Silent Night

I am sitting in a very quiet house tonight. The kids both left this afternoon and have arrived safely back in Dallas for the night. They depart the U.S. tomorrow for an 11-day trip together to Spain and Portugal (more on that later). Barry worked a 1/2 day this afternoon at the office and is playing basketball tonight at the rec. center. And Bella is laying around like she has lost her best friends, since she can't seem to find Derek & Ashley anywhere...and believe me, she keeps looking!

The unsolicited peace and quiet gave me time to reflect on our first Christmas in Jackson Hole. This was probably the most relaxing and beautiful Christmas that we have ever had (although we did REALLY miss the noise, commotion, and excitement of the family all being together). It was also our first Christmas in a long time where we were not with my entire family to celebrate together (thank you Barry for being so good and letting us enjoy this holiday together for so many years) - it was a big adjustment for me and I will admit that I shed a few tears through the week. Needless to say we started some new traditions, kept many of our old traditions and of course missed being with all the grandparents, aunts/uncles and cousins as well as our friends from KC to celebrate our long-standing Christmas traditions. Hopefully we will not have many more Christmas holidays apart.

We waited until Ashley got in town to trim the Christmas Tree. Derek used some of the "skills" that he learned in our Holiday Mixology class (more on that in another blog) to make us some spirited hot chocolate for our evening of tree trimming!

Oh Christmas Tree!

Bella doing a celebration dance since the tree is decorated!

Our first new tradition was to ski together for the holidays - and we live in the perfect place for that tradition addition! We enjoyed two beautiful days of skiing together on the 23rd and Christmas Eve.   

A picture-perfect day of groomed runs!




A Happy Ski Family atop the Gondola



Ashley & I at the top of the tram (would like to say to ski, but it is all
expert terrain up there...we came for the hot chocolate! Took tram back down too).

  

A beautiful sunset on the Tetons
as we drove home from the village.

Bella was happy to get Derek & Ashley
home from their day of skiing!

We thought that a Christmas Eve dinner of take out Chinese food would be an easy new tradition - we just need to find a better Chinese restaurant before next year! To stick with the theme we thought it appropriate to celebrate the evening with Sake Bombs...sake, sake, sake BOMB (ask Derek & Barry about nearly breaking their hands pounding on the granite counter top)!

Just BEFORE they almost broke their hands!

OK, we admit it - we just posed for the picture!!

 

Merry Christmas Eve! On our way out to candlelight service at
The Presbyterian Church of Jackson Hole

Twas the night before Christmas and
they all had on their matching pajamas!

We got up on Christmas morning and enjoyed our traditional Danish breakfast of ebelsquiver, before the guys headed out to the village to ski. Unfortunately Ashley had twisted her ankle at school the week before she arrived home (the story is she was heading to the gym and twisted it on the stairs in her dorm trying to avert a spill on the steps - who knows if there is a different story that we will learn about in the coming years). Anyways, after two days of skiing, her ankle had enough, so her and I opted out of skiing on Christmas day and enjoyed a scenic walk on the levee with Bella (who thought that this was the perfect Christmas gift) while the guys skied.

 When we got home from skiing we had our neighbors down for some Christmas cheer, then we finally got around to opening our presents. A BIG change in tradition, especially from the days of the patter of little feet running down the hall to wake us up to check if Santa had arrived, before the sun even came up! Yes, Santa did find us in Jackson Hole and left plenty of good stuff - everyone was definitely on the "Good List" this year!

Christmas was very nontraditional, yet very fun! We sat down to enjoy our Christmas "feast" of filet mignon and lobster at 9:00pm...more new traditions! We all agreed that doing things differently this year made the holiday really fun.

Sorry if this blog got a bit boring....I know that the Nelsons in their pj's is not newsworthy to all, but felt it necessary to update the family on how we survived our Christmas without them! From our new home in Jackson Hole to yours - hope that you had a Merry and Bright Christmas!