family. With a Nikon D3300 DSLR camera, it’s easy to just pop it on the “auto” mode and not worry about how the pictures will turn out even if taken by someone else.

Last year, we joined the 21st century and started doing the Elf on the Shelf. While we were way more creative last year, we still had fun with it this year and the boys were so excited searching for the Elf and The Mensch on the Bench (that we started this year for Hanukkah). They typically left them little gifts as well so it was like a mini treasure hunt every morning.

Since we were up at the cottage over the last few days of Hanukkah, we got to celebrate both holidays. To celebrate Hanukkah we lit the candles on the Hanukkia (candelabra) each night, made some yummy dreidel from marshmallows and sprinkles.

Another one of my favourite traditions is decorating a ginger bread house.  My husband and I actually would do this every year before we had kids. I’m so happy that it’s a tradition that we continued with our kids and who knows… perhaps one that they will continue on with their kids.

Mostly, I just love spending quality family time without the day-to-day distractions we have back home in the city. Amazingly, I was able to almost completely disconnect while we were up north. With the exception of checking my personal Facebook account once or twice a day, I was in the moment and giving my kids and family my undivided attention. And guess what? It felt great! These are the moments I want to remember with me as I start 2015. I hope to be more in the moment with my kids.  Here are some of those family moments:

Here are some of my other favourite pictures from our vacation up north, that couldn’t be captured  as well without my trusted Nikon DSLR camera.

Using no flash & playing with Exposure compensation, I was able to get these great shots of the lit tree at night.

Disclosure: I am part of the Mom Central Canada Nikon MOMents team and I receive special perks as part of my affiliation with this group. The opinions on this blog are my own.