Wednesday, December 25, 2013

Merry Christmas!

My beekeeping buddy Eugene made me the bestest tree ornament EVER:


He used his router to do that. I love it! My own bee skep!

Here was the tree on Christmas eve...


...with Gordon's usual frenzied garland-strewing. There's no order to that whatsoever! Plus I think it's about time we bought some new garland, rather than using my tawdry collection of mardi gras beads and 80s-era fluffy crap.

This baby is a perfect balsam fir. For a couple of years, we cut down butt-ugly Charlie Brown trees, as you can witness for yourself in this 2010 video. But now I make Gordon buy a perfectly-pruned tree brought up specifically to die for the cause.

I've been shocked to discover that not ONE of the cats has shown an iota of interest in the tree this year, not even that hellion Louise, who is breaking one cherished household item per week lately. I still don't understand it. Nary an ornament on the floor! Maybe they are plotting a New Year's eve takedown.


Instead, Naomi snoozes on my printer and...


..Emily snoozes on my couch and...


...Julius hangs out on the "bird" chair! Louise was off somewhere else, getting into trouble.

Last night, Christmas eve, we had our traditional cheese fondue.



Mushroomy goodness!


Nothing like a little beer with your wine-infused cheese.

When we got up this morning, it was a tad nippy outside...


This poor little Mourning Dove got trapped in our front porch too, but found a comfy place to snuggle up:


The cat shelf! If we leave the door open, birds sometimes fly or wander in. If they can't figure out how to leave, I rescue them. We've had no casualties yet! I caught this one in my hands and let her go outside.

I got lots of lovely gifts this Christmas morning, including a wildlife camera/videocam which will no doubt soon be providing me with blog fodder, and an amazing spotting scope that I can attach my SLR camera to.

And my friend Denise got me these GREAT bee earrings!



Hope all of you who celebrate it had a very Merry Christmas! :)




17 comments:

  1. (1) Beer and wine-infused cheese sound like a magical pairing.

    (2) The earrings are perfect for you.

    (3) That poor mourning dove looks like she's freezing her tail feathers off.

    Merry Christmas!

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  2. Emily looks like the stray that landed here, Stripsey, that I featured in a blog last week about calicos. He has extra toes.

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  3. Anonymous11:35 pm

    Merry Christmas to you and Gordon. Sounds like a perfect holiday with friends and cats. Love the bee ornament and earrings. Sheri

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  4. Personally I think the older (and more bizarre) the decorations, the better!

    Be careful... you may now be receiving Bee related gifts on EVERY occasion.

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  5. And a happy christmas to you, too. You look gorgeous. And believe it or not, we had our Christmas dinner already on the 23rd. We loved it and enjoyed the rest of the Holidays very much. The kids are coming today.
    Hope the weather gets warmer pretty soon.

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  6. Ooh, looking forward to the pics from the wildlife cam. Glad you both had a lovely day.

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  7. I'm with Gordon...haphazard garlands on the tree! It is a tad cold here is right . We had the very cold the two weeks before Christmas. It's going to be plus 5 today.
    Great that you had a good Christmas.

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  8. Ooo! What a pretty tree-t! You can eat it later after you take all the decorations off. Yummy! It WAS cold there! Brrrrr.

    Bring that birdie in! Tee hee.

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  9. OMC ! Such a pretty catmastree !
    Can tell you that I would love to climb around in it :)
    Hope you had a furry Merry CATmas !
    XOXO

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  10. Natalie! I'd say that your tawdry collection of mardi gras beads and 80s-era fluffy crap are still working their magic ;-) That is the jolliest Christmas tree I've seen to date this year - love it!
    Stay warm and please give your furry gang a kiss from me.
    P.s. Cards will be on their way tomorrow.
    P.p.s Biscuit (from my last post) is my baby. His favourite place in on my shoulders!

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  11. Merry Christmas, it sounds like you had lots of fun. I love that bee ornament.

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  12. I laughed at your kitty on the printer. Is that one of those new 3d printers? You can create all the cats you want! LOL Thanks for leaving the comment about Trish's quilt. Your kitties are quite charming!

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  13. Merry Christmas and happy New Year!

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  14. I can't comment on all your lovely gifts because I'm so peeved that your cats are so much better than mine. I've lost count of how many ornaments gave their lives for this Christmas. I gave up and hung cat toys!

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  15. First year my cat saw the Christmas tree, we were sitting in a room three rooms away from it when she blasted in doing 100mph, FOLLOWED by a tremendous crash in the other room.

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  16. Hey Natalie, how cute is that bee skep ornament......what a lovely thoughtful gift.
    Love all your cats, but Julius gets me every time, he's just like my boy Tiggy.
    So glad that little Mourning Dove survived and your bee earrings are gorgeous.
    Have been having a lovely catchup on your blog posts. You Canadians certainly are a tough lot,
    wish I could send you some of our warm temps and sunshine.........

    Claire Xx
    ☀☀☀

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Thank you for all your comments, which I love to read!