So Much Snow

As is to be expected now that we're in the heart of winter in a peninsula shaped like a mitten, we've plunged into what the meteorologists say will be a long stretch of cold, snowy weather. Lily and I are enjoying its pristine beauty, while Felicity and Julie are well over it and already dreaming of spring.

Star Stable's sleigh to the winter village disappeared with the last update, along with all the holiday decorations. I'm thinking SSO's creators must be more in line with Felicity's and Julie's way of thinking than mine and Lily's, because we're only getting two more weeks with the toggle-able virtual snow before it leaves for the season too.

Here is a fond look back at our snowy January adventures so far: both in the Winter Village and wandering around Jorvik.

playing with some frisky wild foxes

enjoying the Northern Lights with Raven and our new Gnemo the gnome pet

Usually the sheep follow us single file, but on this turn, each made its own snow trail.

So cute!

Clara and Ash leading the gingerbread gnomes back to base. To our relief, they kept up with a galloping horse without issue this year. It was so annoying how they'd blip back to their original positions whenever we started going "too fast" last year!

Sandman doing his level up sparkle with an especially dramatic backdrop. He progressed through his training quickly thanks to all the Winter Village activities, but he hadn't quite made it to level 15 yet by the end.

Sandman taking a little rest among a trio of wild Eariks.

The final gift we received under the yule tree. You'd never guess what is was from that huge box.

Rather anticlimactically, it was... a pair of earrings. They're cute enough, but until earrings can be worn at the same time as glasses, Clara's not likely to wear them. (We've gotten so used to her with her with glasses that she doesn't look right to us without them now.)

...that one time Sandman's lower legs got stuck underground after sliding down the big slide.

We did eventually free him without having to re-log.

We had the snow toggled off here for the championship, but I wanted to include this one to show how nice the Brownie Bear tack set looks on Sandman. The brown saddle pads may see more daylight than we originally thought.

Doing some sky and stargazing with our penguin Pebble

For efficiency, we'd sometimes still have the gingerbread followers following us during other village tasks. They really got into fishing.

We'd also sometimes take the touring gnomes on longer tours than they'd bargained for. Here they are experiencing my favorite festival-exclusive race, the one on the frozen river with the sliding penguins.

The best part for me was the little celebration song at the end of the race. <3

The gnomes coming along while we searched for other gnomes in Moorland. It could be tricky to find these guys in deep snow!

The holiday decoration I was most sad to see go: the gnome statue in River/Sandman's water bucket.

Our final magical race through the Winter Village for the season

Saying a fond farewell to the musical penguins...

...and the Winter Village deer

Until next year! <3

Sandman still had his last two experience levels to go after we lost access to the Winter Village. He got to see a lot more of Jorvik, including his look alike at Steve's Farm

Sandman's final sparkle this weekend. 

We're back to a stable (and pasture) full of fully-trained equines again!

The big news with the latest update was the addition of an updated Connemara Pony! We caught our first glimpse of them at the Moorland championship - see the fleabitten gray in the screenshot below.

Naturally, after the championship, we had to go take an up-close look for ourselves.

Like the old generation 3 Connemaras, they're on the larger side for ponies, which we love! The old Connemara has been renamed the "Jorvik Connemara" and is still available for purchase, similar to what happened with the Friesian and Andalusian.

We think they are a great improvement over the previous iteration of the Connemara - so much more lifelike in motion! Here's a quick look at the different colors and animations

dapple gray

buckskin... or is it a rose gray? Not sure yet.

palomino

bay roan

sooty buckskin

chestnut

fleabitten gray

This buck is noteworthy in that the rider loses her seat and stirrups and ends up on the base of the pony's neck, then scootches back to the correct position. It's somewhat cute, since the rider doesn't bite it and seems amused, not scared, but I personally wish SSO had done this with a breed other than the Connemara. While I'm sure there are some bucky Connemaras out there, I like to think of that more being a cheeky little pony thing, with Shetlands, little Welshies, etc. From what I've read, the Connemara is generally more gentle and good natured.

Oh well, bucking aside, they're quite nice. We'll gladly add one to the herd someday, once they make it into a bazaar.

I will leave you with a screenshot of our much more chill Sandman doing his special animation while waiting for a championship to start today. He and Clara were the only entrants, giving him an easy gold ribbon. Yay! Stay warm and safe, everybody!

Holiday Recap

Happy New Year! Here was Clara on her last ride of 2025...

...and her first ride of 2026!

We've thoroughly enjoyed the holiday season, and we hope anybody reading this has too. Thanks to a combination of holiday days and PTO, Mom will have technically had a full 2 weeks off by the time Monday, Jan. 5 rolls around. I say "technically" because she's still been spending a few hours working in her home office here and there, but it's way closer to being on a proper vacation than she usually gets.

As Felicity promised, the rest of this post is going to be a fond recap of Christmas and its surrounding activities. So, let's start by rewinding the clock to Christmas Eve. Clara's horse of the day was - appropriately - Eveningecho. (This was not planned, just worked out that way in the rotation!) We spent way longer online than we intended because a SSO friend wanted to hang out. Not sure she'll ask again, as I was playing and am not exactly a riveting conversationalist, but she did help us get to a star we've been riding past every day on the mountain in Winter Village but could never quite reach. As it turns out, there's this magical faint path of sparkles that appears and bridges the chasm to the ledge where the star is.

