Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Merry Christmas & happy holidays! Hopefully everyone had a safe and happy holiday and is having a good new year so far! Up here at the dome Scott and I and the critters had the pleasure of hosting Christmas with our families. My parents came up from Roanoke, Jackie came in from Pitt, and Scott’s parents came up from Orlando. No, the dome’s not that big, but at least we didn’t have to travel.

Back in May, we staked our claim on Christmas at the dome (in my family you need to claim holidays early) with the hopes of hosting the elusive “White Christmas.” Of course, we didn’t get snow until the day after Christmas, when my family all had to drive to Pittsburgh. (Just an aside, that was the last time we saw the ground. Tune in next week to see our snow adventures.) But it was beautiful and a lot of fun nonetheless. Let's start with the pre-holiday festivities...

The week started with a trip to the vet emergency room. While on a break from preparing for the family to get here, Scott, the pups & I went on a quick hike around the back of the property. A few acres back, Greta disappeared. Being her instinctive job to keep us all together, disappearing is unlike her.

After 15 minutes of searching, she re-appeared with a large (few inches by a few inches) flap of skin peeled off her leg. Off to get stiched up we go! I’ve never seen Scott look as pale as he did, standing with diet coke in hand asking me to bring him to the mall to wander around while we waited for her to get out of surgery. Clearly he wasn’t taking this well. They did a good job stitching it back together though, and since she's healed nicely. For two weeks though, we had to keep her leg bandaged, which involved the two of us holding her down to change it twice a day. No more hiking for a while!

Oh yeah, Christmas is in a few days and we don't have a tree yet... so either because I’m cheap or because I felt like it was more appropriate, I made Scott cut down a tree from the yard for our Christmas Tree. It was a beautiful tree, and outside it was crammed in between two others meaning that we’d have to cut it down eventually anyway. It’s amazing how much larger something like a 10foot tree looks inside than out. It's a good thing we have the loft style though, so there was plenty of headspace for the tree. If challenge #1 was getting the tree inside the house and figuring out where to put it, challenge #2 was decorating it with a small box of ornaments that filled our 3foot tree nicely last year. Mom & Jackie came through though, bringing me some funky old glass ornaments & others we've collected through the years. Jackie was even able to make the bag of ornaments my dad must have thown away, reappear. Anyhow, it turned out beautifully and I'm sure will only get better, if only we can keep the cats out of it. So let's call challenge #3 keeping the tree standing while there's a cat being chased by a dog in it. Tree, 0 - Cats, 2. As long as it doesn't happen during dinner, the kitties will be spared.

Speaking of dinner, we had some fabulous meals & homebrew while everyone was here. Both of our families like to eat well, so we were able to have some fun with the menu. Christmas Eve we did Fondu, complete with broth and cheese options, followed by rich 71% dark chocolate, sweetened with a touch of Kirsch. Dad brought a couple bottles of his first Leibfraumlich to go with it, and our Valpolicella was ready too.

Yum. Christmas day we started with my Dad's breakfast special of eggs, ham and bacon, served over Scott's Mom's southern specialty of home made biscuits and gravy. That night I cooked my first "traditional" holiday meal, with a fresh local turkey, spiral ham, and all the fixins. It's a good thing there was plenty of experience floating around to help me out... what do you mean "dress the turkey?" Don't you just stick it in the oven?

While not in the kitchen, we did lots of sitting around playing games with the family. Little wine, beer, or Wild Turkey & Mexican Train Dominoes is a hoot. Get's competetive real fast, too! The boys also had some fun flying their new rc toys around the house and outside. Only took about an hour for Scott to break something! Overall I would say that our families got along really well, & everyone seemed to have a great time. I know that for Scott & I we loved having everyone here together!

After my family headed out, we did some sight seeing with Scott's family. We took a drive to Lake Placid, and then another down the lake, past Ausable Chasm to Essex. We again did some good eating - we checked out a wine bar/cafe and the brewery in Lake Placid, had some great local beer & soup, and also a small restaurant called the Turtle Island Cafe just north of Essex. As we're still discovering what there is to do on this side of the lake, it was fun showing off our new locale to everyone.

In the end, Scott & I had a blast with our families and can't wait to do it again. I've heard from both sides that they had a great time as well so maybe we'll do it again, possibly someplace a little further south next year (I think we have to wait our turn to host again!). We hope you all had a great holiday as well and are having a good new year!

Next Post, the Valentines Day Snowstorm!!!