Monthly Archives: December 2010

A year in review…with you.

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Happy New Year!

Wow. It’s December 30th. I just looked down at the little calendar icon thing at the bottom of my computer screen and it screamed at me–“It’s almost the end of a whirlwind year lady! It’s almost the beginning of 365 days of new adventure ahead. You should probably reflect on this!”

I jumped right out of  my neckerchief at the thought, and  since I’m not going anywhere today because nature is ringing in the New Year with yet another blizzard and more drifts of snow blocking my driveway, I figured now is as good of time as any to let you all know something about me.

I am a grateful, frizzy haired, pug loving, frozen and slightly more squishy thanks to the holiday cookies lady.

I am thankful.

I am thrilled and hopeful and full of love and nerves and excitement and overwhelmed…not only at the thought of a year full of changes and decisions and heartbreak and joy and manual labor at my back, but for the one ahead.

The one ahead that is sure to bring all of those things and more…especially that manual labor stuff.

But before I look ahead with you all, ahead to a year where I hope I will see the dust from your car trailing behind you down our pink road and onto our doorstep, I want to look back.

Because looking back always helps remind me, especially when I am in the middle of shoveling away what the blizzard brought us, or sweating and cursing the burs of summer, or trudging through the gumbo of the buttes after a wayward cow, that I am here.

Right back where I started from.

Right where I belong.

See, I’m not sure if I made this clear in the beginning of this little project I started (which I simply refer to as “writing it all down,”) that last year at this time I was living alone. I was living alone in a big house in a town an hour and a half away from the ranch–an hour and a half away from where my husband had just moved to take a job.

And I couldn’t go with him because I too, had a job to do. And together, we had a house to finish–a house we purchased on a good five year plan to gut it all out, put it all back together nice and shiny and live there, working and saving and making our way back to the ranch in good time.

But the fast paced industry in which husband is employed sent to him an opportunity that we couldn’t pass up–an opportunity to continue work with his company and  live where we wanted to live. For a good long time.

And we were looking for some permanency, because we had spent the last five New Years in different houses.

Whew, were we ready to be home.

So this couldn’t be passed up. Because ten years ago, when we graduated from high school, together, we would have never guessed that we could be out here in our mid-twenties and starting the life we always wanted.

So husband packed his bags and I kept my job and my stuff in the house that was torn apart from wall to wall. And on the weekends, along with our wonderfully helpful family members, we hammered and nailed and painted and sawed and planned and stained and varnished and cleaned and one of us may or may not have gotten her head stuck in a ladder.

I can’t remember.

And I was exhausted. And I missed my husband. And I was lonely and felt like the winter was never going to end. I cried a bit and then looked on the bright side and then cried a bit more.

Then I went to Vegas.

Me, not winning...

And I met big Elvis and saw Bette Midler and won a dollar and wore my fancy outfits.

Then it was back to the real world, more snow and more building and more missing each other and more tears until one day I finished a job that was challenging and good for me, we cleaned up the sawdust, packed up my shoe collection and the pug, shut the door and put out the for sale sign.

For Sale To the Highest Bidder-the last two years of our lives (and some of husband’s blood with my tears splashed in).

And down the road we went, all of our earthly possessions crammed in husband’s pickup, sweat trickling down our faces, paint on our clothes. Here I would like to say the sky opened up and the sun shone down on us and all was right with the world.

But I am nothing if I’m not real and so I will say instead, I was scared to death. Because I had major plans. And I told people about them. I had this vision of living and having a family and sharing this place with others since I was a little girl.

And here I was and all I could hear in my head, over the birds chirping and the cows mooing and the coyotes howling was my voice…”now what?”

But after a mental breakdown, which I’m sure I’ve told you about, that husband of mine found me out in the grass, and told me to do it already.

Just do it. Do what you want to do. Do what you have always wanted to do.

And I guess all I needed was permission, because in the last seven months, from day two of dropping my bags on the floor of my grandparents’ home, I picked myself a welcome home bouquet and began the journey of  telling you all about it…

…and damn it if you didn’t listen and cheer me on as I kicked off my work shoes and postponed showers and my daily grooming habits to roll in the grass, to walk down the pink road, to bury my face in the neck of a good horse, to climb to the top of every hill on this place and take a good look at it all.

To really see it.

And you laughed with me as I danced in the pouring rain and then shook your heads when I came up with the brilliant idea to fling our bodies down the side of a slippery, deadly, bloody clay butte, defying death and acquiring a nasty case of butt burn.

Good Lord.

You listened as I suffered from the nostalgia a childhood home cultivates and nodded your head as I told you about a youth spent in the dirt and mud and hills of this place, hair wild and dreams big. You helped me welcome my relatives for a family reunion and remember my grandmother, make her jelly and imagine her life here.

You shared your memories as well and I thank you for that.

You came with me as I jumped in the cool North Dakota Lake Sakakawea…

…rode my horse behind one of the best cowboys in the country and fought with the attitude of The Red Fury…

…baked my skin under the big, blue sky on the Maah Dahh Hey Trail…

….held up a rattlesnake….

and won a photo contest for crying out loud. (What?!)

And as I continued to add to the members of our pet family, you never judged, just oooed and ahhhed over the utter cuteness.

I love that you agree with me on the cuteness…

…and the fact that you never judge me for my obsession with the pug, but cheered him on as he heroically saved a cat from an eminent death and were genuinely worried when you thought that damn dog was lost or eaten by coyotes or mangled from a porcupine attack.


Which is more than I can say for some members of my family. So thank you very much.

We rode our bikes through the summer when we weren’t on the backs of our horses.

You walked with me down autumn paths and got in close as I took my time examining the mushrooms, and stems of flowers, and acorns buried underneath the leaves.

You helped me appreciate the small things–the small things that sometimes go unnoticed. I noticed them because I wanted to show them to you.

And you wanted to see them.

So I thank you for that too.

Together we marveled at the changing of the leaves…

…and welcomed, bravely with teeth bared, the first snow…

…in September?

Wow.

So I took you along, trudging through snow banks, examining the contrast and the shapes the flakes make on their own and piled up like that.

I flung our bodies down snow covered hills and to a screaming stop in a big pile of family at the bottom.

Then you helped me say hello as we welcomed my new nephew into the world with open arms and came with me to Texas, where part of my heart lives…

…and of course suffered through my home movies and maintained your patience as we kneaded the dough in our tiny kitchen.

