We finally knuckled down and spent a whole day cleaning the Nutshell.  It wasn’t pretty.  And, true to form, I’ve been nagging about picking things up and wiping counters and keeping abreast of laundry.  As I look around now I see that the edges are blurring again and I will have to spend a bit of time to keep the place a bit sharper looking.  But for now, it is a lot better than it has been.

Cleaning was a pre-requisite to our traditional get-ready-for-Christmas activities.  Yesterday the girls, with my supervision, made chocolate-peppermint bark and today we cut it up, wrapped it in parchment paper and tied it with ribbon purchased from a thrift store.  These will end up in our Christmas baskets. Last year, we only managed to get three complete…this year we are aiming for eight.  If you are lucky (and we know you) you may be a recipient!

The kids scouted the edges of the property line for a Christmas tree. In the past Chris has gone with them to approve their selection, but he couldn’t be dragged away from his matches and barrels, so I sent the kids out on their own with a camera.  They came back with pictures of three possibilities and after determining that two of them were pretty close to the house, I sent them back to the third near our industrial shavings pile.  They went with the “red” saw and came back with a short little tree that will sit on our end table.  Hopefully this is the last year for a small tree.  The kids did not want to stick a big tree in the earthship and spend Christmas morning on sandy floors with pop can bags all around them, no matter how warm it was.

Next on the list are home-made candles, our from-scratch gingerbread house (with a twist this year) and tree and house decorating.  Due to time constraints I don’t think Chris will be putting together a piano video this  year.

We are spending Christmas and Boxing Day with my family, all of whom will be together this year.  This includes the Caseys, who are as near to family as you can get.  On Boxing Day we head up to Tom and Steph’s cabin to eat some more and hopefully mess around in the snow a little bit.

Otherwise it is all about rockets and then hopefully greywater.  Chris and I also have a few projects up our sleeves that we will work on as we have time… ha!