Recipe for a fabulous weekend:

• Start by buying a 12 pound fresh turkey at the grocery store downtown. Afterwards realizing that your only option transporting it home is the bus (a taxi would obviously be too easy). Clutch the turkey and cradle it all the way home like some odd-looking baby. More like an odd-looking mom.
• Buy new dishes for dinner guests Take that trip to Ikea you've been meaning to for months
•  Line the bottom of a pie crust with fresh hazelnuts (without tiny pieces of shells this year) and drizzle the so-sweet-it-makes-your-teeth-hurt maple sugarness over it. Make the kitchen smell heavenly while it bakes.
• Invite a friend over to help dress and stuff the turkey. Engage in the obligatory turkey dancing and fake turkey voices before finally setting it in the pan. 
• Mash the potatoes, sliver the almonds, sautee the green beans, and almost forget about the salad.
• Vacuum, with one hand over your eyes as you go near the fridge. Last time the vacuum was over there, a mouse jumped out. 
• Open all the windows in the apartment, because all the radiators are broken and at full blast, and the oven has been at 325 for most of the day.
• Have a moment of panic that everything you have to do won't possibly get done. Take a deep breath and go buy a bottle of wine. 
• Welcome friends with open arms. And open the bottles. 
• Listen to Christmas tunes for the fifth first time this season, the conversations overlapping each other in the best kind of way.
• Sit down to the table and only get up for dessert, hours later.
• Be thankful for the warmth of traditions, new and old. 
• Make room in the fridge for the tupperware.

My weekend was lovely friends, here's to hoping yours were too.

I don't have all the photos on my computer to put up here yet, but if you're as impatient as I usually am, you can see them already up at provincecanadienne.com. Happens to be an excellent photographer :)

See you soon.

xo

alli