Last year at Sugarbear

Yesterday we arrived home to find we still have more snow than i expected. I thought most of it would be melted by now. Much of it has melted, but there still is quite a bit around. The low last night was 11F, so there is still always the chance of ice. Most of the roads are bare, but where there is snow melt-off & it freezes we do have patches of ice. That is why, in the winter, we try to be sure we'll get home to Sugarbear before dark. I don't like driving the mountain roads (i mean the road up & down the hill, around town isn't the problem) at night after dark. Plenty of folks do it, of course, but we prefer not to. We've another storm predicted in a few days. It will be interesting. In spite of the calendar, winter is here!

This is Sugarbear in the middle of a mid-December storm last year.

Well, we have that party tonight & i'm going to be busy all day. Tomorrow we have the Christmas potluck at church & i do want to make a few things i can eat.

Duane suggested i buy tamales in town (at this wonderful little place we discovered recently) so that i won't have to do so much. I like that idea! Isn't my hubby thoughtful?

Then, Sunday i'm suppose to do "fellowship" at church. So, right now i'm aiming for Monday to put up the tree.

Our garage needs some cleaning out soon so that we can get the car in it. And the tree is in a corner of the garage, deeply buried. And we've a storm slated for Sunday or Monday to last a couple of days. Want to get the car in out of the storm, but we've let junk accumulate in the garage & we need to remedy that.

I've gotten about 5 hours of sleep each night this week. Don't know what's wrong with me! I'll have to take a nap this afternoon.

I hope it was clear i wasn't criticizing the trees at that other blog, just saying they are not what appeals to me tho i still find them so very interesting.

When i was in college i moved into a townhouse in Costa Mesa, CA & i stayed there for almost 15 years. Then Duane & i moved to a little rented house here in Big Bear to see if what we planned would work. And then we bought Sugarbear. I never decorated for Christmas while living at the CM townhouse, until the Christmas a few months before i met Duane. That year i had a natural tree. They are available in CA, of course. It just seems that everyone i know does the fake trees. Duane & i were taken by our little tree because it looks so much like what could grow in Big Bear. And - the cats always seem to want to chew on a natural tree where as they mostly leave the fake tree alone (except to grab ornaments, of course). The other two pics of our tree in a previous post were in Costa Mesa & the tiny rented BB house. Here are some pics of Sugarbear last Christmas, our first Christmas at Sugarbear.





As a child, i remember being fascinated with the nativity scene. I remember being yelled at a lot, too, as my mother feared i'd break the pieces. It wasn't anything particularly special, really. Probably a cheap, mid-60s thing, but i still really enjoyed it.

So, i really wanted a nice set as an adult. I scoured different pics & ebay before i decided on this one. It is from the mid-80s by Home Interiors. Because i bought it piecemeal, i ended up with some duplicates.











This set has 2 identical shepherd boys & i used a sharpie to change their looks. I colored the right hand donkey, too.

Also the same with two wise men.

I'd prefer not to have the nativity scene on the mantle this year, but i'm limited to where i can put it because of cats. Before we had places they couldn't reach easily, but Jazz loves to play from the mantle. He would love to knock these over. Cats do that. They watch it fall & say, "Look at that! It broke! I wonder if this one will do that too?"

Duane tends to say, "We can't have nice things because we have cats." I don't agree entirely, of course, but there is a limit to what we can have & where we can put it. I'm not sure about where this nativity scene can go, because there just are not many places the cats can't get to. We'll see.

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