Sledding into the Season

We arrived in Saas-Fee on a Thursday, and after connecting with the Barbieros at the restaurant, decided to spend the next couple of days through the weekend stocking up on supplies in the apartment and decorating for Christmas.

Being away from Canada for a major holiday is a new thing for Cedar and I. Sheila has spent Christmas with her family in Mexico and Hawaii and she talks about it fondly, but this was our first time abroad for the season as a family. There are lots of fun little traditions we have at home, and Sheila had packed some Christmas ornaments as well as our stockings to hang, so we could recreate a few of them—and so Santa wouldn’t be confused. Obviously.

Of course, that left us with one small challenge: the Christmas tree. I figured it was Switzerland—surely all we needed to do was hike up a mountain and cut one down. This plan, naturally, ignored a few minor details: the lack of tools, planning, expertise… or the ability to haul a tree back through town and up three flights of stairs to our apartment.

But it’s the thought that counts, right?

Fortunately, we found the perfect real mini Christmas tree—stand and all—at the Coop grocery store just around the corner. And it turns out we had just the right number of ornaments and two little LED light strings. Voilà: the perfect Swiss Christmas tree!

We spent the rest of the weekend adventuring out into the snow for sliding and snow angels. There’s about 18 inches of powdery snow on the ground, with a little icy crust on top—perfect for picking up speed sledding down the hills above the Spielplatz.

On Friday night, we wandered over to the Saas-Fee Christmas market where we sampled some steaming glühwein, and had Raclette for dinner while Cedar joined the village kids at the craft table, making homemade decorations and ornaments with lots of glitter and glue.

Saturday and Sunday were all about getting ready. We visited the rental shop to sort out our snowboard gear for the next couple of weeks, and it was really fun to see Cedar getting more and more excited for snowboard school. The gear was brand new—one of the perks of arriving before the official opening week—and we even got complimentary ski room storage, so now we can walk down from our apartment, pull our boots off the warmers, grab our boards, and be on the gondola in minutes. Pretty slick.

Sheila and I picked up day passes for Monday so we can take advantage of the quiet, pre-holiday-season slopes while Cedar starts his snowboard lessons. We’ll try for an early night… we’ll see what jet lag has in store. Hopefully we burned off enough energy goofing around in the snow. It really is paradise here.