And you tasted Cowboy’s cooking.

And, again, didn’t judge as I continued my study on his strong jaw line, masculine silhouette and dark, mysterious eyes.

Which is, again, more than I can say for some members of my family.

So, you know, thanks!

So as the new year rolls in and my plans to make you all a place to stay, a place to hike and bike and ride horses and take pictures continue I know the challenges are ahead. I know this. But it is because of you and your appreciation, your enthusiasm and support and thumbs up and kind words that I was able to see this place again–not only through my eyes, my grown up eyes, but through your eyes as well.

Because this year you know I didn’t scale mountains, or travel the seven seas, or save the world in any way.

But I saved myself.

In 2010 I saved myself by finding within me the spirit of a little girl who fell in love with this land and possessed the gumption and  nerve and energy and wild-hair-up-her-ass ideas to maybe make them work someday.

And I have you to thank for that.

So I raise my cocktail glass to a Happy New Year friends.

And to more good stuff, hard stuff, muddy and snowy and annoying and furry and lovable stuff ahead.

Oh, and my New Year’s resolution? To finally get to that damned laundry already….

See ya at the ranch!

A quick Christmas recap (with some humiliation splashed in)

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Outside the Christmas window

And now, a quick recap of a Very Veeder Christmas so you can all move on with your lives and wait, with bated breath, for the next dramatic adventure of the ranch pug in bad outfits, or weather report that involves more snow, or photos of tiny birds far away because I lack the appropriate sneaking skills.

And also because I promised you I’d let you know how the cheese ball turned out.

Ok, here we go:

This was the tree. My momma’s famous tree. A tree that only tipped over once during the season due to that one last bulb that set it over the edge. Yeah, surprisingly it wasn’t the evil cat.

Because the devil cat was too busy hanging out in this bag…

This is utter humiliation and annoyance and all of the things that are so awkward and wonderful about the holidays. Please note and oooh and aahhh over my holiday vest.

And these are the gifts, sure to provide hours of entertainment and complete happiness:

For little sister, a shiny new ukulele. To which she exclaimed with glee: “What? A ukulele? Oh my, oh my, oh my I had no idea! I will never put it down. Ever. I’ll prove it to you. All. Christmas. Day.”

“So many possibilities! We should put on a Christmas Ukulele Concert! And this will be our album cover when we take it to the streets.”

“But first I better learn a chord…oh man…I need to Google this shit…”

And a gift for Cowboy:

…now get your butt back in the kitchen.

Yes, the kitchen, where we feasted on prime rib, mashed potatoes, cranberries, smoked turkey, broccoli salad, sweet potatoes, and Cowboy’s famous cookie salad.

This is the table:

And upon this table a reindeer shaped cheese ball was born…

…and about one second after this photo was snapped, his head fell off.

But don’t worry, it was promptly reattached and relocated to the fridge…

…where it fell off again.

And so did his nose.

And for a moment I thought Christmas was ruined.

Until this came traipsing through the kitchen.

Bwahahahahhaahahaahaha! (Oh, and I’m in so much trouble)

Ok. Sorry. Moving on.

So after an uncooperative, but delicious reindeer shaped cheese ball was consumed, a beautiful feast with friends and family, a couple glasses of Santa’s Surprise (my famous cocktail…which was actually a Sex on the Beach, but that was deemed an inappropriate title for a Christmas drink) we headed outside to burn off some calories before the inevitable pie and cookie gorge.

The posse: My mother in law, father in law, pops and little sister…

Oh and don’t be alarmed, that is not Freddy Kruger on the snowmobile. That is husband.

He didn’t want to get cold.

Ok, this is the beginning of a sledding race between Freddy, I mean, husband and little sister…

…and this is how it ended…

This is pops demonstrating the depth of the snow…a severe situation…

…and this is what happens when you lose your sled at the bottom of the hill in these circumstances…

..turns out you also lose your arms and the bottom part of your legs. Poor pops, how’s he gonna eat pie now?

This is more holiday humiliation:

I think I heard him whisper “sweet mercy…” but I can’t be sure…

Oh Christmas. There is no better season…

…for love crashing down a snow covered hill…

…wearing sparkling bows as fashionable hair accessories…

…crowd pleasing performances…

…torture…

…and humiliation…

Speaking of, let’s see that ukulele performance one more time!

Hope you had a great one!

Love you all.

A Country Church Christmas

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It’s the morning after Christmas and from the comfort of my bed where I have decided to remain watching “Julie and Julia” and drinking coffee out of my favorite snowman cup, I can see (and hear) my dearly beloved practicing the D chord on the new “used” guitar I collaborated and schemed and finagled to buy him this Christmas.

And I am gathering he liked the surprise, because the first thing he said to me this morning as I rolled over and let him know that I am not getting up any time soon is:

“Good morning. Good to see you. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to go learn to play guitar today.”

So he’s working on it. And the thing about husband is, he probably will learn how to play guitar today. I have been practicing and playing guitar since I was twelve years old and husband will more than likely swoop in with a mission and learn to play “Stairway to Heaven” in a couple weeks.

Better than me.

Because I can’t play “Stairway to Heaven.”

Husband is good at everything.

Which drives me crazy, but comes in handy mostly.

Anyway, here I am this Sunday morning surrounded by unwrapped gifts and ribbon and leftovers and dishes, still under the covers in my little cabin in the North Dakota hills listening to husband take his first steps on the way to rock star status and I am thinking, this movie and coffee and private concert in bed in the morning should become an after Christmas tradition.

And I think I can arrange that.

Because I have had some practice at maintaining traditions this Christmas season, and, if I do say so myself, we did it proud this year.

As you know this little house has been around. My grandpa built it and my dad and his family have celebrated many Christmases between the walls. When I was growing up, my cousins and aunts and uncles gathered around the Christmas tree in our “Beef, it’s What’s for Dinner” sweatshirts (our gramma was a member of the Cattlewomen Association and felt her grandchildren should advertise the cause) and performed carols and put on plays on Christmas Eve and then dressed in our best and headed out to the little country church down the road for the candlelight service.

Evidence, I must always provide evidence. That's me on the right being held against my will by my oldest cousin. My sister and my other cousin to the left of me, thrilled about our matching outfits.

And as we grew a little older and time took people away and changed our world like it often does, the tradition of Christmas Eve spent in this house for my family continued.  After my grandmother died, my other grandparents from eastern North Dakota would move in for the season to ring in the holiday at the ranch. And they brought with them their own tradition of pancakes and gifts before church.

