Christmas Eve we caroled on the town green
There was enough snow to make Christmas white
I prepared our yule log dessert
and we opened gifts under the tree
Rather than waste away the rest of the vacation on the couch, we traveled down to DC
Katy's house had a new guest, a tortoise-shelled cat that showed up on their doorstep. She was very friendly and they named her Amber. Her ear was clipped, likely a sign that she had been spayed as a feral cat. But was she still a stray or a lost pet?
A visiting vet helped solve the mystery. Amber had a microchip in her shoulder that was registered to a clinic in nearby Chesapeake Beach. The clinic recalled that a female tortoiseshell had been adopted by an owner of a horse barn, where she had been living as a barn cat. When contacted and told of Amber's potential new home, the owner agreed that an indoor cat's life is better than an outdoor one, and let Katy's family keep her.
Bevil and Alex hosted all the Ehmanns for a get together. My mom gave Bevil her favorite Canadian Dare cookies
Piscataway Park is a NPS site that we glancingly visited back in 2015 and I decided to return for a fuller experience. It is located in Maryland across the Potomac River from Mount Vernon, and the cold wind was whipping on the water.
President Trump's Executive Order titled "Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History" was on display. I didn't notice any signs that were negative about past or living Americans, but I did wonder if over at Ford's Theater, will the information about John Wilkes Booth, the past American who assassinated the founder of the Republican party, need to be revised for Truth and Sanity.
On another outing we battled wits with escape rooms
and emerged victorious
In preparation for New Year's, I taught the kids how to play poker and blackjack
For Claire and Peter's New Year's Eve party, the theme was Colonial America and Brooke painted her customary menu
Way back in 2018, Heather bought a fancy dress for attending a Hamilton singalong. Other period dresses were scrounged for the girls and my sartorial splendor came via Amazon
The Ehmann-Jones crew was equally decked out
For these annual parties, the appetizers and dessert are fixed items while the mains rotate with the theme
This year Sabrina researched colonial fare at the Williamsburg taverns and cooked a delicious peanut soup, chicken pot pie, and Hasselback sweet potatoes
After dancing, my hair achieved new heights
and like any decent founding father, I found time to pen some historical documents
Happy New Year!