It took a few unsuccessful tries/plummets into the chasm, but eventually they made it!

Here's the view from the ledge. That's our friend on her Tombhoof across the way. =)

Our gift under the yule tree on Christmas Eve was "Pebble!"

To our delight, Pebble is a little penguin pet wearing a dark red sweater!

We are way more excited about Pebble than the other free saddlebag "pets" from the Winter Festival, none of which are really pets.

"Jolly Baked Goods," an assortment of non-living holiday treats:

Bruce plushie wearing a Santa hat (we did not unlock him until after Christmas, sadly):

Gnemo the gnome:

I think perhaps SSO is trying to appeal to everybody, including those who don't like live pets popping out of the saddlebag randomly and those who want something less orthodox (emo gnome). We'd have rather had another fox, or an owl, terrier, cat, or bunny. But that's just us. This makes Pebble even more special this year.

Here are Clara and Carrotcake on Christmas morning! 

They started the morning off by running the long penguin race down the frozen Silversong river.

Then it was off to the Winter Village for all of the festive daily activities.

The gift under the yule tree on Christmas day was a redeem code for 100 star coins, the amount of a weekly allowance. Nice!

taking a moment to commune with the magical Katur before heading back to Jorvik

That was it for our Christmas Day adventures on SSO. The human contingent of the family stayed home all day for the first time since 2020 due to illness in the extended family. That meant no having the house to ourselves all afternoon, but we found plenty to do in Mom's room, ha ha.

Speaking of Mom's bedroom, here was the view out Mom's bedroom window on Christmas morning. As you can see, it was not a white one, unless you want to count the sparse patches of slushy snow and the dirty snow piles. We were brimming with Christmas decor indoors, at least.

The super cute photo on Mom's page-a-day calendar:

Us in our wintery pjs cuddling with our pets:

The tree and its sea of gifts:

Prettiest present award winner:

Mom's generous haul of gifts:

I'm most excited for Mom to sew together the little woodland animals. They'll probably be a great size for us. We're also looking forward to watching those DVDs, turning the pages of the page-a-day dog calendar, and (for Bethany and me, anyway) reading the Maisie Dobbs books. =)

Christmas came and went as quickly as ever. We didn't complete our Star Stable's Champion Ranks before the big day, which had been Felicity's unofficial goal. Considering we still got it done with 17 days to spare, I don't think we have anything to be ashamed of. 

These are great, but none of them have come out nearly as much as the Christmas tree or the snowman with a chainsaw from last year. XD

In addition to the icy river penguin race we already mentioned...

...week 3 of the Winter Festival brought us a stargazing activity...

...and a "bring back the wandering magical horse" activity.

Both are worthy additions, though I wouldn't have minded having to bring back multiple wandering horses instead of just one, or searching multiple areas. This one is quite quick and easy. :^)

fun sidenote: an Opalowl look-alike lives in Winter Village this year

To our excitement, the bazaar rolled back around for week 3 of the festival as well. The featured horses were all cuddly draft breeds!

From left to right, we have the Percheron, the Ardennes, the Noriker, and the North Swedish Horse. 

What an appropriate assortment!

We've passed on the Percheron in previous bazaars due to its very defined musculature and clumpy mane and tail. They - like many other breeds - have grown on us over time, though, and they were also recently retrofitted so that they can wear the newer tack.

The perpetually cuddly and sleepy Ardennes. We passed on this breed in the past because of how much time they spend snoozing while idle. That's really the only downside: their coats are great, and they have the more fluid, realistic animations of the newer generation 3 horse breeds.

The lovely Noriker. We all love these guys, but none more than Felicity. This is the breed's first time in the bazaar, though, so the discount isn't as good as it is on the other three.

If we didn't already have our Arcticair, a magical horse based on the North Swedish, in our herd, we'd likely have found one of these irresistible.

The Ardennes won out. As much as we love the Noriker, we're going to hold out for them to make a second bazaar appearance and hopefully be even more discounted. While in Valedale anyway to do the race on the frozen river, we made multiple detours to admire the various Ardennes color options up close.

flaxen strawberry roan and flaxen chestnut

mealy bay and bay roan

blue roan and silver dapple

seal brown and dapple gray

We love the dramatic dapple gray, but there's an NPC one that stands right outside Moorland Stables that we see every day already. We love the mealy bay and the darker roans too, but in the end, it was the flaxen strawberry roan who won out. On the final day of the bazaar, we rode out to the bazaar area to take home our last horse of 2025.

Meet Sandman!

Oof. Not one of our most endearing girl-meets-horse screenshots. XD

At least horses bought while snow is present actually get snow in the background this year.

Here he is in all his chunky glory!

What magical lighting for their first ride!

He looks great in tack too:

...and now he is in our stable settling in and chilling. We have five more horses that still are waiting on their turn to see the Winter Village, and then it will be his time to shine. <3 

Whew, congratulations on making it to the end of this lengthy post! We'll probably be making at least one more (less lengthy) post before the end of Star Stable's winter... and somewhere around five more posts before Michigan's winter weather is over. But let's look on the bright side: at least the days are getting longer! Until next time!