Christmas Chaos 2025

I love our Christmas traditions. As I get older, and after losing Bill, I tend to be more sentimental and grateful for the important people in my life. Let's face it, I'm sappy as shit anymore, and that's not the old GunDiva.

Christmas Eve used to be hosted at my Grandma Mary and Grandpa Moe's house - it was always just full-on entropy: loud, chaotic, and lovely. Grandma, Grandpa, aunts, uncles, parents, cousins, and the handful of adopted family crammed into their little house full of unconditional love. After both Grandma and Grandpa passed, my Uncle Russ started hosting. It's a bit more civilized, but that's only because the littles aren't so little anymore, with the exception of the Gremlin. The menu is pretty set, and we all contribute: potato enchiladas (Jay and me); tamales (Nebalee); beans, green chili, rice, tortillas (Uncle Russ and Aunt Marg); and assorted sides and desserts. It's my favorite meal of the year, hands down.

Many years ago, we started making our gifts to exchange, and it has become my favorite gift exchange as well, because everything is handmade with love. In the past, Jay and I have gifted food items, but most recently have been gifting crafts. This year's craft was one I learned from the Skill-A-Week program I subscribed to: homemade candles.

Jay and I made the candles, then he painted a small character on them.

Nebalee always gifts glasses of some sort, either shot glasses or margarita glasses. One year, she did brass glasses for Moscow Mules. They're always fun, and this year was no different.

Fancy glasses for the Chocolate martini she made, along with
homemade mint extract for everyone.

Dinner and drinks surrounded by people I love, and who I only get to see a couple of times a year, made my Christmas Eve special, as it does every year.

My beautiful aunt and uncle

Obligatory picture in front of the tree

Cheers!

Digger and the Gremlin wearing last year's shirts,
Digger's: The Legend, Gremlin's: The Legacy

After a few hours in the chaos, it felt good to go home and sit by the tree for just a few minutes. As much as I love and look forward to Christmas Eve every year, it drains this introvert's battery. Having a few quiet moments before jumping back into family-filled holiday fun is essential.

Christmas morning was breathtaking. No snow, in fact, it ended up being in the 60s, but it was still breathtaking.

We really do live in a postcard.

Jay and I always do our personal gift exchange first thing in the morning, sitting in bed, before the day starts. I have deep, deep love for the "good" ice, and that lovely hubby of mine got me my own "good" ice machine. I'd been dragging my feet on buying one, because our other ice machine was working just fine and I couldn't see spending the money for another one when ours was working. The beauty about gifts is that I don't have to feel guilty about replacing something :) 

Our old ice machine found a home with Ashinator and her hubby, so all is well. 

I didn't take a single picture the entire day, after taking pictures of my ice machine. I guess that means I was too busy having fun. We visited Jay's family, then Ashinator, and then headed up to the Lodge to spend time with Mom and sibs. By 8:00 o'clock, I was done for and headed up to bed, while everyone else hung out.

Normally, the Christmas festivities end Christmas night, but Nebalee bought all of us sibs and spouses entrance into Beat the Bomb in Denver, so on Friday night we ended up having a sibs' night, which was a blast! We split into two teams and competed against each other in different problem solving arcade-type games, in which we were a part of the arcade game. It's very difficult to explain, but so much freaking fun. 

Each team is competing for time to defuse the "bomb". Nebalee's team, The Shenanigators, beat our team, F-cawf. The better the team does at each game, the more time they have to diffuse the bomb. Of course, the bomb is rigged, so everyone gets doused in slime. It was very Nickelodeon, which made our Gen X hearts happy.

Cats in Hats

I mentioned, in my post on Wilsons' Wild Ones, that I'd gone a little crochet crazy, and made Christmas hats the cats, but I hadn't gotten around to getting pictures of them. I had grand visions of posing the cats in front of the tree, but settled for them just sitting nicely on a lap for their Christmas pictures.

Boomerang, 4 years old

Pongo, 7 years old

It's weird to only be a two-cat household, after being a three- (and, briefly a four-)cat household. The boys are spoiled rotten and loving having a lap for each of them, instead of having to take turns. We do miss the old lady, Gizmo, but she had a good, long life.

Baking Weekend 2025

This past weekend Two weekends ago was our annual Baking Weekend. Baking Weekend started as Baking Day twenty-five-ish years or so ago. It became quickly apparent that just a day wasn't going to work, and we expanded to Friday night for dough prepping, then baking all day Saturday. Then, that wasn't quite enough time to get everything done, and we expanded to baking on Sunday as well. Every year, it's a production, and I'm so thankful that Mom has the beautiful lodge and hosts our craziness.

