Another Christmas Recap

Christmas has already come and gone. Before long we will have to say goodbye to our weirdly balmy December too. We did have snow early on in the Christmas season, though, and here is proof:

Mom drives by this giant teddy twice a day. He also lights up at night. =)

Ugh, 2019's stretch of 3+ months of winter is practically staring us in the face. I wish we could hibernate like bears. Or fly south like geese. But no, we're stuck here, waiting for the lake effect snow machine to switch back on for the long haul. Because we all know it will. It's only a matter of time.

My sisters were actually disappointed when they woke up to a green Christmas. Disappointed, I tell you! I'll remind them of that come April when we're still getting dumped on. They don't actually have anything to complain about, because it snowed prettily for several hours on Christmas: fat, Christmasy, snow globe type snowflakes. The ground was just too thawed out for them to stick.

We all had a great Christmas, even though the ground was not white, and even though Mom didn't receive a single doll-related gift this year. That's not to say anyone suffered from a lack of gifts. They were absolutely crammed around the tree!

There were quite a few contenders for prettiest present, but this little silver beauty definitely ranks high:

Nala had fun popping everybody's packing pillows for them. She also received a couple of new toys, including this jumbo tennis ball:

So far she's not very interested in it, so it has a chance of staying nice for awhile, unlike normal-sized tennis balls. 

For the record, here is Mom's huge haul:

Yes, I know it looks more like gifts for an animal-obsessed 7-year-old than non-child Mom, but she is perfectly fine with that. XD I won't discuss everything in the photo, as that would take forever, but I will highlight a few. 

Mom got fun new cases for Milton (her laptop) and Twinkle (her Kindle): rainbow birds and Starry Night, respectively. She was really pleased because her old cases were literally falling apart. 

The mugs, which came in fancy matching boxes, feature woodland animals (left) and owls (right) wearing hats made from various nuts and flowers. They were instant hits.

Mom saw the original paintings of the 26 animals featured in the A-Z animal book during this year's ArtPrize - they were displayed in the window of a building downtown. Her favorite is the narwhal.  

Ricky the FurReal pup was a total surprise. Mom did not even know he existed. He hasn't been turned on yet because batteries were not included and are an uncommon size (typical, right?), but even stationary, he is really cute.

All the Spirit-themed horses were also total surprises. Mom had never even seen the Netflix show, but since Christmas she has made a point of changing that. (Halfway through season 1! Yay!)
The horses and riders are roughly the same scale as the horses she collects, Grand Champions and Breyer classics. The riders actually fit classic-sized horses better than most, which is great! (So often they are too big!)

Whew, that's all I have time for today. We do have big HI2 news too, but I will let one of my sisters tackle that. Stay tuned!