Merry Christmas & Happy New Year!

It's been a very busy month here on Mars!

A friend from work, Masha, returned from a trip to Russia, and brought back a new little (about a foot tall) resident for Mars. This is Kuzya:

 

In Russian homes, Kuzya keeps an eye on things, helping to prevent catastrophes and assorted bad things from happening. Masha thought that Mars could use a little help in this department. Indeed. Thank you, Masha!

We also did some more tidying & decluttering this month. I tackled the kitchen Junk Drawer, which really should have been called the Drawer of A Thousand Pens:

How did that happen? I would blame Kuzya (who is apparently also responsible for low-level mischief around the house), but I know this happened before he came to stay.

We got rid of a medium-sized box of old kitchen utensils and mugs and things, as well. Progress!

Our friend Jon has been taking a pottery class, and offered us some of his beautiful work. I have been wanting something to display some marbles and pieces of broken ceramics that came up out of the excavation under the house, as well as my grandmother's wedding ring, a couple rings of Jack's, and Jack's father's ring. This bowl works perfectly:

Thank you, Jon!

The week or so before Christmas, we finally got around to some decorating. First, we put up our stockings, and some cutouts of reindeer that we made in previous years:

I made a stocking for Pickles, as well as one for Joan the mouse, and one for her friend Hunca Munca (as it turns out, Hunca Munca is actually the most appropriate name for a house mouse, per AJ & Beatrix Potter).

I subsequently caught both Joan and Hunca Munca, and returned them to the wild.

Anyway, as usual, Pickles helped us decorate with her characteristic holiday cheer and enthusiasm:
 

Here's what we did for a tree this year:

One string of purple Christmas lights, with assorted festive paper things as ornaments, and more cutouts at the bottom. Here it is at night:

On Christmas, Brian, Susie, and Paul came over for food and movies (Denzel Washington marathon this year) and good times. I totally forgot to take pictures of everything except Brian's famous homemade cherry and chocolate rugelach, and his cranberry nut bread:

That was breakfast. We also had mushroom spinach strata for lunch, and cioppino (San Francisco seafood stew) for dinner. Salted honey pie with homemade crust for dessert. It as a wonderful, relaxing day.

And now it's New Year's Eve, and AJ, Pickles, and I are in Sonoma with Amanda, watching Miami Vice and looking out over this view, glass of champagne in hand:

This certainly bodes well for 2016.

In the meantime, Happy New Year to everyone from the four of us!