Christmas on Oakdale

Busy hardly begins to describe our December…and with that, we decided to not travel this holiday season.  We both come from large families and would love to see everyone…but sometimes it is good to have some quality time in your own home.  It is nice to feel like we are our own little family and begin some traditions and create our own celebrations.  This is not to say that we wouldn’t love to see our families a lot more often, and especially during the holidays…but a lot comes with the visiting – like flights, and airports, luggage, dog-boarding for Cleo, holiday travel hassles, , and sometimes all that can leave you feeling like you need a vacation from your vacation.  So this year, we planned a family stay-cation!  It’s been great and FaceTime and Skype allow for some good family visiting as well!  Here’s a look at the goings-on around here.

I squeezed in a bit of time to craft a few things in an attempt to not only think about work during the early December weekends…

We made Krumkake’s to give to friends and coworkers…

We wrapped gifts and tied up packages with string…

We went last-minute grocery shopping for only the necessities… 🙂

When planning to lounge around the house for a few days, play some video games, catch up on some reading and generally laze about…it’s important to have the makings for queso and lil’ smokies in the house!

We made homemade bread…

We cleaned and tidied to make sure the house felt festive and we could enjoy it…

Somehow, presents continued to appear underneath the tree…

We cooked and opened some special bottles of wine…

We enjoyed the living room and the fireplace…

We opened presents…

And Christmas day was topped off with some homemade Turkey Tetrazzini…

Since then, not much has been photo-worthy…Woody’s been enjoying his ‘Maschine Mikro’, learning how to sample and mix…click here for a taste of his original mixing.

I’ve been ferociously reading through a few cookbooks we received, logging in some time on the Wii playing some Lego Harry Potter (years 5-7)…and generally enjoying the first consecutive days that neither one of us has been to work in…I-can’t-remember-how-long!

I hope your holidays have been equally relaxing, enjoyable and filled with the people you love!

Cheers to the end of 2011!

 

 

 

The tree is up…it’s official…it’s the Christmas Season!

The bonus of our recent windstorm and an unplanned day off of work due to closures, was that I finally had time to get our tree up. Small issue with the bottom string of lights…but it’s nice to have it feel like Christmas.

My posting has been limited since we still have yet to have our internet restored…which is hardly an issue compared to those who are still without power.

This is my favorite ornament in the whole box!

A Significant Wind Event…

Work was closed yesterday…and although I finally found myself with some time on my hands…I had no internet, and therefore not able to upload any photos.  I’m back at work today and taking a quick moment to post a few.  There are many more on the home computer, so once the internet it back up, I’ll work on getting those posted!

It’s astounding how much damage can be done in such a short amount of time.  Winds were between 50 and 65 mph.  I hardly slept with the house creaking, branches snapping, and doors and windows rattling.  We had a calm night last night, but the latest information is that the winds are supposed to pick back up again this evening.

The city cut up the tree sometime in the early morning, so our driveway is unblocked.  It’s time to get out the brooms!