It was always cozy. It was always magical. It was always sweet and syrupy with the smell of cedar and cinnamon candles and hot coffee.

And there was always a trip through the starry, crisp and sparkling landscape to our little country church.

So that is how husband and I hosted Christmas Eve this year. With blueberry waffles and bacon and my homemade chokecherry jelly and gifts and laughter and photos by the Christmas tree (sans beef shirts.)

Me, cookn' the bacon. Yeah, sometimes I chip in with the parts of the meal that don't involve mixed drinks and wine.

Then we left it all to be cleaned up later as we piled in the car and let our headlights cut through the foggy, frosty night and take us the 35 miles to the little white church on the hill that was waiting for us with lights on.

Our drive to church wasn’t always this long. See, we used to attend services only five miles north of our home in a tiny little country church in the middle of a field called “Faith Lutheran.” This is where my sisters and I, along with the neighborhood farm kids within a 25-mile radius, took Sunday school lessons from my pops. And during the Christmas season, pops would put together a list of hymns that he knew and could realistically be played on the guitar and we would sing “Go tell it on the mountain,” “Away in the manger,” and “Winds through the olive trees,” loud and angelically in our red and green sweaters, hair combed and hands at our sides.

Then, in the grand finale, we would light each other’s candles and hold them steady, peacefully, prayerfully, as we sang “Silent Night,” to sweet baby Jesus on the eve of his birth.

And I like to imagine the crowd of eight families who filled that tiny church wall to wall had tears in their eyes at the beauty and innocence of it all…

But, sadly, the voices of little ones will no longer fill the Christmas Eve air out on the prairie where our little Faith Lutheran church stands. Because, without sounding too dramatic, the changing landscape of rural America has finally made its way to our little corner of the world as many young families choose to make their homes in town and family farms are left to be worked on the weekends.  The population of the congregation of that tiny church has dwindled and tapered off to the point of no return and Faith Lutheran, home to my first Christmas song solo, closed its doors for good this summer.

Leaving behind only one country church in our community, about 35 miles north of our ranch. First Lutheran Church, the last of its kind, still stands proud and tall on the rolling landscape, surrounded by wheat fields and oil wells and farmyards and cattle, and continues to welcome the family members of those who founded the place of worship, those who dug its foundation and built its steeple.

And I am one of those relatives, because, as pops reminds us each time we pull onto the gravel road that leads to its door, he helped build that steeple–the one that reaches toward the heavens…you know way up there, almost to the clouds. Yup, he did that, all the while overcoming his horrifying feelings toward heights.

Yup, pops helped build that steeple. So under that steeple we walked through the doors on Christmas Eve, hand in hand, side by side with those we love.

And we hugged neighbors and classmates we haven’t seen for years. We straightened out our holiday scarves and smoothed our dresses and talked about new babies and Christmas dinners and as the pastor stood before us, our chatter silenced and Christmas Eve candlelight service began.

And it opened with gusto as a neighborhood boy played “Good King Wenceslas” on his saxophone, cheeks rosy, shirt pressed and tucked into his blue Wranglers and belt buckle. I admit I might have welled up a bit as I remembered our humble Christmas concerts with guitar accompanist and wondered where all the children have gone.

And noticed that this church with the steeple wasn’t bursting at the seams with families squished in pews, sharing hymnals.

But that didn’t stop their voices, no matter the number, from filling the air with the music I remembered singing shoulder to shoulder with the kids who shared my landscape, called the little church out on the prairie theirs and grew and learned under the same remote sky.

So I sang the melody to  “Oh little town of Bethlehem,” as my pops’ voice sang the base. I listened to the greeting and looked down the pew to my little sister as she sang from memory “Go tell it on the mountain.” I smiled at the little neighbor kid, who wasn’t so little anymore and we sang together “Away in the manger,” just like we used to.

And then the sermon, the offering, the prayer and, with the lights turned low, in a chain reaction, we lit one another’s candles and sang over our flickering lights “Silent Night.”

And there was that magic again.

There it was. I have felt the same way every Christmas Eve since I could first form a memory.

My voice a little stronger, a little louder, my father’s voice a little more weathered, my little sister a bit taller, my momma a grandmother now.

But there we all stood, side by side, under that steeple, remembering our little church, thankful for this one, thankful for family, thankful for our place in this world.

Thankful for a tradition, that, no matter the time, the roof or the steeple we worship under, the family that had to leave us, or the friends and babies we welcome with open arms, we keep.

We keep and celebrate…

…and remember.

And maybe someday soon, husband will be performing his own rendition of “Joy to the World,” at church on Christmas Eve.

I am sure of it.

Ho Ho Ho

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Merry Christmas and lots of love from our home to yours.

Hope Santa was good to you!

P.S.-I’ll let you know how the reindeer shaped cheese-ball turns out.

A very non-Martha tradition

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This skiing hippo has nothing to do with anything, but he's cute so I thought I would give him some face time...

Merry Christmas! It’s here I suppose. All signs point that way. The Christmas tree is up, the snow is on the ground, the lights are on the fence, the pug is hiding out in his Santa suit and my little sister came home yesterday.

Complete with holiday sweater and jingle bell earrings.

So we kicked off the weekend and broke in the holiday like it was meant. While husband was at work (bless is little heart) we lounged it out like only a tried and true college student knows how to do.

It didn’t take me too long to snap right back to those days. We filled our snowman mugs with coffee and shuffled around in our wool socks and sweatpants as we fried up some bacon and eggs and I told her all my troubles in like, three breaths (I don’t have too many these days) and then we moved on to her life plans really quick, and her latest boyfriend, and then some embarrassing little tidbits–like how I fell on my face in a restaurant and unintentionally bared my floral underwears to the entire occupancy and how she dropped a bottle of bread oil while out with her friends trying to be fancy, shattering the entire thing all over the floor and splashing oil on her fellow diners, sending them packing and saying things like “someone doesn’t get out much.”

And then we plopped down on the couch and watched a movie that involved a love story and inner conflict and cute boys while the pug made his way to a new lap….and so did the lab…and the cats…little sister was in heaven.

So were the pets.

When the movie concluded, we stretched and contemplated doing something constructive, so we took two steps to the kitchen and whipped up a batch or two of hard candy…because I found a candy thermometer somewhere and I was going to learn how to use it….

