Christmas at the lodge~

the larsons celebrated Christmas at our cabin for the first time ever.

it was a lot of work and tons of fun.

my car was packed so full when i left the twin cities and headed north

that i felt like i was driving santa's sleigh. (even though it was more

food than presents.) i decorated last time i was up there so that part was done.

my sweetie and i made two swags like this- one for the fence at the end of the driveway

and one to put on the lodge. we foraged in the woods for all the evergreens.

this spruce top was our Christmas tree. it was small but it was all lars 

wanted to cut. i yimmeled a bit but he just wanted to leave all the

trees in the forest. supposedly if you cut just the top off an evergreen though 
they grow a new one!

we wire evergreen boughs to the top of our bird feeding station because

it gives the birds more cover and also because it looks pretty~i even put a few
shiny glass balls on it.

i made 3 kinds of cookies at the lodge and brought up 3 kinds of candy

that i made back at home. 

                                                                                                                        mary, we love the minnow bucket you gave us!

                                                                                                                         

now, can we talk about the food? 

we ate like kings and queens and it was delicious.

here are some of the highlights in the chow-down department.

 i made my traditional Christmas bread and this year caramel rolls too -

(why not- we were going whole hog here anyway....)

i usually make anything sweet-plus the side dishes and lars prepares the meat.

he's dang good at it too. cole's birthday is dec. 25th, so we like to make

something he loves on his birthday. he suggested chicken-jalapeno wraps,

so that's what dale made. they were so good, but i burned the roof

of my mouth so bad eating them that it's still raw~ seriously need to

control myself and at least let my food cool-duh.

and then there's the annual seafood meal. 

crab, lobster, shrimp and garlic cheese biscuits. 

i know, we are spoiled rotten.

the 7 of us spent Christmas Day on the lake ice fishing and

didn't catch much, just a few little perch and bass- but we came back home

and made this seafood feast so who cares? 

we played our traditional dice game after we ate and it always

gets rowdy with a couple of the prizes being coveted by all 

and they get stolen back and forth until the time runs out and/or some knuckles

are bloodied.
*oh we also had dairy queen ice cream cake before bed
and sang a loud version of 
happy birthday to top off the evening!

because this is already so long, i'll show you some 

pictures of actual people next post k?

&

lest you think everything is perfect and picturesque in my world, i'd like

to end with the photo below.

when i got to the lodge i ran in to use the bathroom and this is what 

greeted me. 

i live with fishermen and hunters and this is

just one of the indignities i may run into...

you don't even want to know what's in our freezer, or

what the dogs are chewing on out in the yard.

like taylor swift says, you've just gotta

"shake it off, shake it off".

i didn't even ask why that minnow was in the toilet.

(don't really want to know).

**********


it was a wonderful Christmas in every way,
only thing we missed was the snow,

xox, b.