Happy holidays! I hope everyone had a good *insert your holiday of choice* celebration. I was a little concerned that Christmas would feel sad this year without having any family over from Norway, but JK and I (and the pups of course) had a wonderful time.

For us, Christmas begins on the 23rd, Little Christmas Eve. Since we knew we wouldn’t be getting a white Christmas in Redmond this year, JK took the day off so we could find some snow in the mountains instead. Out of sheer laziness, we went back to Skyline Ridge. I was there just a couple of weeks ago, but it’s short, easy, doesn’t require any planning, and it seemed like the perfect place for JK to try his new randonnée skis. I followed him on snowshoes.

We had been promised sun, but skies kept changing from blue to grey to white to yellow and pink, which made for some eerie light but unfortunately blocked our views to the north. As we climbed above the Stevens Pass ski area, we got some excellent views into the Alpine Lakes Wilderness.

The local views weren’t bad either - after listening to Alvin and the Chipmunks in the car on the way up, the snowy trees were all it took to finally get my into the Christmas spirit. Bliss!

(If anyone has any tips on taking photos of snow on overcast days, please share - mine always come out dull, grey and flat, even if I overexpose the shot.)

Mount Daniel was looking particularly handsome and dramatic:

As we rounded the lake, I spotted a familiar white and black dog in the forest. It was Jasper and his dad, Tom, on the way back from a peakbagging adventure on the other side of the ridge. They joined us for the rest of our trip (even though it meant they had to go back up to the rock garden), which was good for me so I could have some company on the way down while JK skied.

JK made it all the way back to the car without falling (or so he claims), and then we headed home to get started on the nut loaf and risengrynsgrøt…and the donning of gay apparel.

Aargh, I hate it when I haven’t blogged since the dawn of time and I have to catch up like this. This time all I have to say to get caught up is “snow”. That’s right, even down here in Redmond we got so much of the heavenly white stuff that the world pretty much just stopped turning (well, at least the Pacific Northwest world). JK had to work from home for a week because we couldn’t even get our car out on the main road. We SKIED to the grocery store.

On the first snow day we skied across town to gawk at all the cars stuck on the highway, and a camera crew interviewed JK for King 5 news - hilarious. It aired live and several people recognized JK from the clip as we made our way back to the house (you never forget those yellow pants).

So yes, we had a beautiful white Christmas - and even though this was our first Christmas without a visit from our families in Norway, we had a really good time with our little family of three.

…and now that all the snow is gone down here, we can still go up to the mountains for skiing and snowshoeing.

Washington really ain’t a bad place to live.

…is that it’s socially acceptable to start hanging your Christmas decorations ridiculously early! :D In Norway my family would wait until a couple of days before Christmas Eve to get the tree up, but here people have started doing it already! After nagging JK about it for a couple of days, he finally agreed that we should get our tree and all our other stuff up once we’ve finished de-cluttering (which is taking fricking forever by the way) and cleaning the house. We cleared our little garden up for winter today, so I went ahead and hung the wreath and put our Christmas squirrels (lol) on the porch. I also made a new blog header (heh, I didn’t have any good Christmasy photos so you’ll have to stare at last year’s dinner until I find something better) and forced Bobs to wear a Santa hat (see sidebar ->) to get started with the decorations :o)

I am really looking forward to Christmas this year! Last December was completely insane because we were moving into the house and then went without power for a week after the windstorm and bla bla bla, but now this truly feels like our home…and my family is coming over from Norway to celebrate with us!

Speaking of holidays, we spent Thanksgiving at Andre & Ellie’s place with a bunch of friends…and I experienced my first food coma. It was worth it though: “cream” of broccoli soup, vegan Field Roast, stuffing, mashed potatoes, sweet potato soufflé (mmm I am so making that for Christmas), green bean casserole, homemade bread and cornbread muffins, Tofurkey gravy (that stuff is so good) and Toby’s apple pie. That’s a lot of food.

The best part was just hanging out with everyone and knowing we had a long weekend ahead of us :)