Little Beasties: White Christmas in Vermont!

I grew up watching White Christmas with my mom and singing "sisters" and dreaming about being stuck in deep Vermont snow. So it seemed fitting that for our first holiday without our family's Z and I would spend it off the grid in Vermont's Green Mountains. We had fresh snow each day, not as deep as we had hoped, but enough to pull our sled full of food and games for 2.5 miles to our rustic cabin. It was a beautiful, silent space to spend Solstice. At the top of a ridge, we absorbed the angled sunlight and enjoyed its play on the trees that surrounded us. We took four-hour snowshoe hikes to neighboring peaks, and never saw a another soul. We belted Christmas carols and I squeaked out some tunes on the recorder, but mostly we warmed by the wood stove and played cribbage with hot chocolate and melted candy canes! H and D, we talk about you two every time we get a winter vacation like our Alaskan adventure in 2008 (!), especially now that we keep a cribbage scorecard like you two (A= 9, Z=3)!

The sled really was full of food: ratatouille and fried polenta, tomato bisque and smoked grilled cheese sandwiches, kale pesto (thanks for the idea Chris!!) pasta and salmon, quinoa with an Asian sauce and sauteed bok choi, onion and peppers; biscuits, eggs, sausages, coffee, mochas, eggnog lattes (well, au lait), and popcorn...all made on the wood stove.

We missed our families and reminisced about our favorite Christmas memories, lit candles, hung three stockings by the stove to fill with little presents, and I made a wreath for the front door! It was a great trip.