This year, we had a little surprise! My Staci's daughter, S, joined us for the first time since she was a wee one. It's been 15 years and she's now in college! On top of that, my nieces and nephew decided to join us (usually one or two come up, but to have all three is a treat). AND ... the day before Baking Weekend, this little video popped up in my Facebook Memories:

The kids were so little! Now, they're (almost) all grown-ass humans, Asset being the exception, but she's a senior in high school. With all four of the not-so-littles at the lodge together for the first time in 15 years, we had a brief thought of re-enacting the video, but we were way too busy for that. Instead, we made them pose for pictures around the magic window cookies.

The pictures of the four of them were taken on Sunday, as we were wrapping up, so the pictures are out of order, but I'm just so excited and thrilled by this happiness, I had to share it right away.

After almost 30 years of doing baking weekend, you'd think we would have it all sorted out and we'd be a smooth, cookie baking machine, right? The truth is, we always get it done, but there's usually a lot of chaos involved. This year, however, we made a couple of changes that did turn us into a nice, smoothly running machine.

Annual group picture with my girls.

First, instead of piling ingredients onto the counter in the corner of the kitchen, we set up a six foot table outside the kitchen and piled everything there. That eased up congestion in the kitchen - we went out to the table to get the ingredients we needed for specific projects, then returned everything back to the table when we were finished.

A moment of brilliance that made everyone's life so much easier.

Several years ago, we started to prep the doughs that needed to chill on Friday night so that they'd be ready to go Saturday morning. For that, we are a well-oiled machine. We've had years of practice. We can crank out six batches of magic window cookie dough and a batch of gingerbread in less than an hour. Three of us got bowls, two of us measured out everything and dumped them into the bowls, and Mom supervised and washed bowls between batches. It works like a charm.

It's also the perfect time for us to catch up with each other before the real craziness starts Saturday morning. 

Mom keeps our tally board from year to year, and it's always fun to look back to see what we did the previous year. It looks like we were slacking a bit in 2023 with only 936 (78 dozen) cookies made. I'd have to look back at my memories to see why we did so few. 2024 was more of a normal year for us, with 1,420 (118.3 dozen) cookies made. That's pretty much our average, I think.

On Saturday, we usually jump right into our baking projects after breakfast, but this year, I suggested that we knock out the easiest projects first before moving into the more involved ones, and to leave the magic window cookies and gingerbread for later in the day when there were more hands to help. Nebalee's crew always comes in on Saturday afternoon and stays through Sunday.

Robs always comes up with fun projects, and this year she made peppermint Grinch cookies that were super easy and so very tasty.

These Grinch cookies were a hit!

We hit our groove pretty quickly and cookies started flying out of the kitchen. Not many action photos were taken, because we were having fun and cranking out the cookies. About noon, though, hunger for actual food, not cookie dough, kicked in and we paused long enough to munch on some real food.

The table filling up quickly.

After we recharged our batteries with lunch and a brief sit-down, we were back at it. We put S to work crushing the jolly ranchers for the magic window cookies. It was a lot easier for her this time than it was when she was just a four year-old and the mallet was as heavy as she was.

Nebalee and her boo showed up in the afternoon, followed by her kids, and their energy invigorated us. By the end of the day, we had quite a list of cookies completed, a full table, and we were dog tired.

Us, too, Reba. Us, too.

Saturday night's cookie-laden table.

Tally as of the end of day one.

Breakfast on Sunday was lively, with everyone there, which made my heart happy. As a raging introvert, it's not often that I jump into and relish chaos because it's absolutely exhausting in a family of extreme extroverts. However, a couple of times a year, my heart overflows with happiness at the chaos.

Sunday was primarily finishing up magic window cookies (the magnetic tally board stayed in the kitchen for easier tallying) and gingerbread. This year, our first batch of gingerbread refused to come together, so we whipped up another one and added water until the dough started looking and feeling "right", even though the recipe doesn't call for additional liquids.

Mid-morning, it was time to start packing up everyone's cookie bags/boxes/trays. I neglected to get a full table picture, but even after the packing up started, there were plenty on the table.

The table looked decimated, and we panic-baked a batch of Christmas M&M cookies that we'd forgotten to bake on Saturday. Once those hit the table, everything looked much better and we resumed packing up.

One of my jobs is the official tally nagger. We all love to know how much we baked each year, and I nag everyone to write their tallies down. This year, we had a record-breaking year! All cookies. Some years, we've counted any non-cookie items as well, such as fudge or chocolate-covered pretzels. This year's tally was strictly cookies.

Yes, that says 126 dozen!

There were a few left for Mom's cookie gift trays, and for her to put some magic window cookies up on the tree.

The biggest question we get every year is, "What do you do with all of those cookies?!"

We give them away. Every last one finds a home with friends/family/co-workers. Even with 126 dozen split between all of us, I realized that I forgot to make a box for a friend of ours, so Jay and I quick whipped up more Aztec and pumpkin spice cookies last night for today's deliver.

