Christmas

Every year I struggle with getting through the Christmas season.  It seems like there is so much to do, and never enough time to do it.  But I used to mock the people who started their shopping in July or did their decorating in November - I thought that doing Christmas things outside of December was inappropriate.  I mean, I don't even know why I thought that.  It seems ridiculous now.  I've come to realize that starting early may be the only way to get everything done without having a mental breakdown.

This year, I vowed to start early, and I did.  At the end of October, I began diligently shopping for gifts and mentally prepared myself for the tasks I needed to get done.  And I really did work at it.  Normally, I'm a huge procrastinator, but I didn't procrastinate about anything.  And when December arrived, I felt really good about where I was.  My Christmas cards were ordered, I had already made some gifts and I had all the supplies for the gifts I still wanted to make, all my shopping was done, we had the tree, I had done some decorating in the house, and I had a plan to accomplish all the remaining things on my to-do list that seemed very manageable.

And up until a few days before Christmas, I was feeling pretty proud of myself.  I had only a few gifts left to wrap and then the cooking/baking for Christmas Eve and Christmas.  Yay for me!

But then I ran out of gas and motivation.  By the time Christmas Eve arrived, I still hadn't wrapped three gifts, and the thought of actually going through Christmas was a little unappealing.  All I could think was that it would be so nice if I could take a break from Christmas for a couple of weeks.  (It's possible that I started repeating the line from The Grinch - "I must stop Christmas from coming.  But how?)  My husband said that I must only have so much Christmas in me, and I had run out - LOL!

Which kind of sucked.  I do love Christmas, and I had really been looking forward to enjoying the time this year.  But in the end, I felt sort of bleh.  And I overdid the whole cooking and baking thing too.  I spent too much time in the kitchen and not enough just sitting in front of the tree and enjoying the day.  So lesson learned, I guess.  Starting early has its benefits, but I can't keep steadily doing Christmas stuff for eight weeks.  

I'll have to come up with a new plan for next year that somehow involves starting early but also leaves room for me to take a break.  I'm curious to know how you get through the season.  Do you start early?  Do you reduce the number of things you do?  Do you procrastinate and then give one big effort a few days before Christmas?

I will say that the one fun thing about Christmas was seeing Gemma's face as she opened her horse-related presents.  She had one thing in particular that she desperately wanted - a leather halter with yellow padding and nameplates for Freya and the name of the farm we board at.  Of course, as far as I could tell, leather halters with yellow padding are not something that is widely available, so I got in touch with Taylored Tack, which made all my endurance tack for Nimo.  Amanda Taylor, who makes the tack, is delightful to work with and does high-quality work, so I didn't hesitate to order a synthetic halter in a leather color with yellow padding.  I ordered nameplates separately and put them on myself (actually not as easy as it looks...).  The halter turned out great and Gemma loves it!

I also got Gemma a custom cooler for Freya.  (We've been using an old one of Nimo's, which fits Freya surprisingly well.  Her blanket size is 80/81, and Nimo's was 84.  But I knew Gemma would want her own stuff.)  Her favorite color is yellow right now with green being her second favorite.  (She has all the colors ranked in order - lol!).  But she still loves rainbow colors too.  So I worked with HeatherWearHorse to put together a lovely fleece cooler with rainbow fabric, yellow fabric, and green trim.

A friend got her a Horse Bums saddle bag (yellow of course, but with peacock fabric trim and a purple zipper) and her mother-in-law got her one of the Weatherbeeta ombre saddle pads.  And Santa brought her a rainbow browband for Star's bridle.  So I hiked with Gemma and Star out on some trails at the barn so Gemma could try out all that new stuff too.  

 

It was a bittersweet day for me.  The temperature got up to 72 degrees, so it was an absolutely beautiful day, and the trails were new - the barn has been putting them in over the last few months.  And I was so happy that Gemma had a great horse to ride.  But I really missed Nimo as I walked the trails on foot.  (Freya is fighting a hoof infection, and was a little sore, so we aren't working her under saddle right now.  More on that next week.)  I imagined how much fun it would have been to be out there riding him with Gemma, and it was hard. 

