Merry Christmas

Our tree ready to have those presents opened underneath....

and heres Ralph in his typical look out the window and bark position...

Hey there all. I hope that everyone out there had a great Christmas, or whatever holiday you celebrate. This was a different kind of Christmas for me. Christmas morning was not as rushed as it has been in the recent years. My Christmas mornings are usually spent speeding to get into the BC ferries line up, a quick drop by at friends and this is the first year of not stopping by Evergreen House to share a rum ball with my recently passed Grandmother who suffered from Alzheimer's disease. I have to say I was worried about how I'd feel on Christmas Day but yesterday turned out to be such a wonderful Christmas. It was nice to not have to get out of bed at 4, to blow dry and straighten my hair, down a cup of coffee and then load a car full of gifts. Last year I remember there was snow on the ground when K and I left the house and I was in damn heels. After reaching Vancouver we managed to fit 2 visits in North Van, 1 in Abbotsford, and 2 in Maple Ridge all in the same day. This year I woke up at 4:30, well really the kid in me did. I patiently waited till 6 to wake K, made croissants and coffee and started the water process of thawing out the rest of our turkey. We exchanged gifts and opened the ones sent to us. I was spoiled and shocked when K gave me some earrings he had custom made for me by Emily Illuitok a carver in Kugaaruk. Plus some wicked binoculars which apparently you can use to see the rings around Saturn. Which I had been wanting since our late summer nights of laying in our hammock staring at the endless sky of stars. Which work, well I didn't see Saturn but I saw the detail and all the craters in the moon last night. I was in awe. I can't wait to use them again tonight. Oh and another one of K's presents to me was the all to well known TV infomercial product the Slap Chop! Which made me laugh and we used it to chop the onion for our stuffing. K was spoiled with some shirts from the NBC comedy The Office...one being Dwight Shrutes...Shrute Farms Beets shirt, and also a film still from Forrest Gump autographed by Tom Hanks...one of K's favourite movies. I put the turkey in the oven some time before noon. With a tip from Anthony Bourdains Holiday special I did not stuff the turkey, I cooked stuffing on the side, with drippings from the turkey then baked it. Our turkey was super moist, and the stuffing was awesome good. From now on I will make all my turkeys this way. We had a full spread from swiss cauli bake, carrots vichy, mashed potatoes, home made gravy from reduction of home made stock.....so good! cranberry sauce, pickled beets and home made stuffing. While I was making our meal I was running on high octane eggnog and baileys with coffee, yes not coffee with baileys...baileys with coffee:) When the cooking was coming to an end I was able to take a break for myself and had a steamy bath in our soaker tub. After we sat down to a dinner that I was able to pull off even though much of our anticipated groceries never made it up from Yellowknife due to our recent blizzard and lack of landing planes. We had a wonderful almost romantic Christmas here in Cambridge Bay. We ended our evening watching a not so typical Christmas movie, Freddy versus Jason and then ogled the moon and its craters. Then with a combination of turkey and my high octane eggnog I was induced to a heavy deep sleep. What a great Christmas! To our friends, family and blog readers we hope you had as wonderful a holiday as we did. Happy Holidays and Merry Christmas!