Being Butenhoff: Holiday fun!

Seems like there are just too many fun things to do in December... and just not enough time to pack it all in!

We always get our tree up right away... Snowman Day... the day the snowmen take over the house!

The kids always get their special ornament on Snowman Day... this year's ornaments were Snow White & Darth Vader (what they were for Halloween)...

& we always have a special meal with a special dessert too!

We get around to doing some baking & decorating too... this year we got Mike in on the cookie decorating.

The kids are turning into pretty good decorators now... Mike didn't do too bad either!

Cookies, advent calendars, Christmas music, decorations... all under control... but we must not forget our visit to see Santa! For the past 5 years, we've seen the same Santa with our friends Brenda, Lauren & Alexandra.

Our Santa resides at the Mall of America & is amazing...

It is going to be a white Christmas... surprisingly, not something that is guaranteed in MN. Better chance than where I grew up in NM but still not 100%. We had a big storm come through about a week ago & dumped about 5 inches on us but the farm got 16+, so we were anxious to head down our first free weekend to play in the snow!

We did a few warmup runs down by the barn before heading back into the valley & some larger hills. Melanie & I strapped on our snowshoes... we played in the snow, built snow forts & sledded... but our camera battery died, so there is nothing more to show for it all this time around!

Later Mike & I did some snowshoeing up & down some hills around the farm... something we've never managed to do before either due to lack of snow or temperatures that were far too cold for it.

Finally, we took in some caroling via horse drawn wagon in Minnesota City... a 2-horse open wagon, to be exact... not quite a 1-horse open sleigh but it'll do & it was fun!

I'd say we're almost ready for Christmas... house is decorated, cookies are baked, cards are done (finally), it's snowed, we've taken in festive activities including the Holidazzle parade downtown & the downtown Macy's 8th floor display of "A Day in the Life of an Elf"...