Living

Every Christmas morning I get up early and make the same cranberry coffee cake I’ve been making for the past 20 years or more. It just wouldn’t be Christmas without it.

You would think, after a year of remarkable meals on the North Shore, that I would feel sated, ready to ease gently into 2015 with a reserved appetite.

North Vancouver’s Tracy Clark helps raise awareness of the annual Feeding the Homeless at Christmas in Pigeon Park, an initiative of the Servants of Hope Society.

When Susan Fraser was a little girl in South Africa, she lived for a time with her grandmother. "I became her pupil in a class of one as the two of us walked for miles on the African veld, sketching the scenery and the animals," she says.

Every year around this time I dedicate a column to the reasons why a puppy should not be under the tree on Christmas morning.

Table Tennis: Mondays and Wednesdays, 10 a.m. to noon and Fridays, 1-3 p.m. at Silver Harbour Centre, 144 East 22nd St., North Vancouver. Fee: $18 per season. Equipment provided. 604-980-2474 silverharbourcentre.

Five student start-ups from Capilano University and BCIT have been selected to compete for $5,000 in cash and prizes after impressing "the grizzlies" at a recent Dragons' Den -style event in North Vancouver.

Community members are invited to attend the upcoming SDC Winter Gala 2014, intended to raise funds for programs working to empower children with disabilities.

The following is a selection of volunteer opportunities from various community organizations, made available through Volunteer North Shore, a service of North Shore Community Resources Society. Volunteer Opportunities Immigrant Services Society of B.

Organization serves local mothers facing challenges