Christmas!

Ah, another Christmas is past. We had two Christmases this year, one at my parents' and one at Chris' parents'. And there is a third coming some time in January out in Wisconsin with Chris' grandparents and cousins. We had our own little Christmas morning here too, under our pretty tree. Winnie finally picked up on the idea of opening presents this year, and got really excited when we both started ripping up paper. She opened up her bone by herself (in the photos below), then promptly buried it back in the wrapping paper.

There seemed to be a bit of a kitchen theme with presents this year- we got a great mixer, a nice big pot for making soups and pasta, a beautiful slate cheese board, a cute little food processor, Woot Wine, an awesome corkscrew, and a basket full of vinegars and other yummy things for spicing up our cooking. It feels like half the time we're at home is spent either cooking or eating, so it's great to have so many new things in the kitchen to play with!

We tried to give a lot of handmade and local things this year, inspired by our trip to the first Craftmas Spectacular held in Uptown in early December. We found out about it when some of our neighbors advertised that they'd be participating, and ended up finding a lot of great artsy-crafty things there. We followed up with a trip to I Like You, the store that sponsored the Craftmas show, and found more good things there. Then, after finals, we both went on a crazy baking spree and produced several dozen cookies and candies and about five gallons of fruit soup. Yum...

Now that Christmas is over, it's time to prepare for our trip up north. We bought most of our food today. I still need some winter supplies, so we're hitting up the Scratch and Dent sale at REI tomorrow morning... do winter coats ever get scratched and dented?