…then I painted white snowflakes on her tiny, nubby fingernails….

…and then we melted some cheese and salsa and dipped half a bag or tortilla chips in it and got back on the couch to refresh our memory of how the Grizwalds spent their holiday.

Then Momma called.

She wanted to make Christmas cookies.

So we peeled ourselves out from under the blankets and obliged.

See, the women in my family have little traditions like these. We are not bakers. We do not attempt bread dough or pie crust or elaborate gingerbread houses with gingerbread men and women standing outside hand in hand in little dresses and overalls.

We do not make beautifully decorated and personalized delicate treats in tins with fancy wrapping and beautifully piped frosting.

No. We do not do these things.

But we do raid momma’s liquor cabinet and find what we need to mix our selves a fancy cocktail…

…and dip things in chocolate…

…and pops sometimes helps and makes things like this…

"My chocolate covered pretzel glasses, my chocolate covered pretzel glasses, without them, I am powerless."

..and then we dig out the cookie mix that comes out of a bag or box and proceed to exercise our creativity by cutting out holiday shapes and decorating the cookies into tie died peace signs, Santas in green and blue suits, multi-colored churches and green stars, all the while wondering why there is a sailboat mixed in with our Christmas cookie cutter collection.

Why the sailboat every year? I don't get it. I just don't get it.

There have been multiple explanations. None of which I accept.

By the time it’s all over momma’s kitchen looks like this:

A Christmas war zone complete with frosted walls, sprinkle coated floors, cranberry vodka puddles and half eaten Santa cookies. We might be in the middle of an argument about who has the most beautifully creative cookie and then we might make pops make the final decision. He usually picks the top five, in no particular order, so as not to hurt anyone’s feelings. And I might stomp my foot and say something like “No, that is not acceptable. Pick one. You must pick one and only one!” while presenting to him, in the least obvious way, my best effort.

And then, when he doesn’t chose mine, I might accidentally throw flour in someone’s hair, or wipe green frosting on someone’s ear or chase someone down the hall with both ingredients, threatening a full on food fight….while screaming “I am not a sore loser…I. Am. Not!”

No, this is not a Martha Stewart Christmas cooking experience.

Cocktails anyone?

But it’s ours.

And the cookies are delicious, out of the box or not.

But they are always out of the box.

And there is always laughter.

And lounging.

And that’s how we get ready for Christmas around here.

It’s my favorite part of the whole ordeal.

So Happy Christmas Eve everyone.

I hope your little sister comes home in her sweatpants with a matching pair of jingle bell earrings for you…

…and if you have another sister, with a new baby and a nice husband, I hope she comes home too.

Cause this Christmas I miss my big sister that has a new baby a nice husband…

But, you know, she usually wins the cookie decorating contest….

…hmmmm….so I should have actually had a chance this year…

I demand a re-count!

Oh well…

Merry Christmas!

See ya at church.

What we look like with wings…

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In honor of the first day of winter yesterday, nature did what was expected of her around here.

She opened up the sky and let loose a bazillion-trillion tiny little snowflakes, each unique and sparkly and white and cold, to make their way down to the frozen, tired, cold, white earth–an earth that seems to me to have had enough already.

But Mother Nature knows best and she just looked at us and said: “Oh, the party has just begun folks. It has just begun.”

And then she  proceeded to sprinkle in some of those giant flakes for good measure.

The result?

Cars stuck, shovels out, snow blowers tuned up and turned on, roads blocked, offices closed…

…school cancelled.

SNOW DAY!

Oh, I love a good snow day. I love everything about it. I love waking up the morning after the warnings on the TV and radio and running to the window to see if the weatherman’s a liar.  I love pouring my coffee in a big mug and staying in my slippers, knowing nobody expects me anywhere. I love gauging the height of the drifts and waiting until the last flake falls before I bundle up and get out my shovel. I love my wool socks. I love the card games we play and the movies we watch because there is nothing else to do. But most of all I love that snow days remind us (because we all need reminding) that sometimes we just need to pack it up and call it a day.

Some things are out of our control.

When we were kids there was nothing better than a snow day. Snow days meant imagination stretched to the furthest extent, pent up energy from hours behind desks and indoors released onto the cold, white world in screams of glee and snowball fights. Snow days meant no school and no school meant the entire day to spend in our snowsuits, searching for the best and biggest hill to fly down, building and destroying snow forts, collecting a stash of snowballs to prepare for the inevitable invasion of the neighbor kids, digging tunnels in the banks the plow or your dad’s tractor made along the roads. A day like this meant scarves and makeshift sleds and hot cocoa and the reason God invented little brothers and sisters.

Snow days meant that, when we had exhausted all of our snow-game resources, when our cheeks were rosy and frozen against the cold, our mittens crusted with ice and the sun began sinking over the horizon, turning the landscape a little more blue than white, we would walk off into a spot in the yard or on the playground where we had yet to make tracks and plop down on our backs.

And we were quiet for a moment as we stared up at the evening sky and watched our breath make smoke-like puffs into the crisp air.

We were quiet as we lived within this childhood right, basked in the simplicity we were not yet old enough to appreciate, and then, before the cold soaked through our fluffy coats, we moved our arms back and forth, our legs followed and we sunk our heads into the fluff just to make sure we made our mark on a world that was too big for us to conquer any way else.

With that we popped up off of the ground and stood, with hands on our hips taking a brief moment to see what our little bodies looked like with wings.

And then we flew away to the next daring adventure and soon the snow of the season turned to water and the water filled the creeks and we turned another year older. Another winter passed and another and before we knew it the snow days that once filled us with anticipation for hours of freedom and play turned to cussing at the weather report for halting deadlines and creating obstacles that stood in the way of progress and timing.

And so we sigh in the face of a day wasted, reminded that, like time passing and the changes of weather, there are some things we cannot control.

But there are things we can.

Like how we spend a day given to us free and clear by nature herself.

So, inspired by all of the kids who I am sure were jumping in snow banks and catching flakes on the tips of their tongues, I decided to push my adult attitude aside and find myself a nice, clear patch of snow too.…

…because it has been a long time since I’ve seen what I look like with wings…

And a partridge in a (poop-free) pear tree…

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So husband and I got off the ranch this weekend to get a handle on what I am sure all of you have finished and wrapped up tight and beautiful under the tree weeks ago– the Christmas shopping.

