Christmas in Montreal

First of all, Happy Christmas to anyone who read these lines!
I had a nice Christmas this year eventhough I was away from the family and friends back in Europe. Sylvie, a german friend took the great initiative to organise a Christmas dinner for a few of us staying in Montreal for Christmas. It was very international. No Canadians at the table but a nice French, Polish, German, Turkish and Belgian combination. Very interesting! Everyone was in charge of a part of the meal and had to bring something specific from its country. As a Belgian, I picked chocolate and was in charge of the Christmas cake as dessert. Since my cooking skills in matters of cake are null, I didn't want to take any chance and bought a cake in the shop, which was delicious. Some took care of the Turkey as main so we had the real thing and the tree and so on.
We even went to the Midnight Mass to make the experience 100% Christmassy. We went to the St-Joseph's Oratory of Mount Royal, reputed second biggest church in the world after the one in Roma. One of our friends got us VIP tickets. We didn't know what that meant before we had to sit behing the priest in the hart of the basilica...Very amusing situation, I guess these seats are usually reserved for people who are fervents catholics and close to the church staff. Well, we weren't and I guess they noticed because three of us couldn't even get the communion as one was moslim and two were agnostics...;-) All in all, a great Christmas this year!