a peek inside the fishbowl

How was your Christmas? I have to say, ours has been pretty low key, but I don’t mind.

In past years we’ve gone to Tremblant and Chateau Montebello. This year, the eldest came home from school and we stayed closer to home. As much as I like to travel over the holidays, it’s also very nice to be able to turn my brain off and recharge the old batteries.

For Christmas Eve I cooked up a cheese fondue (using this recipe!) and we stuffed ourselves silly.

Christmas Day with teenagers is pretty chill. First, you get to sleep in. Christmas with teens is also quieter, with fewer gifts. (We do the a variation of the four gift idea.) THEN, we (er, mostly Mark) spent the next 18 hours trying to figure out how to set up our various iDevices. Sigh.

We spent the rest of the day at my inlaws, where we ate MORE food and unwrapped more gifts. Dinner was turkey and all the fixins. I baked a cake, which turned out pretty darn good (although it doesn’t look nearly as pretty as the photo that goes with the original recipe):

(I am grateful that we left off that third tier. This was a LOT of cake. We had CAKE FOR DAYS.)

We booked our tickets to see the new Star Wars, so I’m looking forward to that. And if you’re looking for something to do over the holidays with older kids, might I suggest trying out an escape room? We did the new one at Jigsaw Escape Rooms called The Castle. The premise is very cool. You’re knights trapped in a medieval castle and you need to find a weapon and escape the castle to save the kingdom from a terrible enemy. We had a great time trying to solve the puzzles but we didn’t escape in time. Oh well. We’ll get it next time!

We also went to the Magic of Lights as a family last week (second time seeing it for Mark and I). We also had some lovely visits with friends and family. Also, holiday time is puzzle time too.

Next week we are aiming to:

• Check out the new LIVE butterfly exhibition at the Canadian Museum of Nature.
• Hit up the skating rink on Parliament Hill.
• Take a spin on the SJAM Winter Trail, cold snap be damned!
• The eldest said she wanted to see the renovated Science and Tech museum too.

What have you been up to this week?

Minimal carbs, lots of fat, incredible dieting results – but not enough science /via @globeandmail https://t.co/PJStKj7GPH

— Tanya Arcand (@ArcandTanya) December 23, 2017

• Bussed out: How America moves its homeless, theguardian.com
• The nightmarish darkness of It’s a Wonderful Life, thenewbev.com
• Santa in Finland, Where Marketing Triumphs Over Geography, nytimes.com
• Have You Ever Wondered How Snow Is Made In Films?, youtube.com
• A Christmas without Stuart McLean, theglobeandmail.com
• What’s Paw Patrol’s secret? How it captivated children and conquered the world, theglobeandmail.com

On the nightstand: A Walk in the Woods: Rediscovering America on the Appalachian Trail, by Bill Bryson

Piper turned eight this week and I felt like we had to mark the occasion with something special so I invited two human friends and their dogs over to our house for a wee puppy party.

Yes, I did!

It was a team effort. The youngest contributed small party hats she bought at the Village Quire here in Westboro. The eldest, who I picked up from Kingston on Tuesday and is home for the holidays (!), helped keep the peace.

It was a lot of fun. First: I made dog-friendly hors-d’oeuvres of sliced turkey and cheese cubes (although the people were welcome to eat them too).

Piper was ready to dig in at the get-go. I suspect she didn’t really want to share but I told her she had to:

For the people, I prepared some fancy cheese, grapes (grapes are NOT good for dogs, by the way), chips and salsa, and avocado toasts.

Someone was QUITE eager for the party to get started. Clearly, the guests could not arrive soon enough:

Finally, our two doggy friends arrived (with their respective humans). It was pretty wild at first, to say the least. I will say this… it is impossible to put tiny paper hats on three dogs and expect them to keep still long for a photo:

This was the best I could do:

There were a few, er, incidents. Here’s a good tip! When serving cheese cubes on toothpicks, make sure the dog doesn’t decide to unleash her inner wolf, lunge at a cheese cube, and try to eat it with the toothpick still embedded in it. Sigh.

There was a lot of bum sniffing, some chasing, and lots of tail wagging. All of the bones, rawhides, and pig ears in Piper’s bin got a good chewing during the party, which I was happy about. I mean let’s face it, one of the best things about parties is checking out other people’s stuff, amirite? I suspect that one of the bones is buried in the snow somewhere. And SOMEONE tried to bury one in our couch and even left one upstairs. I won’t name names but clearly, she had a good time:

Speaking of which, I think I have two dozen blurry photos of this gal, who jumped up and down in front of me while I tried to get the perfect shot:

And then there were PRESENTS. It was also very exciting, and not just for the birthday girl:

The whole thing reminded me of the birthday parties we used to host when the kids were really small: shepherding young attendees around and making sure no one hurt themselves (or another party goer!) and that there are enough snacks to go around.

Piper’s eighth birthday was a good excuse to get in a bit of pre-Christmas socializing for the humans too. I really should make more of an effort to do this in the new year. Everyone seemed to have a good time. The dogs were ESPECIALLY keen when I had cheese in my hand… no toothpick this time:

Cheese is the secret to friendship obviously.

The sad part is that we made loot bags for our doggy guests and forgot to give them out at the end. Oh well. That just means that I’ll have to take Piper for a walk and drop them off. :)