Now, I have a bit of an excuse for my delay in completing this all important task–I have been ringing in the holiday with music every weekend this December and haven’t had a chance to use those Saturdays to pick out the perfect pair of earrings for my sisters, a giant bag of M & Ms for my dad, glamorous leopard pajamas for my mom and that ridiculously expensive rifle husband has only hinted he wants for the past three to five years.

Don’t worry, I didn’t get you all any of those things…or did I?

Anyway, after we pulled the Schwan’s man out of the giant snow hole he dug himself into at the top of our approach (twice), we disappointed the flustered southerner by just saying no to more pies thank you very much, please come again–with chains on your tires–we were off.

So after my last Christmas song was sung on Saturday night, I told Santa what he should bring me…

..because for sure he will make a the trip to the ranch this year, seeing as he can spot our Christmas tree from space…and husband and I loaded up the pickup with our lists and made our way to town.

And then promptly realized that this was the last shopping weekend before the big birthday of birthdays…

Holy shit.

Can you say that before Christmas?

Well, I am reserving the right because what we witnessed is what I am sure many of you have witnessed this year if you are lucky enough to have a little chunk of change to use to buy gifts and sugar-coated things to make cookies.

And it deserves a Holy Shit.

So we arrived at our shopping destination and pulled into our perfect parking spot in the very last slot available at the end of the lot and entered the war zone blissfully unaware of what was to come.

But it soon became quiet clear what we were dealing with.

See, there was a shortage of  sweatshirts. A limit on the variety of the particular shirt we planned to purchase for one lucky relative. So we watched for a minute while mothers and daughters and dads and grandpas scrambled to find the correct size in the perfect color, with no avail…

Why? Wwwwhhhhhyyyyy

We watched as the store clerk waited on flustered customers, trying to suggest alternatives, a different color perhaps? A different style?

And after we were done witnessing the panic that ensued after the one and only idea the rest of the world had for their brothers and dads and uncles and cousins was not available, we quickly snatched whatever we could find and ran for our lives, sweatshirt strings flailing behind us.

Whew, one down, how many more to go?

We moved on to the next store carefully, holding on tight to one another, mouths agape, dodging strollers and moms with hot coffee and kids flinging stuffed animals and toys around at crotch level.  I whispered to husband to stay aware, stay focused, because one misstep could lead to being trapped between the linked arms of two “in-love” teenagers, resulting in a slingshot to certain death under the stampede of desperate shoppers.

Focus. We must focus. We stepped softly past the half-mile line of kids in khaki pants and Christmas sweaters holding on tight to the hands of loving parents, waiting to see Santa Clause and get in that one last request.

We contemplated entering the furniture store to wait it out on the plush furniture we can’t afford because we have to go Christmas shopping…

…and then we split up.

Good Lord, we split up.

And when left to my own devices on the brink of a holiday with so much glitter and glitz and products that promise to make the days merry and bright, I cannot be trusted.

So, trying to curb my enthusiasm for all things red and green, I elected, in this big store with aisles filled with music and jewelry and hair product and Christmas lights and inflatable Santas and toilet paper, and sunglasses and underwear,  to not get a cart.

I would not use a cart and only buy what I could carry in my little basket and the one arm I had left over.

Turns out it’s a lot easier to carry a 16 x 20 frame, a Santa shaped cookie jar, three tutus, a giant bedazzled reindeer, four packages of cookie sprinkles, six boxes of candy canes, ten Lords a Leaping and a partridge in a pear tree when you have a cart.

I cursed my turtleneck as it began to shrink, constricting my airwaves causing sweat beads to form on my forehead.

My eyes darted back and forth from shopper to shopper, searching for an escape route that included bringing my dignity with me. The people turned blurry and I suddenly became paranoid that they were moving in close to fight me for the last Santa shaped cookie jar.

I flung my scarf to the ground in panic, put the frame in my mouth and the reindeer under my arm and dialed husband.

“Heph meh…heph…”

In .3 seconds husband came screeching around the corner and without a word, pulled the cookie jar from my white knuckled grip and gently nudged me, blinking and stammering, toward the automatic doors….

…toward the sweet oasis in the cold winter landscape where they serve tequila.

And after a few sips and the joy of making little check marks by the items on my list, we were back to our old ways.

Me: “If you were reincarnated as a plant, what would you be?”

Husband: “I think I would be a fruit tree…like a plum-tree or an apple tree…”

Me: “I would be a yucca plant.”

Husband: “A yucca?”

Me: “Yeah, a yucca…’cause nothing would eat me and I could live for a long time in the badlands on the edge of a cliff, or maybe someone would use me for landscaping… Why do you want to be a plum-tree you weirdo?”

Husband: “So I could feed things and no one would cut me d…”

Me: “…if you were a plum-tree you would get pooped on by birds…like all the time…”

Husband: “If you were a yucca you would get peed on by dogs and one cow plop would really ruin your things for ya…”

Me: “hmmm….”

Husband: “Yeah, one wrong move and you could spend your entire life hanging out and growing in the middle of a cow pie…”

Me. “hmmm…yeah, I guess I didn’t think about that…

Husband: “Guess you didn’t…”

Me: “I think I want to be a plum-tree too…growing right underneath your branches…you know, so you can shield me from the poop….”

And all was right in our world again…

Wishing you a hazard free last-minute shopping experience…

and a partridge in a (poop-free) pear tree.

The ghosts of winters past

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I have continued my walking ritual even in this winter weather. It’s important for the sanity of a woman living out here surrounded by snow and horse poop.  Because I can get to feeling a bit stir crazy, a bit cramped in, tripping over my stuff a few too many times, scratching at the Christmas tree branches breathing down my neck and stepping on a couple of tails sending cats running for their lives and me cursing the day I uttered the words “kitten-good idea.”

The animals get to feeling the same way too, and even though they’re pretty good at sleeping, every once in a while the whole winter hibernation thing sends the cats scampering through the tiny living room, taking a flying leap to the chair, bouncing off of the couch only to land, dangling, off of the very top of my curtains.

I screech, scratch my neck and send  a few choice words their way.

The dogs whimper at the door.

And it’s time to get the heck out of here.

That was the case on Tuesday afternoon as I rose from my desk, stretched my arms out and hollered (in my head, I think) “I can’t take it anymore!” and began the ritual of bundling up.

Because oh, it has been cold here. Along with an uncommon amount of snow being dumped on the area early in the season, the wind has been blowing a bit harder, the temperatures have been below zero, and then, just to see if we are indeed on our toes, it warmed up enough to rain…only to return to its regularly scheduled programming in the morning.

