"Hey, Kids, I heard on the news that an airline pilot spotted Santa's sleigh on it's way in from New York City."

“The most enduring traditions of the season are best enjoyed in the warm embrace of kith and kin.” Clark W. Griswold

Bare was on his way back from Alabama, but I decided to try to get in the holiday spirit the week after Thanksgiving.  We stored all of our decorations in the garage so I wouldn’t have to dig through boxes in the basement when the time came.  I learned one important lesson—don’t store snow globes in garages in Montana! It was completely frozen—thankfully it did not bust.  Our decorations are going in the basement now!

Our Christmas cards brought lots of smiles! I decided I needed a way to display them, so thanks to Pinterest I came up with this!

This spurred on craftiness in me that I had forgotten about, so I made these! I’ll take orders for next year, but they take FOREVER so request early!!

Bare finally made it back to Montana, so we bought—yes, bought our 1^st Christmas tree! Maybe next year we will go into the mountains of Montana and cut one down, but this year, we relied on the nice guy who lived in the camper to help us pick out the perfect tree! And perfect it is—I can’t bring myself to take it down.

“We're kicking off our fun old-fashioned family Christmas by heading out into the country in the old front-wheel drive sleigh to embrace the frosty majesty of the winter landscape and select that most important of Christmas symbols.”

Clark W. Griswold

It was decorated with Bare—not really, but he thought this pun was pretty funny.  He supervised, while I perfectly spaced the red, silver, gold ornaments in my own little OCD way! Our 1^st ornament hung was one of our favorites—a fly—given to us last year by these dear friends.  It only seemed appropriate.

Bare and I started our Christmas a week early in Big Sky thanks to Groupon Getaways! He spent a couple days skiing while I relaxed, read by the fire, and spent a few hours at the spa.

I was on call December 22-25, so we were home—so I baked and baked and baked some more for coworkers, friends, and Christmas dinner—using a total of 34 eggs!!

Many hours were spent listening to holiday music and all the classic movies were watched!

We decided to start a tradition of having seafood on Christmas Eve, so Bare cooked some amazing bacon wrapped scallops, ahi tuna steaks, butternut squash stuffed ravioli and asparagus.  We spent time skyping with the family on Christmas Eve and day, which made being away a little easier.  It was by far, the most laid back Christmas I have ever had, but I guess that’s fine every 30 years or so.

Christmas 2011

We didn’t have any visitors so these words were not murmured— [To Eddie] “Can I get you any more egg nog? Get you something to eat? Drive you out to the middle of nowhere, leave you for dead?” Clark W. Griswold