Week 17: Christmas

In a ski town the perfect Christmas Break means the snow starts flying as soon as the break starts and that's what it did this year.  Nancy came home after the solstice so she was the only one in our family to witness the Lunar Eclipse Solstice.  Too cloudy here but in Boise she climbed up on someone's roof with some friends and said it was amazing and eerie.   Grant and Gregg worked on a 'box' for doing tricks on skis in the back yard, we made Christmas cookies (on my Mom's birthday), and went to the Case's traditional Christmas party. 

With two kids as ski instructors at Deer Valley, family time was a rare occurrence. While Seth and Kate were at work on Christmas Eve, Gregg did some last minute shopping, Nancy played elf, Grant played on his ski jump and I prepared the Christmas Eve feast--"Thanksgiving-style".  Since we always go to Idaho for Thanksgiving we never get to enjoy the best part of turkey-day--the day-after leftovers, and this year we didn't even have a turkey sandwich!  So I baked, basted, peeled, mashed, whipped and sliced and by some stroke of luck everything turned out beautifully.  Kate invited 3 otherwise-orphaned Deer Valley friends who were spending their first Christmas away from home.  We feasted, then followed that up with some 'around the world' ping pong--not such a great idea on very full stomachs, and ended the evening with our traditional Christmas Eve present-opening--the pajamas.  The DV kids loved their new flannels.

Grant was old enough to put a Biore strip to use, along with the rest of  us for a little Christmas morning bonding.

Kate suits up for work.

Christmas morning has evolved over the years and though we may have all been o.k. with sleeping in a bit at this stage that is not an option for ski instructors.  We were up early and enjoyed the morning together before Seth and Kate had to leave.  The rest of us went back to bed for awhile, skied in the afternoon and spent the evening with old friends at the Karz household.  They've been hosting the Christmas dinner since our kids were in school together.  We're all so grateful and I'm always impressed that their house is so lovely-- a haz-mat suit might come to mind upon entering our house after Christmas morning.

Grant treasures the times when we're all together--we were all so happy to spend 

one more Christmas with each other.