Saturday, December 26, 2009

Christmas Wrap-Up

I hope everyone had an enjoyable Christmas celebration with family and/or friends. We made the journey down to my parent's home through heavy snow yesterday morning (thank goodness for that AWD Chevy Tahoe!) and arrived without any problems although we saw more than 1 car in the ditch along the way. Brother Dave wasn't able to make it from St. Paul due to the more blizzard-y conditions north of here and the fact that he's also come down with a nasty cold (hope you feel better soon Dave!) We picked up Mr. Johnson's mom on our way and my sissy, her friend Harriet, and her daughters and grandson also made it, so we had a good group around the dinner table.

My mom and niece prepared a delicious dinner for us with enough for everyone to have seconds (good thing I don't eat like that every day!) My niece Kathy wasn't quite as hungry as the rest of us and decided to turn her leftover pile of mashed potatoes into "Spud" the mashed potato snowman -- complete with toothpick arms, green bean smile, carrot nose, mustard seed eyes and a jaunty pecan beret!

Here's Boris (one of my parent's indoor kitties) searching for his Christmas present.

Boris never did find that missing box of kitty treats, so he retreated to Mr. Johnson's lap for some consolation pets. (Mr. Johnson is not a huge fan of cats and somehow cats always seem to sense this and deliberately search him out!)

It's the little guys that always seem to get the most at Christmas isn't it? Here's the huge pile of presents for Ethan (my niece's little boy who was 2 in August). He got lots of cool dump trucks, cars, backhoes, tools and other stuff that makes lots of noise.......my sister may have to think about building a toyroom addition on her house before too much longer!

And after getting up early this morning, I got the chance to start a new sweater for myself! (This is a present I give to myself each Christmas after completing all my other Christmas projects.) Watch for future posts on this one.......



13 comments:

Deb said...

How do cats always know to go where they will be the least appreciated? :)

Glad you had a nice Christmas. We stayed in and enjoyed not having to go anywhere. We had probably between 8 and 12 inches of snow.

Lynne at Hasty Brook said...

It sounds like you had a nice Christmas with family. I work this weekend but weather permitting, I'm driving up to Moose Lake tomorrow afternoon to spen the night i a hotel, then meet Deb and a few others early Monday morning for a Pine County CBC!! Wish us luck.

Anonymous said...

Ruthie I never thought SPUD would make your blog, Dad and I almost fell off our chairs laughing. The other pics were very nice especially the one of Boris and Mr. Johnson. Thanks for braving the weather to come.

MOM

Mary said...

I'm still giggling about SPUD. How clever and cute!

Kitties and bags on Christmas are a blast. Looks like you have a great time!

Mary

Lisa at Greenbow said...

Spud is a cut above the other potatoes. Cute. Glad to hear you could get to your parents for the big celebration. I love the color of your sweater.

KGMom said...

You did get loads of snow, didn't you.
I am watching weather for your area carefully. My brother, who lives in Winnepeg, visited here in Pennsylvania, then went to southern Ohio for Christmas.
BUT, he and his wife do have to return home, driving up through Minnesota and North Dakota to get back to Manitoba.

Love the sweater sleeve.

Marsha said...

A belated Merry Christmas Ruthie! Happy to hear you were able to make it too your mom's. We got lots of snow but the predicted winds couldn't blow around that heavy wet stuff. The kids had a LONG drive back to Duluth today though.

Gotta love Spud the snowman!

Dave Dorsey said...

I can relate with mr. Johnson. I'm allergic to cats and they seem to hunt me down for attention.

I hope there's more to the sweater.

Sounds like your Christmas was good!

Jayne said...

Glad you all made it to your parents safely Ruthie. I saw the weather reports up your way and wondered if you all got socked in. Looks like everyone had a great time.

Ruth said...

We have had very little snow so far this winter. You aren't sending it east this year. Glad you had a safe and merry Christmas.

Taos Sunflower said...

Spud is hysterically adorable! Also I'm in love with Boris, he reminds me of my beloved Munchie who was with us for 18 years...Happy New Year and best wishes for all good things, Ruthie! XOXO

Kelly said...

...your niece's little mashed-potatoe man made me laugh! ...can't wait to see more of that sweater!

RuthieJ said...

Hi Deb,
We heard on the weather wrap-up that we had about an inch of rain from the 24th-25th. If that would have been all snow, we would have been buried too!

Hi Lynne,
I hope you had a great time with Deb on your bird count.

Hi Mom,
Of course I couldn't do a blog post without featuring Spud!
Thanks for hosting all of us at Christmas.

Thanks Mare. It was a good holiday--lots of food and good times.

Thanks Lisa. I'll have to post an updated picture of the sweater sleeve. After that picture, I just didn't like the colors and ripped it all back for a do-over.

Hi Donna,
I hope your brother had an uneventful trip to Winnipeg. I think northern MN and the Dakotas got much more snow than we did.

Thanks Marsha. I bet you were really thankful that all your snow didn't get blown around. I don't envy your kids the drive back to Duluth, plus all the snow they probably had to shovel once they got there!

Hi Dave,
No cat allergies here, just not one of his favorite animals.
Definitely more sweater to come....stay tuned!

Thanks Jayne. We've definitely had Christmases with much worse weather and we were glad that it really wasn't very cold either.

Hi Ruth,
I think most of the snows we've had this year have gone more southeast. I'll try to send some your way next time. :-)

Thanks Martie. Boris is quite a sociable cat. He always comes to greet everyone who visits my parents.

Thanks Kelly. More sweater pics will be posted as progress is made. I ripped back the sleeve and changed the colors and things are going much better now.