Christmas Staycation

Andy and I are in the middle of our time off work for the holidays.  Everyone kept asking us what we were going to do with all the time off (no work after December 21 until January 2!), but the truth was we made no plans. We mostly just planned to relax and think of some fun outdoor activities to try (assuming the weather cooperated).

On Christmas morning we woke up and opened presents in our PJs.  Ripley got a three-foot bully stick, which we probably shouldn't have given him, but he really loved it.  And the cats enjoyed how the end wiggled around while he chewed on it.

Andy's parents gave us an autographed copy of "When You Are Engulfed in Flames" by David Sedaris.  We LOVE him.  I love his message to us.  The answer is no, David.  Never.

Andy's mom also sent him the most amazing picture book of pictures that his grandparents took when they homesteaded in Alaska.  My silly blog cannot do it justice, but I think it may be worthy of its own post soon.  It's an incredibly precious gift and we have loved looking at the photos after the last couple of days.  Thank you thank you thank you!!

In my family we draw names, and my brother-in-law, Mike, drew Andy.  Andy loved all of his gifts of course since those two are so similar.  He got a sweet camping pad and new camping lantern, a Naylor beer sign which is now proudly hanging in our kitchen and an "Archer" pint glass.  Mike turned Andy on to Archer (a hilariously inappropriate cartoon series) last Thanksgiving when we were visiting Mike and Kelly in D.C. and Andy's never been quite the same.  DANGER ZONE!  My Uncle Jim, fellow Alaskan, drew my name and I got some headlamps (now I don't have to share with Andy!), new measuring cups and spoons (can't wait to throw the loose crappy plastic ones away) and some money to spend at a local bookstore, Title Wave Books (good one!) and some excellent Alaska-specific book recommendations.  The dangerous thing about trying to go to Title Wave, though, is that it's right next to REI, which is our latest obsession.

Since Christmas is also my birthday, I got extra presents, too, including some cash and and some incredible loungewear from my parents, a couple of amazon gift cards which I want to spend on everything, and a rolling pin from Mike and Kelly that I can use to roll out dough or keep Andy in line. With the gift of the rolling pin, I also got the gift of ridiculous packaging:

 That box had been sitting in our closet for about a month.  When I told Kelly that the gift she sent came in a giant box she was, understandably, confused since the present was actually not so giant.  At least it gave the cats something to play with.

After opening presents, we took Ripley up to Flattop to walk around before our planned day of Christmas movies and leftovers of our awesome Christmas Eve prime rib dinner.

Flattop was nice, but a tad windy.  Not so pleasant.

It started lightly snowing at Flattop.  By the time we got home and had some breakfast, the snow really started to come down.

We even played frisbee in our tiny yard, which Ripley loved.

The weather (and our feeder) brought the birds in droves.  These are all redpolls:

The bird feeder is Zeus' favorite.

After all the excitement, I got to settle down by the tree (sadly, no fireplace in our rental) with a nice glass of 12 year old Redbreast Irish whiskey, which we discovered on our honeymoon.  Mmmm.  We watched Love Actually and Die Hard, which are Christmas traditions in the Naylor household, and watched the snow fall.  We ended up getting about four inches over the day and it was so pretty.

Hope you had a Merry Christmas.  More on our staycation to come!