Since we decided to stay in Bellingham this Christmas, we joined a few of the others who also decided to stay.  I made sure to call my parents before heading out to Blackberry Acres; about a 45 minute drive into the county.  Adam and Lenore have made this 60 acre parcel of forest their home for the last several years, and this year the festivities were out there - with the 3 feet of snow.  It was a bit ironic leaving the nicely plowed streets and manageable rained on snow for the county roads where driveways have to be cleared with excavators, but fortunately we were left unscathed after the adventure.

We didnt know how the roads would be; more specifically their driveway, so we made plans to caravan with Nate , Christina and Rich.  Then they would join us in the truck with their dog and our 2 dogs for the trip up the drive.  Rich and Nate decided this was a good plan and volunteered to hop in the back of the truck with Lucy and Inari.  They were certainly a sight to behold back there.

Lenore is recovering from an ACL surgery on the 23rd, so she was grateful to have everyone come to her house for the celebration.  She was in great spirits and didn't complain even once about her newly splinted leg.  Enid, Adam's sister finished up some beaded earrings as a gift for a friend as Rich worked on every crossword puzzle he could find in the house.  We exchanged final gifts with our Secret Santa that Nate organized.  Rich got a box full of WECU pens from Sean, which apparently are the "best pens ever".  I got a handmade necklace - along wiht my 12 days of christmas mini-gifts (dove chocolates, pixi stix, green tea, marshmallows, etc.) from Lenore.  We gave Enid a new knife sharpener and some honey, and I gave out a few of the cards of my paintings.  

Everyone brought something to share, including Miguel's Beet and Whipped Yams, Christina's vegetarian lasagna, Adam's Smoked Duck (freshly hunted with Miguel) and ribs, scalloped potatoes and tomato soup. Rich who hates Yams and Adam who hates Beets and Yams convinced us that they liked the Beet and Yam dish, whereas Nate firmly did not like it at all.  Overall the meal went over well and there were minimal awkward silences accompanied by a lot of laughs.

The culminating and climax of the night, however, was the game of Celebrity that we all played.  Even Adam's neighbor, an elder man that got snowed in for the holiday, took part in this goofy game of sharade-like maneuvers.  With about 90 names of famous people in a hat, we described each of them to our teams in hopes of getting more correct answers than the other team.  We worked on old stars like Johnny Cash and Burt Reynolds, Galeleio, Shel Silverstien, Belinda Carlile, Alf and even Miguel's favorite crew of national leaders: Slobodan Malosevich and Benazir Bhutto.  In the first round, you can use as many words as necessary.  In the second round, only one word, and in the third round, only gestures.  I'm proud to have come away for the night with the award for the worst all-time clue of "dog" to represent Paris Hilton (which made sense if my team would have been listening to the person that described her as "having a little dog", but nobody remembered apparently).   

We all piled back in the truck about 11pm and safely made it back home.  A Merry Christmas for sure.