So as you can imagine, as I stepped out the door and into the brisk evening, my winter wonderland was looking a bit crunchy, a bit crispy, a little less fluffy, a little more glossy. Beautiful.

So off I went, trudging in my snow pants and boots, crunching through the unreasonably deep snow, panting to get to the top of the hill, walking a few steps on the top of the hard drifts, only to be sucked down, in snow up to my knees when the ice broke under my weight.

The lab was in heaven, jumping on the hard stuff to bury his nose in the fluff underneath.

The pug thought it was the apocalypse and wondered why he even got up this morning.

The cats were probably hanging by their claws on the curtains inside.

But it felt good to be out in this. It was so quiet, so calm and white, the wind from the days before creating interesting drifts and shadows, the setting sun on the ice coating this world making everything sparkle warm pinks and blues. I spent the evening admiring my world, squatting down to get photos of the grass poking through the snow, shading my eyes as the sun sunk below the horizon, laughing as the dogs fell through the snow and then magically reappeared.

I was feeling lucky to be a spectator.

Because I chose to be out there, in the chill and crisp, under the setting sun. And when I walked through the door to my home, stripped off my layers of clothing and poured myself a cup of hot tea and went about my business, I could relax.  I could look out the window that night as the wind blew the snow sideways and tapped at our windows and not have to worry.

See, living out here on the ranch, a dot on this big, white, landscape, always gets me thinking about those who came before me–the men and women of this area who settled this land. These people leaned in against this season in order to hold on to their livelihoods, they watched the patterns of wildlife to predict the incoming weather, and, in the midst of a blinding blizzard, would tie a rope from the door of their shack to the barn so they could feed the horses and milk cows and not get lost on along the way.

When we complain about the snow and the ice because we have to get up out of our beds and start our car in our robes before we venture off to a heated building to earn a paycheck, I sometimes think about my relatives whose paychecks depended on rising each morning, rain, shine or blizzard, to feed the cattle, to break ice on the dams, to haul wood to heat their home, and to sometimes welcome a barnyard animal or two into their small home in order to keep it alive, or, in the places where trees for fuel were sparse, to help keep themselves warm.

I wonder, when I stand high above this white world, no sign of a neighbor’s light, what it might have been like for them out here deep in the heart of the landscape, fifteen to thirty miles from the general store and postoffice, their only link to the outside world, with no snow plows clearing a path for their escape, no plane tickets to purchase to send them somewhere tropical–only work, and faces chapped by the wind and an occasional card game by the fire at night to pass the time.

It must have been lonely for them and it must have been terrifying during those nights when the temperature dropped well below zero, the wind whipped through the cracks in their cabins and shacks, creating drifts of snow reaching high above their heads, making it nearly impossible to tend to their livestock, to get to the neighbors or to the store to stock up on supplies.

And I wonder on those eerie, cold, North Dakota nights how far away summer must have seemed. How desperate it must have felt out here, how helpless they were against the circumstances of the weather, how they just held on tight and did what they could.

I wonder if anyone went crazy with grief and desperation, loneliness and isolation. Because, life, like this landscape, was hard.

But really, I don’t think they stopped long enough to complain. I don’t think they wallowed in the hardship. They didn’t have time. They had to keep moving, they had to attend to the next thing, be prepared to weather the next storm. And yes, the storms were something, but I like to imagine that made the sunshine all the warmer, the evenings by the fire a little more cozy, the company of a neighbor a little sweeter.

My pops told me that when he shared the news with one of his aunts about how I was moving back to the ranch because I wanted to, because I loved it, she scoffed at the thought and wondered out loud why anyone would choose to live out here. So much work, she said. So much work.

Because that is what her life was, and although she picks at the struggles, I am pretty sure the good times, the picnics in the summer sun, are as fresh in her mind too. But it is because of her steadfastness and the hold on tight spirit of my great-great grandparents and their children and those who came after them that I am allowed the chance for a different life out here. A chance to stand on my favorite hill and see the world they called home and work through a different lens.

Oh, I see the work too. I see the reality of my plans, the fences that need to be fixed, the buildings that should be torn down, the roofs that need to be repaired–but that doesn’t have to consume me right now, in the middle of the winter.

Don’t get me wrong, the ranching and farming lifestyle our here exists in full force. We dig out hay bales to tend to the cattle in the winter, we break the ice the same way, we bundle up against the wind to feed the horses.  They coyotes still howl at night, the calves continue to be born in snowstorms and have to be warmed up in the basement. Some things don’t change.

But much has. Now we have big o’l tractors with heated cabs, 4-wheel drive pickups we can plug in to an outlet to be sure they start, warm outbuildings and shops to repair our modern equipment and the lucky ones have snowmobiles. The drive to town takes a half an hour if the plow’s gone through, we have computers that link us to the rest of the world and provide us with access to information, weather warnings and a chance to make money from the comfort of our homes if we so chose.

Because these days, we have a choice.

I wonder if the ghosts of winters past ever saw this coming. I wonder what they would think about the fact that if they were alive right now they might have the time to take a moment, like I do some days, to dig out from underneath the work and demands and stand with hands on hips, cold wind at their face, and instead of racing the sun, take a moment to watch it dip down and set below the horizon…

…and be captivated.

‘Tis the season-to give, to love, to hold on tight.

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My dear friend and cousin has recently revealed that she is using her blogging efforts to raise awareness and money for a different cause each day until Christmas. A very clever way to celebrate the 12 day  countdown to the holiday (well, now its 10). My cousin is nothing if she isn’t clever– so inspired by her company’s collective efforts raising money for a local charity that she wanted to pay it forward in her own way.

Because all of that giving for all of that need got cousin feeling so incredibly blessed to have a healthy, smart and fabulously blonde family who loves her, a job that pays her to do something she does well, and a house in the middle of the mid-west that provides her enough room to have members of her extended family play Guitar Hero and sleep in the basement for days on end and go reasonably unnoticed.

So she decided to take her company’s lead and use her talents to see if little ‘ol her could make a difference somehow, reaching out to her friends and family via the fabulous world wide web to spread the word about charities and causes that mean something to her.

And damned if, within the first two days, she hasn’t raised some money for these great causes…

Which got me thinking a few things:

1. I am related to a pretty amazing woman and I had good taste when I decided to look up to her. She was a really enticing role model in that twinkling Rodeo Queen sash, sparkly shirt and crown.