My Brain is Tired, Plus Pretty Pictures

Mid-October, I got a call from my boss. Our safety guy had been poached, I mean, borrowed, by another plant and would be out until at least the end of the year. Would I be interested in helping out here and there with the safety needs at our plant? My answer, was, of course, absolutely! I love, love my job in the lab, but we'd been fairly slow and I was starting to feel stagnant. Helping out in safety would engage my brain and keep me busy.

Holy cow, did my brain get engaged! I only had a few hours with our safety guy to go over things I needed to know to lead the weekly safety trainings and entering things into the corporate sites. When I say they poached, I mean, borrowed, him they did so very quickly. He learned he needed to be at the other plant, in another state the following Tuesday. I got the call asking for help on Thursday evening, which left Friday for me to get up to speed.

I've been exhausted since. Of course it wasn't just the two things I was tasked to do. After a couple of weeks, when I had gotten the hang of what I thought I'd be doing, a few more things got added on, and then the corporate people learned my name and next thing I know, about 75% of my day is safety and the rest in the lab. Thank goodness, my lab coworker can pick up my slack.

I learned last week that our safety guy is now going to be out of state until June, and he may choose not to return to our plant, which potentially leaves his position open. It's become pretty clear that I'm being groomed for his position, and for the most part, I'm game. The hardest part for me, if I took over his position, is that I'd have to leave the lab. I love the lab. I've poured my heart and soul into getting it running smoothly and efficiently. The thought of leaving the lab hurts my heart, even though I'd be given a chance to grow. 

It's a quandary.

On top of learning all I can about the safety side of things (and there is soooooooo much), I'm working on a book project. What little brain power I have left at the end of the week is spent sitting in front of my computer on Saturday morning trying to break down complex concepts into easy-to-digest coherent sentences. It's slow going. I'd like to complete a chapter a month, and have the book to the publisher by July. NaNoWriMo this ain't. Besides not having the dedicated time to sit and write for hours, like I did during NaNo, my 'spoons' are lacking by the time I get home at night.

It's no wonder, then, that in the evenings I'm doing low-brain activities. I've crocheted hats for the cats, yes I did, and am working on a few little amigurumi as gifts for the girls for this upcoming baking weekend. I'd better get a move on the last one! I only have tonight and tomorrow night to complete it.

Growing up, I was not a kid who played dress up. At all. I thought it was silly. But now, in my Feral Fifties, I'm having a great time dressing up the horses, the cats, and the outbuildings. I managed to get the Christmas decorations up for Whimsy and Maggie the day before the weather turned to crap.

The Magical Potting Shed (Maggie) in her Christmas clothes.

The Whimsical Treehouse (Whimsy)
with her Christmas colors on.

As I was standing on the stepladder, trying to get everything hung, I was feeling so grateful for my aerial classes, which have given me the confidence and strength to do things like this. (I was even more thankful for my aerial classes as the Bionic Cowgirl and I were building Whimsy! There was a lot of climbing, balancing, and strength required that came directly from my circus classes.)

The day after getting the decorations up, I woke up to hoar frost coating everything. I absolutely love looking at hoar frost, but don't love that in order for it to show up, humidity and cold are required.

Thanks to a tip from my tattoo artist, I was able to get a good close-up of the frost. She takes pictures of all of her tattoo work, and told me last time she uses the 2x setting on her phone's camera for better detail. I am by no means a photographer, but when I wanted to take a picture of the frost coating the red bulb, I remembered her telling me that and gave it a try. I love the results.

It didn't look like much from the
outside, but inside looking out
was gorgeous.

Two days after the hoar frost, the snow came. I have to leave for work before the sun comes up, and with these stupid shorter days, it's dark when I get home, so I asked L.E. to take 'first snow' pictures for me.

Though the outsides were decorated, I hadn't completed decorating the insides yet. There's not a ton that goes in each, just a small Christmas tree and a few decorations. Whimsy's decorations haven't changed much from last year: a tree, stockings for her and Maggie, and this year's addition, a chicken ornament for Mary Kathryn, Queen of the Retirement Home.

I'd hoped the lights would show
up better in the dark, but this is 
what I ended up with.

Maggie got no Christmas love last year, so all of her decorations, inside and out, are new. Since Maggie is named after Dame Maggie Smith, of Hogwarts fame, I tried to lean into the Harry Potter theme with floating candles. Jay helped me hang them, and I enjoyed turning them on with my remote-control wand.

She looks so warm and cozy from the outside.

The floating candles make me smile.

From the inside, looking out.

Eventually, Maggie's walls will be insulated and finished. I had the entire north wall insulated, but hadn't gotten around to hanging the OSB on that wall and the upper insulation blew down. I've hired Autobot and her boyfriend to do the finish work for me later this month. Right now, Maggie has become a catch-all, and I need to be able to hang shelves and organize her. She's also supposed to be our "guest house", so I need to get her warm and sealed up.

Baking Weekend is just two days away, so I hope to have some lovely updates from that to write about, and I'm hoping that my full brain will start to adjust to the new job so I have the energy to continue to blog.