CHRISTMAS EVE 2008

There was a time... when The Wife (as Chris loves to call me) decided to go snow-shoeing to "hunt" our Christmas Tree. And Chris has to go with... So, after a hard day of snow-mobiling (yep, check the Dec.17th post), we went to get our tree in sheen deep snow, climbing big mountains, crossing "almost" frozen creeks, daring night animals and... yes! We found it! The perfect one.

Our little but super-duper cute tree!

I guess... with the slow economy, we didn't want to over do it either, or probably we were just very tired and didn't want to haul (again) a big tree back home. Every year we're swearing we won't get a big one, but every time, when we bring it home... it barely fits in our apartment. Chris warns me every single year but still... I can't tell when one is small enough, when it's out in the woods. There it looks so small!!! I'm still not used to the fact that... everything is big in America! :}

So, this is when everything started in my Scatter-Brained-Tsunamy's mind (also Chris' words). It's been years that I wanted a "home-made" tree, so Janina and me got together and made a sweet Christmas tree. We used cookies instead of baloons and marshmallows instead of strings.

The result really IS a Sweet Tree!!!

Janina and me with our Art! :>

And on that same snow-shoe day with Chris, my idea of organizing this year Christmas Eve's Party with a group of friends really realized in my mind. Me and my group of "Silly Aliens" friends like me, have already been talking to have a party all together to get rid of the home-sickness, that gets on all of us during this time of the year. But wasn't sure what & how to do that. The snow-shoeing with my husband helped me out to make something fun of this evening... otherwise... I knew there would be tears coming down on our faces. :(
It ended up that we had quite a few people in our little apartment (still can't believe how many we can fit in here!). And every and each of us had a big smile on her/his face. :>

Iva, Chris, Eze, Caro, Skip, Andrea, Wink,
Tom & Guillermo...
enjoying appetizers that Caro & Mariella made.

Out of 20+ adults, 12 were part of the "Silly Aliens" (Sarah, Caro, Mariella, Claudia, Nazareth, Beate, Julieta, Guillermo, Iva, Anna, Laura & Michele) . The other 7 were holding... or at least trying to hold the American way of celebrating Christmas (Chris, Skip, Todd, Andrea, Wink, Tom & Nate). It was pretty interesting to exchange food and Christmas customs... from Italy to USA, from Argentina to Germany... and all was VERY YUMMY!!! Chrissy, Greg and Nick came over to visit us and got a taste of it too.

Iva, Wink, Mariella, Nazareth and "an Unknown Head" (Claudia's?)...
digging in the main dishes that Iva, Sarah, Andrea,
Caro & the Eagle-Vail Argentinian Girls' Club prepared.

As usually, we had our mascots too. There cannot be fun party without Steele, Ezechiel, Maverick & Michael. If you invite them, laughs are assured! :)

Steele & Mariella
This little-pumpkin, besides being a future Sled-neck,
I think he'll be a future photo-model-guy.
He laughed every time he saw me taking pics of him,
making us laugh our butts off!

Eze and his... unbeatable "I don't know!" style.

Michael showing his home made sled to his brother.
(If you have their dad Todd, a shovel and some padding,
you never know what you end up with, but...
it probably will have to do with FUN!)

I'm sorry I didn't catch Michael harvesting
our Christmas tree,

but I can assure you there are
quite a few less marshmallows!

To Everybody here
& back home:
Have a Sweet Holiday!!!

...Oh! I've almost forgotten. How can I???!!!???!!! The first part of the evening included hiking & sledding in an "undisclosed location", where we've "almost" got busted.