Christmas

Remembering the chaos of my three-feast Thanksgiving, on Christmas, I (not without a sigh of reluctance and wistfulness) declined two in favor of spending more time at two others. The first was with R and N, who are two of my longest-term friends in Alaska. I met R when I moved up here the first time, before my then-SO was diagnosed with cancer and we had to go back to California. I don't see as much of R as I'd like, but he has a heart of gold and is always a friend when I need one. I met N as soon as I arrived in Alaska the second time, when we were TA's together in the physics department. She, too, has an unusually kind heart in our cynical age. I was delighted to learn a few years later that they were dating, and last spring, they got married.

After lunch, I drove home and threw my prepared casseroles into the oven, then drank tea while they heated, then headed across the street for Christmas number two.

Here are photos of... random things! I'm sorry I totally forgot to photograph the parties, even the food at them! But R and N had a beef roast, and the B's had a pork roast, so I had diversity in meat. :) I made a quiche, a classic green bean casserole (in true classic style, all of the ingredients are dumped directly from cans into the casserole dish), a roasted blue kuri squash casserole, and corn bread.

Here is my kuri squash casserole, topped with pilot bread crumbs and grated parmigiano-reggiano:


Spinach, feta, and onion quiche in a half whole-wheat crust:

My crusts are always tasty, but cosmetically-challenged. One of my readers-turned-meatworld-friends, who used to be a pastry chef, informed me that the trick to making a crust that keeps its shape is to reduce some butter and substitute shortening. But I like butter and don't like shortening. As the late Mr. Grumphus Bumfus Bunn B. Doofus, Esq. put it, Hrrmf!

I gave the girls each a big rawhide bone for Christmas. They cleaned their teef:


The weather has been so great lately (hovering around 0F/-18C), that the girls and I have been skiing every day!



My neighbor grooms the trails with his snow machine:




We could see the Alaska range from the ridgetop:


At N and R's place, another guest had brought this creature:


It was astonishing! But after it warmed up to me, I held it and examined one of its teeny, tiny paws. What a cute little thing it was--exactly like Autumn's or Linden's paw, only the size of a single one of their pads!

Autumn and Linden are both so predatory--eating squirrels out of the yard and voles off the hiking trails--that I had wondered from time to time how they'd react to a little dog. But then my neighbor got a mini dachshund puppy, and my worry turned to real fear. How much of a turd would I feel like knocking on a door to apologize because my dog had eaten theirs? Well, one day Autumn and Linden did meet the little guy, when all three of them (with their two humans) were out for a walk. They wagged their tails, sniffed his butt, and continued on. Phew! They knew it was a dog! What a relief!