Holidays!

Hi, everyone!

This is the time of year for holiday adventures!  Two weeks ago today, I helped Grandma make another AWACS cheesecake to freeze for Christmas dinner! The next day, it was time to bring my Christmas tree friend into the house!  First, I helped Grandpa and Grandma bring the tree stand and all the decorations upstairs from where they’re stored in the basement.  Then I helped Grandpa get the tree’s trunk ready to go in the stand.  While Grandpa was finishing that job, Grandma and I covered the cheesecake with chocolate ganache.  I made sure that half the pieces got chocolate-covered almonds on top, instead of coffee beans.  The almond pieces are the ones for James and Thomas!  When  my tree friend was in the stand, Grandpa let me unwind the baling twine so the branches could open up again!  Grandpa put the lights on the tree, but Grandma decided to wait until the next day to start putting decorations on.

The next day, Aunt Kara had a cookie decorating party!  Grandma took me, but I had to promise to keep my paws out of the frosting!  There were lots of naked cookies waiting to be decorated!  I was happy the gingerbread house pieces that Grandma and I made turned into a sturdy house!  Some of the cookies James was decorating looked familiar.  They were the ones Grandma and I made with the spare gingerbread house dough!

After the cookie decorating party, I helped Grandma put the ornaments on the Christmas tree.  I always make sure that my favorite moose ornament has a nice spot to hang!  This year, Grandma put all her angel decorations at the top of the tree.  She ran out of branches to decorate before she ran out of ornaments!  There was garland left over after we wound some around the tree, so we decorated the fireplace with the rest of it!

Two days before Christmas was stollen party day!  We even had snow on the ground!  Last year, nobody could stay and visit because of the pandemic and people pulled into our driveway to pick up their stollen.  Grandma didn’t know how many people would be comfortable coming in to visit this year, so we got ready for both visitors and driveway delivery.  I was up early to help Grandma make stollen dough, but she already had one batch mixed and rising when I was ready to help!  After we mixed the second batch, the first batch was ready to shape.  I helped cut the trunk and branch slits in the dough wedges before the shaped stollen had their final rise.

After the stollens baked, my church friend Deb-san came to help frost and decorate them.  Then Joe-san and Nancy-san came to help, too!  I was happy that LaVache’s Grandma and Papa Dick-san and Grandma Sue all came to visit and have soup.  I missed seeing my friends Moose-san and Tilly and LaVache and LIC and Rudy!  I guess they all stayed home because they haven’t been vaccinated and didn’t have masks to wear.

On Christmas Eve, I helped Grandpa bring all the presents from their hiding places to put under the Christmas tree.  We had gifts to and from Uncle Steven’s family and from Uncle David’s family, so there were a LOT of presents!  I put the last food items for my reverse Advent calendar in the basket.  Then I helped Grandma make the layers in the croissant dough.  That starts with bashing sticks of butter into thin sheets, then rolling out the dough, folding it over the butter, and folding the dough three more times to make lots of layers of butter and dough!  Once that’s done, the neat package of dough has to chill again.  Grandma uses a plate sandwich to keep it from rising out of shape!

By Christmas morning, the rain had melted all the snow!  I helped Grandma shape the croissants and bake them after they rose.  They were yummy!  Then Uncle Steven’s family came over to open presents with us!  James and Thomas were very excited!  Thomas especially liked his day cocoon and mystery box.  James was pretty happy with everything!  Uncle David’s family Facetimed, so we could watch them open the presents from us.  There were so many presents it was a little hard to keep track of who gave us what!  Grandma served a ham dinner after present opening, with AWACS cheesecake for dessert!

Last Tuesday, Grandma and I took Uncle Steven and James and Thomas to the Strong Museum.  We hadn’t been there in a long time because of the pandemic.  Now that James and Thomas are vaccinated, we could go again!  There was something new at the Strong:  a high ropes course in the old lobby by the carousel.  I was too short to do the course, but Uncle Steven and the boys were the first people to go up that day.  Everybody wears a harness that slides in an overhead rail to stay safe while they walk on narrow beams or ropes high overhead.  There’s a criss-cross of ropes and beams, so everybody doesn’t have to follow the same path.

One part of the high ropes course is a zipline!  James and Thomas especially liked that and did it more than once.

When James and Thomas were done with the high ropes course, we visited the other parts of the Strong that they like.  I wanted to see the Eric Carle special exhibit before it closed, so I did that.  I’ve always liked The Very Hungry Caterpillar book!

On Wednesday, Thomas came over to bake goat cheese biscuits with Grandma.  He’s done that enough times that he doesn’t need much help from me!  He and Uncle Steven stayed for lunch afterwards.  Grandma asked to have the big Lego pirate ship set put back in its box as a Christmas present to her.  Uncle Steven had to print out the parts list to make sure, but he and Thomas found all the pieces and put them neatly back in the box.  Grandma says she’s going to ask to have one of the space sets recollected for her birthday!

I’ve been sharing the front window with my Christmas tree friend since the tree was decorated.  On Christmas Eve, I even stayed with the presents all night.  Tonight, though, Grandma and Grandpa and I are spending New Years Eve at the bay.  When we get back, it will almost be time to take down all the Christmas decorations and put them away for another year.  Happy New Year, everybody!

Love,

Lion-san