We had two open houses scheduled for the weekend, so why not stay out of the way by escaping to the cottage. We've went to the cottage a lot fewer times this year. So, why not. We arrived late Friday night. My parents, Brittany and Marina were already there.

Dec 1 - Decorate the House  We started December off with decking the halls. That's a fancy way of saying we put up random decorations. Dec 2 - Get a Tree We really get into this Christmas decoration thing. For breakfast I made Pannukakku . It's basically Big Pancake made in a 9x13. The pancake flattens a lot as it cools. Then I jarred our latest batch of sauerkraut. After a few busy body things around the house we headed up to Rum River Tree Farm to get our Christmas tree on this not so very white day. It said to stop here for farm information. I was expecting someone to come out and talk to us. After waiting 5 minutes we realized it was serve yourself. Apparently neither of us remembered how this worked. Then we drove around in circles until we found a suitable trees. We decided to skip the pokey long needle tree this year. None of these were quite tall enough. Maybe in a year or two little trees. Aft...

We decided to skip the Advent Activity Calendar this year. I've noticed from previous years that it got too stressful having to do one Christmas activity a day. Although now I am finding we are doing it anyway. Brooke had to work, but I wanted to get Meadow and I out of the house. It's been unseasonably warm, so we took the bike to the Holiday Craft Hop  just over the river in the old Grain Belt brewery. I'm so jealous, I really wanted to go. We walked around all the fancy craft booths before I figured out where the Tandem Vintage pop-up was setup. I was hoping to find Brooke a present, but also wanted to say hi to Amanda and Cayla.  Amanda was so excited to see little Meadow. Meadow was excited to lay down on one of her vintage rugs. While Meadow played with Amanda I picked out a very cool gift for Brooke. Before heading home we walked to the Bottling House. There was a tea tasting happening and I thought I might pick something up for Brooke. T...