Did You Have A Merry Christmas

Christmas last year (or week) was a quiet affair. We bought the pups some gifts of course and had special dinners for them, but it wasn't one of those hectic holidays of the past with twelve dogs racing around showing off their new toys. 

Syd isn't very interested in toys, she'd rather be hunting for moles or squirrels or taking a nap. Boston ate both his new toys in a matter of minutes. I keep hard kongs filled with peanut butter around just for him. He's a power chewer.

Mackey got a new squeaky snake which she carried around for a few minutes before trying to take Thistle's toy away from him. Thistle is the toy lover. He carries one around the house and brings it over to share whenever I sit down. I love that whenever Rob takes a nap on the couch Thistle places one of his toys on Rob's chest to nap with him.

The birds each got a honey stick for Christmas. These little sticks are covered with seeds that are glued together with honey. These birds love them and clean them off in a couple hours.

I've done a lot of knitting over the last couple years and my holiday knits joined us for the season. 

A snowman

A holiday hippo

I only meant to make a reindeer but ended up with the whole group 

Santa even has a tree and a bag of goodies in his sleigh

And of course this guy

The Christmas cactus all managed to bloom in time even though they're pretty young plants. One of them had a number of blooms but the other each had one or two. 

We had white

and yellow 

and red

The pink one did best

                                                                                                                                                                       My best gifts came earlier in the month. The first week in December my nephrologist told me that my kidneys are now stable and he doesn't need to see me for a whole year. A week later my cardiologist told

me my heart is now stable and I don't need to see her for a full year. The past three years have been doctor's appointment or lab tests or scopes or scans almost every week. It feels like a great gift.

So even though it was quiet, it was a good holiday