Actress Mimi Kuzyk has just wrapped up her new Global TV series Blue Murder. Now she's ready for a white Christmas in her hometown, arriving in Winnipeg this week for a family celebration.

Kuzyk, who left Winnipeg in 1977 to launch a career that's included stints on Hill Street Blues and L.A. Law and roles in dozens of TV series and movies, says her Winnipeg-based parents, sister and brother normally join her and two other sisters in Toronto, while a fourth sister travels from Ottawa for the holidays.

But this year, the gathering is at her parents' Winnipeg home and slightly smaller than usual.

"There's about 14 of us, counting all the siblings and the husbands and the kids. We always try to get together and about 90% of the time we do, for Christmas anyway," she says.

"My mother hasn't made her own Christmas for a while. She usually comes out here, so she's decorating and going crazy," she says.

There's something to be said for bringing her 10-year-old daughter home to Winnipeg to visit some old haunts, too.

"We go to church down the street but we always go to Kelekis after -- always, always -- for hamburgers and french fries, and the kids love it too."

Kuzyk's mug has been among the many celebrity photos gracing the walls at the Main Street eatery, where she appears in a group shot of the Ukrainian Rusalka Dancers, with whom she danced for 12 years. And even if Winnipeggers haven't seen her around the North End recently, her face is mighty familiar.

Kuzyk says people still bring up her role as Det. Patsy Mayo on Hill Street Blues, in which she was partnered with Ken Olin. But she's built up a huge body of work since the mid-'80s.

She won a Gemini Award for her role in the 1995 CBC movie Little Criminals, and recent movies include A&E's Nero Wolfe mystery The Golden Spider and Lea Pool's upcoming feature Lost and Delirious.

Kuzyk is also seen on CBC weekly as mom Mila Stiglic in teen sitcom Our Hero and she plays an enigmatic deputy police chief in Blue Murder, which debuts on Global Jan. 10.

"I'm the luckiest actress in the world. I'm on a half-hour sitcom where I get to be silly and have fun and then I'm on a one-hour drama where I get to be serious.

"I think it's just a fabulous show. It's on par with any American show that's on now. It's beautifully shot and it's a mystery. We take one case every week ... and it all gets wrapped up in the end."