Living

Giuseppe Restivo shows off the elaborate nativity scene he created in his home. It took the Central Lonsdale resident three years to complete the project.

I am always inspired by the creative ways people wrap their gifts.

Have you ever heard of a Victorian kissing ball? No, it's not a dance where you kiss everyone you meet. Nor is it a glass ball that you kiss when you need good luck, akin to kissing the Blarney Stone in Ireland.

The holiday celebrations bring together your friends, colleagues and family and often that includes all the children. If you have house guests over the holidays suddenly you realize that not everyone celebrates as you do.

According to the Chinese zodiac, the Year of the Sheep is drawing to a close. Looking back over the last 12 months of dining, neither lamb nor mutton featured particularly heavily in my reviews.

Every Christmas morning I bake a cake (the cranberry one below I included in a 2011 column, but it’s so good it’s worth a repeat appearance). Granted, I don’t have any little people in the house who rise at 5 a.m.

North Shore Meals on Wheels incoming chairwoman Debbie Couling and past chairwoman Marlene Lougheed ready a lunch for hungry volunteers at the society’s annual volunteer luncheon and tea party, held Dec. 3 at West Vancouver’s St.

The West Vancouver BC SPCA branch is reaching out to the public for donations to help a pair of injured animals.

It's surprising, with such a big part of his life devoted to volunteering, that Bryan Terrace found time to earn a living. Yet his working life appeared to leave scant room for community service, especially with family added to the mix.

I've come to realize that as I grow older my Christmas list gets shorter because I've learned the things I really want can't be bought. That might sound cliché and I guess in a way it is.