Here she is teaching me to read...she probably put me in that dazzling dress too.

2. This world is full of wonderfully generous and fantastically talented and giving people. And because of the little invention known as the internet, I get to know some of these people–even the ones I’m not related to–and you amaze me every day

(Insert super hot photo of you)

3. What if?

Because my life is not without its challenges, but it is pretty damn good. And because I have chosen to share details (mouse incidents, cow poop, bad outfits and all) over this thing my momma calls “the interweb,”  I have been lucky enough to be reminded by you (who I’m not even related to), that yes indeed, it’s a wonderful world. A wonderful, wide, beautiful world full of laughing, naughty and angelic children, Christmas trees of all shapes and sizes, stunning sunsets and families who really know love, wonderfully witty sarcasm that I truly appreciate and people who share in my passions and can relate to a life spent doing something you believe in.

And so we open our laptops and turn on our desktop computers and from our offices, coffee shops, living rooms, and bedrooms we learn each other’s names, marvel at backyards across the country and oceans, laugh at shared embarrassing moments, ooh and ahh over home decor and delicious recipes, listen to troubles and hear the call to give.

And thanks to all of this sharing, all of the feedback I have received, all of the warm wishes and good vibes, my eyes have opened up wider to the life I lead, enticing me to live it better, smile a bit wider, be more appreciative.

Because, yes indeed my backyard is breathtaking.

Yes sir the pug is cute (although he does resemble the Grinch, even without his Santa suit).

Yes ma’m my family reminds you of the Grizwalds, but that’s ok cause it makes for good material.

And yes indeed life is good.

So here comes that inevitable question that sneaks up on everyone in the middle of a life that’s going pretty well thank you very much.

“What if?”

What if it wasn’t.

What if the world gave me lemons and no sugar for lemonade?  What if I took a wrong turn down the road less traveled and it lead me to regrets and disappointments and mistakes that I could not take back–bad memories I could not shake.

What if my parents didn’t love me enough to dress me like this?

What if this was something I only found on postcards in gift shops I traveled through instead of what I see when I look out my window in the mid afternoon?

What if my family hadn’t sacrificed, struggled, pushed and loved enough to make this our home….

…opening the door for me to make it mine?

What if I didn’t have friends, ridiculous friend, who indulge my need to act like a five year old every once and a while, standing by with a giant rainbow umbrella in case it rains (or we get sprayed by the hose)?

What if he did not fall in love with me at age 14 and continue to hound me for my hand until I gave in…

…what if it didn’t become the best decision of my life?

And what if the best decision of my life didn’t happen upon an advertisement in a gas station and then promptly call the number to have this delivered to our door?

And what if I had nothing to make my face look like this while laughter comes booming out of my lungs?

Who would I be then?

Where would I be if all of the moments I found myself in, all of the decisions and heartbreak and happy times and kisses didn’t align to bring me to this point of planning and enjoying a life I’m not so sure I’ve done anything to deserve?

I don’t know. But more than likely I’d be fine…maybe vacuuming the floor in a suburb somewhere living with a man who wears a tie to work instead of a neckerchief (because I’m convinced if I lived in a suburb I would vacuum more), or in an apartment in a city with a couple goldfish, happy and content with the hustle and bustle , or on the road with my guitar…

…but maybe not.

See, that’s the thing about life that baffles me every day…there is no way to know what our lives would be if we broke a heart instead of made it ours forever, chose the east instead of the west, the job instead of the wedding, home instead of leaving, children instead of  travel, a pug instead of a goldfish…well, I take that back…I pretty much know  how that would turn out…it’s hard to get a goldfish to wear a Santa suit.

Anyway,  it doesn’t really matter does it? We could play that game all day, but it won’t get us anywhere. The only thing we can do in this world as living, breathing people, is to be grateful and take care of one another. To be kinder than necessary. To hug a little harder. Smile a little more. Reach out.

Because if the people you meet everyday are lucky enough to have a roof over their head, they go home each night to fight their own battles, live with their own regrets, miss someone so much it hurts, and  hold on tight to the things they love, even if they don’t make sense, just like you and me.

So thanks cousin. Thanks for reminding me this season, while I’m sitting under the enormous Christmas tree plucking glitter out of my hair, to breathe in this life I love and then give back to a world that has held me so close as a lucky one.

Because I don’t know what tomorrow will bring. No one does.

All we have is each other…

…and this very moment to be good. To do good.

And hold on tight.

Visit shantastic.blogspot.com to keep up on cousin’s charity suggestions and spread the word.

Or give, if you feel so inclined.

Thanks for reading and thanks for making my world a little wider, my days a little brighter.

The (old school) Christmas tree thing

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Christmas. We officially have 12 days until the big day (hmmm, that reminds me of a song…). And it’s beginning to look a lot like this much-anticipated holiday around here. I mean, we have snow. Lots and lots of sparkling snow, the lights are up, the wreath is on the door, and, much to the pug’s dismay, I scrounged up his Santa suit.

But really, you can’t wear a Santa suit, dog or human, without the Christmas tree. I mean, that would just be ridiculous. And out here at the ranch, hands down the best thing about Christmas has always been the Christmas tree.

Because the search for the perfect tree out in the wild pastures of western North Dakota is an event. It is a hunt. It is magic. It is anticipation and adventure and tradition in its purest form and everything that makes the season so damn delightful.

That’s right, we do the tree thing old school.

And by old school I mean bundling up in our snowsuits and neckerchiefs (and facemasks if it’s really cold out there) and scouting out the 3,000 acres of semi-rugged snow covered landscape for a cedar that looks like it might fit nicely in the corner of our little house covered in twinkling lights and sparkly balls and glitter and candy canes and presents and a cat climbing up the middle… well, hopefully that last part doesn’t happen.

And then, when the clouds open up and the light shines on that particularly spectacular tree the men of the land whip out their hand-saws and gently detach it from the earth and drag it home to live the remainder of its life on the receiving end of “oooo” and “ahhhh” while providing shelter to the perfectly wrapped presents placed beneath it.

Not a bad life for a tree. Probably beats being pooped on by birds….

Anyway, my family and the families who live out here as our neighbors and friends have been cutting Christmas trees off of their land as a tradition since the homesteading days. And that is the world I was transported to every time we went out with pops on a blustery, sunny December day to fetch ourselves the centerpiece of Christmas when we were young.

