It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year...

Just imagine Dean Martin singing that in the background during this post.  It will make my writing seem more magical than usual.

On Saturday night we went over to Ann and Steve's house for a winter solstice/pre-Christmas/pre-my birthday celebration.  Saturday was actually the winter solstice which means we're now past the shortest day of the year.  Woohoo! We only had five hours, 27 minutes and 41 seconds of daylight on Saturday, and we're gaining a whole nine seconds today.  I can totally feel it.

Isn't their tree pretty?

After we stuffed our faces with a ridiculous amount of spicy party food (I made these amazing mini chicken chimichangas with jalapeno cream cheese dipping sauce that I found on Pinterest) and then took a walk around the bog behind their house in an attempt to feel better about it, we settled in to decorate some gingerbread cookies!

Steve didn't sit with us right away because he was busy creating a ginormous gingerbread man masterpiece.

The rest of us got straight to decorating.  Andy, for one, was taking this very seriously.

Ripley was seriously bored.

Here's Sarah and Ann with some of their creations:

The bikini-clad reindeer is Andy's. 

Steve made a mauled man which paired well with the reindeer.

Check out the spread!

I decorated the tree...and then Andy used it to impale his gingerbread man. sad.

Finally! Steve's masterpiece - a giant yeti! Coconut is an excellent stand-in for fur.

We hung out a little bit more and played Cards Against Humanity - a game that is mostly fun for people who have a sense of humor and no shame or filter.  Pretty much sums up this group.

Once we had our fill of games, we packed into the Subaru and drove around on a mission to find Christmas lights.  Usually the newspaper puts out a map, but they didn't this year, so we basically just made educated guesses.

First stop: the Baptist Temple.  They had beautiful lights and apparently they do a light show set to music...every night except last night because they were doing a nativity play.  We considered popping inside but Steve said his sweatpants were not church appropriate.

After checking out some neighborhoods, we went to Russian Jack Park by the municipal greenhouses where Ann said she saw some animals in light.  Now, we definitely found them, but I don't think they're animals.  My vote is aliens? Or maybe silly monsters.  What do you think?

We didn't see many super-decorated houses, but we had a lot of fun.  On the way back to Ann and Steve's house we ran into this little friend (not literally, we just saw him along the road):

Steve is fairly certain he has figured out who keeps eating his maple tree...

After we got home, Andy, Ripley and I pretty much went straight to bed because we were still full of gingerbread and chimichangas.  (Excellent combination).  In the middle of the night we heard some loud thuds outside, but didn't think much of it until Ripley woke us up growling around 3 a.m.  It turns out that all the snow we've had lately caused us to lose one of our large birch trees in the backyard. Thankfully, it didn't hit anything (despite being near power lines and our fenced garden!).  The growling was because the newly fallen tree had attracted a moose to the yard to nibble on the tasty top parts of the tree.  She ended up staying in our yard ALL NIGHT.

Here's some pictures of the damage:

And yes, the moose came back.  I think this is her Christmas miracle.  She is definitely singing Dean Martin while she nibbles on the tasty bits at the top of the tree.

Since the tree didn't hit anything and isn't bothering anyone (and will be a pain in the butt to finish taking down), we're in no hurry to get rid of it any time soon.  You're welcome, moose!

Sadly, the snow today also proved to be too much for our (already mostly dead) larch tree.  RIP ugly deciduous evergreen.  I have already decided to replace you with a mountain ash in the spring.

The snow keeps falling - another excellent day to stay cuddled up inside!