The Christmas sneak thief and other stories

We had a fabulous Christmas in Vancouver with my brother and his family. The highlight for them was a surprise visit from his wife Laine's two brothers, who flew out from Toronto on Christmas day. They arrived with a suitcase full of gifts, just in time to join us for Christmas dinner.  It was a total surprise for everyone and Laine and her mother, who was visiting too, were so thrilled.

Here's the whole group.

There was a mystery though.  We couldn't find the tin of shortbread I'd packed to take over to Vancouver with us.  I'd made it specially to take to my brother as it's a family tradition.  The night before we left, Harry and I went out for dinner and came back to find that Geordie (the monster dog) had dragged the bag of stocking gifts off the kitchen table and torn things apart and eaten a whole package of dog biscuits.  Fortunately everything else was salvageable and I repacked the bag. But I couldn't find the tin of shortbread cookies.  Thinking I'd packed it in another bag we headed off, but it was not to be found.


It was only today, back in Victoria, when we were moving things around in the living room that I found the tin under the coffee table.  Somehow the sneaky dog had dragged it under there and made a valiant effort to open the tin.  Here's what it looked like.

Note the teeth marks and the distorted edge.  Amazingly he almost managed to get inside the tin, but not quite.

Fortunately, the tin remained closed so we can now share the treat with others.  But not with Geordie. He's in the dog house--again!


As it turned out, we didn't need to bring shortbread because son Jamie made a batch to share. And it was a lot prettier than mine, with pink swirls in some and green sugar on others. He's turning into the family baker.

Here's hoping your Christmas was full of love and joy, as ours was.