christmas eve 2013

Having Christmas fall on a Wednesday is silly: I prefer Friday or Monday Christmases so I can get a long weekend out of it.  Because the holiday fell when it did this year, and because we haven't gotten that much snow, I opted to not take any time off around Christmas.

All that pristine snow, just waiting for tracks

H did and took himself skiing Christmas Eve.  It was snowing/raining down at our house - the driveway was a sheet of ice - but the road up Little Cottonwood Canyon was okay taken slowly. When he got up to the Wildcat base area, there was cloud cover but it broke up by midday.  The crowds were light and the conditions were good, given the couple of inches Alta had gotten.  They were shooting off avalanche control like crazy all day (there had been an in-bounds slide earlier in the week that had caught, but not injured, several skiers) and there was a delay for Supreme to open because of it.  Once Supreme opened, however, there was good skiing to be had - as long as you didn't want to ski in Supreme Bowl or Catherine's Area, which were still closed.  H  reported that Challenger was even in good shape; having first tracks down a run tends to improve its standing.  The lunch crowd was light and the lift lines nonexistent.  He skied until 2:20 p.m. and then headed home.

Christmas Eve selfie

My office closed at 3 p.m. so I was able to run a couple of errands before going back to the house.  When I arrived, H was making chili and doing laundry.  He cracked open a beer for me and we settled in for the evening.  After pre-dinner appetizers of cheese, salami and caviar (note to self: get better caviar for next year), we made dinner together: chicken breasts stuffed with fennel and onion stuffing, mashed potatoes and broccoli, and opened a bottle of dry sparkling rose - I like drinking bubbles and I especially like drinking pink bubbles.  After dinner, we curled up on the couch for the traditional A Christmas Story viewing.  Some of us may not have stayed awake to the end.

Snacks!