Santa Baby...It's COLD Outside!

Most of you know that we haven't celebrated family Christmas on December 25th in the last decade. What started as a way to get out of fighting over the kids with the ex's turned into a unique method for taking the stress out of the holidays.

Celebrating on a conflict-free day means treasuring all of the time together with family, food and fun (and the stores are open if I forget to buy brown sugar or batteries - not for use in the same recipe of course).

This year, it will be tomorrow so I'm writing to you on our Christmas Eve. Things are going to be different this year...since we sold the house in Encinitas, Christmas will be up at the cabin. We get to create a whole set of new traditions...not the least of which involves my inability to master high altitude baking...

On a more positive note - I wanted to share some of the decorations we hung this year:

For the first time in 8 years, Dave's childhood Santa (circa 1965) is out on the new deck (lashed to the spindles to withstand the wind that had him airborne when we tried him on the front porch). He doesn't seem to mind the snow...his single light-bulb does a pretty good job of melting it.

We went with window wreaths on the cabin windows - which is our way of avoiding borrowing an extension ladder to hang lights along the gutters - clever huh?

Part of moving was letting go of all the things that fit the last house including the 9 foot tree. The cabin is tiny so the new tree is a bit spindly but not quite to the Charlie Brown stage.

I found a spot for the Christmas village and should be able to vacuum up all the plastic snow by spring...right?

So tonight as we nestle all snug in our beds we probably won't be envisioning dancing sugarplums (I for one, don't even know what one is). But we will be keeping an eye out for Santa...to make sure he's still on the deck!

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!