I found myself imagining how it used to be, hitching up a horse to a sleigh and venturing out into the hills on a mission to make a tiny, drafty, house standing strong against the season in the middle of a lonely winter farmstead feel a little warmer with the sweet smell of cedar–the land’s gift to those who had worked it all year.

I envisioned a family gathering around the tree standing humbly decorated in green and red singing the same carols we continue to sing to this day, opening their stockings, tasting the recipes that have been passed down, moving in close to one another under the branches, smiling in the glow of the season.

I imagine a simple, quiet holiday with the cattle in the yard and the snow falling softly outside and families giving thanks for the life that they lead….

So you see, the Christmas tree has never been just a tree to me. It has been a feeling. A process. A ritual. The best memory of the season.

And you can imagine I have quite a bit to say about the whole business of my Christmas tree, because last week, husband and I ventured out to find it…

…the same way I did when I was a kid.

A kid in my mini Carharts and Santa hat, with a little twinkle in my eye put there by the whole holiday spirit thing, stepping in my dad’s foot prints in the deep snow, hand shading my eyes, scoping out my world for a glimpse of the perfect tree—a tree that would bring Christmas to my house….and if I was lucky, Santa too.

I am not positive, but I think dad would have the tree located long before December and, in the snowy years, probably used the tractor to plow a trail right to its location. But my sisters and I were convinced we were essential company on this hunt and when we finally found it, we would exclaim over and over how beautiful, how perfectly shaped and proportioned, how lovely it would look in our house. And then–our favorite part–pops would cut us a couple branches that would sit in coffee cans in our rooms, decorated with our own set of colored lights and ornaments we had made ourselves.

Oh, I loved this. I loved having Christmas in my room. I would load that little branch up with so many lights, so much tinsel, an excess of reindeer shaped ornaments and snowflakes and popcorn and cranberry strands creating a Christmas explosion that caused that little tree to collapse under the weight of all that love and joy.

Yup, it would tip right over.

Every night—ka boom.

But I didn’t care, I just propped it back up, brushed off the glitter and climbed back in bed to admire the twinkling lights as I drifted off to sleep and marked another day off the calendar on my countdown to Christmas.

I know you all have been there. I know you can remember the feeling–that feeling when you found yourself as a child in the middle of winter in your bunny slippers, your heart full of wonder and joy and anticipation at the sight of the lights, the taste of peppermint on your lips, the smell of the cedar tree…

…oh how that smell transports me…

So here we are, husband and I, at the ranch for Christmas. And so it seems we made a little tradition, a little unspoken pact that as long as we were blessed enough to be here, we would celebrate the simple, time-honored things by venturing out and cutting ourselves a cedar.

But let me remind you here about the size of our house: it’s small. And we have a lot of furniture crammed in here. So I wasn’t sure we could manage a tree this year. And if we did, it would have to be pretty modest.

But apparently husband had a different idea entirely and as we headed out into the crisp, clear, December day, it became quiet evident that his eyes and his holiday heart were a bit bigger than the room we have in our house.

Because as we scanned the landscape in our snowsuits, eternally grateful for my brother-in-law’s generous donation of a snowmobile for this adventure, my suggestions and hand waves and hikes up to the reserved and unassuming trees I envisioned would fit nicely in our little home were met with the following statements:

“What, you want a Christmas branch?”

“A Charley Brown tree? We can’t have a Charley Brown tree.”

“Seriously, how small are you thinking?”

And my favorite:

“How is Santa going to know where to put the presents if he can’t find the damn tree?”

And so our search continued, up hills, around bends, scaring coyotes from the draws and the dogs, not to miss something this significant, huffing and puffing through the drifts behind us.


This one’s too big. This one’s too small. This one we’ll save for our next house. This one would look good in Rockefeller Center.

It started to get dark.

My cheeks were getting cold.

We split up, husband on the mobile, me on foot. Damn the machine, we had to do this the old way.

I followed my feet down a cliff and out into a clearing where a tree that looked the perfect size from half a mile away sure grew mighty fast as I crept up on it.

Husband took to the hills behind me, testing, I am thinking, his wild-man side on his new toy. And as I stood looking up in amazement at the giant cedar thinking we should turn in for the day and try a different pasture tomorrow, husband swept up behind me (not so quietly…not as peacefully as I had envisioned the whole process) and killed the engine.

“Oh, look over there…” he whispered behind me and I turned to find him pointing to the horizon where two big mule deer bucks were creeping along the top of the butte as the sun dipped below the landscape.

We sucked in the cold air as we watched those creatures, unconcerned by the entire spectacle of tree hunting and the snow monsters on two legs causing a stir below them. Our mouths hung open in awe, our breath creating misty puffs in the cold weather as the animals pawed and scraped at the frozen earth and then, finally found a proper place to bed down for the night…

I am not sure how long we stood in silence and watched the beasts hunkering down against the season, so quietly, so magnificently, but when we finally broke our gaze, we followed our eyes down from the butte and found they settled on a tree that looked like it just might work.

A tree that we just might have room for in our home.

Well, at least that’s what husband said to me and I agreed, caught up in the magic of it all.

So out came the saw and, just like that, the top of the spruce was detached from the land and tied to the back of the snowmobile, transforming it from a racing machine to a modern day sleigh.

Off we went, in the snow, into the sunset, me, my husband and my Christmas tree (oh, and the dogs… the shivery, snowy dogs in our wake.)

And when we approached the house with the cedar trailing behind, a bit of reality began to creep up on me. There was no way this magnificent tree was going to fit in that door. We were going to have to take out all of the furniture. We were going to have to build an extra room.

One of us was going to have to move out…

But husband was determined. Determined. And miraculously he got the tree into the entryway to thaw out, blocking us inside for a good day and a half.  And when I climbed out the window to get to work the next day, I came home to find that husband had indeed found a place for our Christmas tree.

A pretty perfect place really. I mean, I don’t actually need to get to my desk. And I don’t mind branches tickling my ears as I’m reading the paper on the couch.

I don’t mind at all.

So I spent a good two days decorating and humming Christmas carols to myself and falling asleep gazing at its twinkling lights and remembering that enchanting evening when it found us.

Our tree.

…and it hasn’t tipped over yet…

But if it does, I won’t mind, because I am eight again…

I am eight years old every time I walk in my door and the smell of cedar fills my lungs….

…I think husband knew that would happen…

And that, my friend, is the best thing about Christmas.

Hands down.