Christmas Re-cap

This is Christmas in Alaska. When Erik and I got back from Hawaii we didn't have much time to go tree hunting. Here on base we can go to the Natural Resources office and pay them $7 and they give us a permit and a map of areas that where we can cut. So the Thursday before Christmas Erik came and picked me up at lunch and we went to find the perfect tree. Last year's tree was quite a bit lovelier than this year's but it's still so fun to trek out in the snow and pick a tall, skinny Alaskan tree. Here's Erik chopping it down.

This is Erik with our prize Christmas tree. Notice the cool Air Force issue Gore-Tex jacket he's got on.

This year I really felt like we needed to establish some Olsen Family Christmas Traditions. It's kind of hard to reenact the Nativity with only two people, so we invited two couples over to make gingerbread houses. Except that I don't like gingerbread. I don't think that anyone really does, especially given the choice between that and another kind of cookie. So we actually made sugar cookie houses. Sugar cookies are my all-time favorite kind of cookie. When I want something sweet, I don't want it hidden in some elaborate dessert, I want sugar. Sugar cookies with frosting and sprinkles. You know, sugar in it's purest form.

Building the gingerbread houses was really fun and I learned some valuable lessons for Christmases yet to come. As I'm sure you're aware, I'm a bit OCD and so I did a lot of research on building gingerbread houses prior to the big event. I downloaded a template to use for the house pieces and got a lot of cool ideas. My favorite ideas were the idea to use sugar cones as trees (very cute), and the BEST idea ever was to use white chocolate (the candy melt stuff at JoAnn's or Michael's in the cake decorating section) as glue instead of frosting. That idea was a gem. We melted the chocolate in the microwave in a plastic squeeze bottle also found in the cake decorating section. It dried fast and hard and enabled us to get on with the fun part, the decorating. Next time I'm going to make smaller houses so that everyone gets their own instead of bigger "couple" houses. Plus, that way I can use a dough that's softer because it won't have to stand as tall and hold lots of weight. This dough was from a Martha cookbook and I chose it because it was more of a butter cookie than a sugar cookie, therefore crispier and sturdier. But next time I'll use my favorite sugar cookie recipe, it's from a children's cookbook called "Kitchen for Kids." Kid's cookbooks are the best because the recipe's are simple, they don't have crazy ingredients like capers and sun-dried tomato infused olive oil, you know...stuff that nobody has in their kitchen. Plus I'm a picky eater, kids are picky eaters, it works out.

This is the happy couple with the finished masterpiece.

This is our beautiful nativity that Matt and Ann and Mom and Dad gave us for Christmas. We absolutely LOVE it. I think it's so lovely. I love the Willow Tree stuff. Mom gave me the figurine of the expectant mom when we were in SLC for girls' getaway, so she played the part of Mary until Christmas day when we swapped in the official Mary figurine. In the next picture you can see the pregnant lady figurine hiding behind the picture on the right. The GORGEOUS painting above the piano is what Erik gave me for our first anniversary. I don't know how he got so perfect, but perfect he is. This painting is by Minerva Teichert, one of my favorite artists, ever. And this is my favorite of her paintings. I remember wasting a lot of time at BYU admiring all the Teichert paintings in the JSB and then the prints at the MOA. Speaking of, the Museum of Art at BYU is one of my very favorite museums. It's incredibly beautiful and peaceful and inspiring. But I digress.

I just love our little home.