Dreaming of a White Christmas...and hallacas.

As many of you know, I'm now back in Cold Lake, Alberta for my home assignment year.  It's been interesting getting used to being back for more than a week or two of holiday!  The local Walmart and Canadian Tire stores are still quite overwhelming but I'm definitely loving the short amount of time it takes to get around town!  It was a beautiful fall, and it was great to enjoy my first fall season in 4 years!  However, fall leads to winter and winter leads to snow.  There has been snow here for a week or two now and I'm getting re-acquainted with shoveling and  scraping car windows...Winter has lost a bit of it's romanticism for me!  I do look forward to celebrating Christmas with snow, and I pulled out my decorations yesterday in hopes of getting some decorating done this coming week.

Sometimes I look through the Venezuelan news headlines, and this one caught my eye today:  A group of women made the world's largest hallaca!  This is like a tamale, filled with marinated  chicken, beef, pork, as well as raisins, olives, capers etc...every family has their own special recipe.   Around Christmas families make them in large batches and pass them out to neighbours and friends.  It's a delicious tradition!  I was able to make a batch with friends in Venezuela a few years ago...maybe I need to dig those photos out because it was quite the process!  If anyone knows of Venezuelan-Canadians nearby who make them, be sure to let me know!!! :)