Festivus maximus

We discovered that we are not too old for sledding and have had some great runs on the hill behind the house. After awhile the climb up the hill wore us right out. Inde decided that the sleds were not to be messed with and watched from a safe distance.


Cookie decorating, a necessary activity. Then play games with your cookies before eating them. Notice Bob is wearing a red cape to do his decorating.




Thanks to Amelia for this life-like rendition of Bob and Jen in Alaska.




Some Christmas day highlights...Above Bob's Grog: A mixture of red wine, raisins and mulling spices splashed with liquor.
Below, the last of our greenhouse goods. After a over a week of freezing temperatures the greenhouse has succumbed to frost. We gathered the last of the kale and steamed and froze it. The remaining beets, rhutabagas and carrots were Christmas dinner.





Umm, Bob and I thought that we remembered how to make snowflakes from elementary school. Turns out our attempts more closely resembled cut-up squares of paper. We had fun trying.






So, we had the idea to try and hunt a ptarmigan for Christmas dinner. We made all the necessary preperations. Did a little reading, cleaned the gun, gathered a knife and some string and headed up to the alder thickets. There was lots of fresh snow and the winds were mild. Perfect hunting weather. One problem. No ptarmigans. Lots of tracks and signs of their resting spots but no birds were spotted. Inde had a fairly good show of searching them out and left us to wonder if she might have some real skill. We decided that we actually liked this kind of hunting: searching without killing.



I'm not sure what is going on in the North Pole this year. This guy showed up on Christmas, calling himself "Santa" and demanded all of our bling.