Yay for Christmas!

I hope everyone has had a lovely holiday season!

We certainly did. It was a nice, quiet Christmas. On Christmas Eve Eve we went on our traditional dinner out to Denny's with the whole family, followed by a drive through the rich neighborhoods to look at their lights. My older brother noted that there were fewer lights this year, probably due to worry over global warming, and my dad shouted out the cracked open window, "Thanks for ruining Christmas, Al Gore!" The rest of the car ride consisted of my sister and I covering our noses while trapped in a car with my brothers' combined fart power. We also had a big burn pile during the day, and when I checked on it that night... there was an evil face looking back at me!



Christmas Eve was lovely! I finished Northern Lights faster than I can remember finishing any book in recent memory (read for fun, of course) and saw the movie The Golden Compass. Wow. I understand a lot of the sacrifices they made for the screen, but wow. If they were going to give it a PG-13 rating they should have actually shown some of the gory or more upsetting scenes, like, I don't know, the end. I was more upset by the studio (or whoever made the decision) not taking a stance on the religious content of the book/film. They hinted at it with a few split second scenes of Christian artwork, but that's all. By excluding the Christian elements, the filmmakers have excluded the pivotal element of the book. I mean, the title is appropriated from the epigraph from Paradise Lost. I understand that it's a business and they wanted to appeal to the masses (which often equates to the lowest common denominator) but if Pullman had the gall to write about it and the publishers had the balls to publish it, then you'd hope Hollywood would have the danglies to at least do the text justice. Maybe not. Hollywood may have no hangy dangies at all. I'm not about 50 pages into the second book, The Subtle Knife.

I let it all slide in the light of it being Christmas Eve. My sister and older brother and I went out on an evening ride to look at the lights on the houses in the valley below. Beautiful. Though Houdini, the horse my brother was riding, is still pretty green, which always makes riding with him interesting. And they were all a little extra tense... either because it was cold, dark, and near dinner time... or because they sensed Santa near! We watched the nearly-full moon rise from horseback. Things got exciting when we lined up for a picture and Houdini kicked Mickey and I. Luckily it was just a glancing blow that hit my boot (though my feet were so numb I hardly felt it) and didn't do much damage to Mickey.

I love Mickey. He's such a wolly mammoth in the winter!

Calming Mickey and Sparrow when they started to spook from Houdini.

Lights on the houses below.

Me and Mickey, the demon eye.

My brother and Houdini who doesn't like his bit.

Sparrow and the moon.

Sparrow and Mickey.

Christmas Eve I tried crab for the first time in ages. It was pretty good.

We left Santa a small feast!

Christmas morning was lovely and the sun shone. After opening gifts, we had a delicious meal of roll that my mom made.

That afternoon I gave gifts to the kids I babysit. The little boy's favorite present from me was a potato. It's a joke that goes back to when he was three or so.

That evening Alex and my bog bro went on another horseback ride. I'd been standing in the kitchen forever making homemade egg nog and needed some exercise, so I ran on ahead of them. It was a variation of how my sister and I once played "Runner." I ran and she hunted me down on horseback. It's great fun and scary. I have more respect for Ronon!

Houdini, the little green boy, before the ride.

Christmas sunset!

I was a bit smug after beating the horses and waiting for them to arrive for several minutes. Even Teyla the toot was a happy little angel on her second Christmas!

E