Christmas Traditions

Everyone in my family picks out a tree. We always get a big tree. This year we ordered our tree. Everyone decorates the tree. My dad puts the star on the tree. My favourite decoration is one that my grandpa gave to me.

All my grandmas and grandpas come over for Christmas dinner. The rest of my family gets together too. I get to see people I haven’t seen in awhile.

My favourite part of Christmas is the toys.

Kirk R.

A Day on Amber Ski Hill

The first time I recall skiing with my Dad, I was just a little tike. I can remember sitting on his shoulders and riding up the old rope tows to the top of Amber Ski Hill. Once reaching the top, then down faster and faster to the bottom we’d go. I could not get enough of this. Finally Dad bought me my first pair of skies, poles and boots. Starting on the bunny hill was the best place to learn to ski. After I had learned to ride the tow on my own, I became the terror of the ski hill. Up to the top of the hill I would go and down again, over and over, faster and faster I would go.

After a few months of skiing on my own, I had discovered if you hit a bump hard enough it would throw you up into the air, I had learned to fly, yahoo. This started me into ski jumping. It did not make my Mom very happy that I was in love with ski jumping. She put a stop to it quickly. “You’re too young,” she said. So to keep me happy they enrolled me into the Nancy Green Ski School. They did not know that this would lead to my love of speed on snow. Downhill racing, slalom and giant slalom were my favorite events. This kept me out of trouble for many years until the ski jump team that would be representing Canada in the Olympic Games started to train in Princeton, B.C., my home town. This got me started in the thirty, sixty and ninety meter ski jumping events. At one time, the Princeton Ski Hill had the largest downhill ski jumps in Canada.

This combined two of my most favorite things, downhill racing and jumping in one event. This made my Dad happy; he had someone to give his old jumping skis to. But it made Mom very, very mad. The ski jumping event scared my mother; she feared that I might break my neck. Although I had made it through the first year without any broken bones, the next year on the bunny hill I came off a small jump that we kids had built and broke my right leg in two places. This put a stop to my ski jumping for the rest of the year.

Glenn Cunliffe, Adult Basic Skills

hank you to READ's volunteers!

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We are grateful for his expertise ~ and his patience with us ~ during the transition.