Santa Encounter

I'm sure you are all on the edge of your seat, just wondering how I did in the gingerbread competition.... So I'll put you out of your misery. In a repeat performance of last year, I placed second. Unlike last year, when we entered the "Family" category, this year I flew solo and therefore entered the "Adult/Teen" category.

Not to be a spoilsport or anything (okay, probably a little...), but I kind of thought there were several entries in the Adult/Teen category which deserved 1st place more than the one which got it. But what do I know?

We had Breakfast with Santa this morning which included some tasty pancakes and scrumptious sausage. As I nibbled my sausage links, I was hoping, for Rudolph's sake, that they weren't reindeer sausage. Turns out, they weren't. Phew. But for the record, reindeer (aka caribou) sausage is pretty good, and very popular in these parts.

Alicia got to sit on Santa's lap and have her picture taken. Then he gave her a candy cane, which she promptly consumed after a brisk Thank you, Santa! She likes Santa. :o)

I recently discovered that it's possible to cut down a black or white spruce on certain parcels of State Land for free, if you so choose. So tomorrow, after church, we're going to drive up to the Matanuska Valley Moose Range and scope out the situation. If we find a suitable Christmas specimen, we'll use a live (well, recently live) tree instead of our lovely fake tree this year.