I think the longer we live, the more Christmas has a tendency to accumulate a mixture of memories, good and bad.  I am super thankful for all the wonderful things in my life, but it does still feel like there is a hole where Nimo used to be.

Anyway, I hope that if you celebrate Christmas, you had a good one:)

Do not let this sweet face fool you - I had just dragged her out of the tree, which she had tried to climb into, and she tried to chew on the ornaments too.  (eye roll)

Photos with Star

After we got Freya's Christmas pictures done, Gemma started planning for Star's pictures.  Thankfully, we ended up with nice weather and because Star is a chestnut, we didn't need to do a full bath.  So, it was a much less intensive process.

We got some pictures in front of the barn tree and then we headed out to the trails in the woods and out by the pond.  We tried to get a jumping picture too, but the light had faded too much by then, so even though I got a good shot, it was really blurry.  Gemma didn't care, though.  She had a blast hanging out with Star and posing for the camera.

Does anyone else dress their horse up for holiday-themed pictures?  I still have to think about what to do with Donut, because Gemma thinks we need to make sure Donut has as much "fun" as Freya and Star did:)

Forces of Nature

As I watched the towering wall of dust materialize out of thin air and approach at a phenomenal speed, I had a brief moment to wonder if that is what the Dust Bowl years looked like.  Then it was on us.  Visibility was reduced to almost nothing.  Dust particles stung the skin on my face.  And the wind took my breath away.

Thankfully, the horse that I was attached to was Freya and not Donut, or I might not be alive to tell the tale.  That said, Freya was really not a happy camper.  Just before the appearance of the dust storm, we had watched an entire tree blow over about 200 feet from where we were.  It was already pretty windy at that point.  (And by pretty windy, I'm talking about gusts of 40-50 mph.) 

But my daughter, who may get her own classification as a force of nature, had insisted that Christmas pictures must be done on this day.  Despite the wind (or maybe because of it), the air temperature was warm - in the mid-60s - and it was otherwise a perfect December day to give Freya a bath.

So, by noon, we were out at the barn, with Freya finding herself in the wash stall instead of out with her friends on a beyond blustery day.  She was definitely not her normal self, and she was agitated to be inside.  But Gemma prevailed, and within 45 minutes, Freya had been scrubbed from head to toe.  We put a light cooler on her to help her dry, and my job was to take her outside in the sun and wind to help her dry before pictures.

As I walked Freya outside, I noted that the wind seemed to have picked up a bit more, and was again questioning the wisdom of trying to do fun Christmas pictures.  Freya is generally fine on windy days, but we had passed windy awhile ago, and we were in the vicinity of storm-like winds, despite the bright sun.

Freya decided that she could maybe eat some grass, but no more than 10 seconds had passed before the wind took its first victim on the farm.  A tree blew over at the edge of the woods.  I sort of stared in shock.  And then I registered that the greenhouse we were standing next to sounded like the panes of plastic might rattle free of whatever containment system was holding them.  Or maybe the whole building would just take flight.  Either way, I was becoming aware that standing outside was not a great place to be. 

Freya had that realization well before I did, and she was dancing around on the end of the lead rope, trying to convince me that we needed to move.  Which is what I was planning to do when we got hit by the mini-dust storm.  For a few seconds, all I could do was brace against the dust and wind.  But Freya was becoming increasingly insistent that we needed to get out of there.

Her plan was clearly to head back to her field.  My plan was that we needed to get into the barn.  About one minute of discussion ensued before I finally convinced Freya that we were going in the barn.  She was really not happy about that.  And I can understand her perspective.  I think a lot of animals feel safer outside in a storm because they can see and have the freedom to move.  Unlike people who tend to feel safer inside.

And if we didn't need to do pictures, I would have been happy to turn her back out.  But then I would have incurred the wrath of a tiny 9-year-old:)

So I put Freya in Donut's stall, where she proceeded to express herself in a way that only mares can.  There was much head-flinging and neck-snaking and squealing and bucking in place to demonstrate how very miffed she was to be in the stall instead of in her field.  Then I pointed out that there was a nice beet pulp mash and a flake of alfalfa in the stall for her.  That attracted her attention, but she didn't want to give up too easily.  For about 15 minutes she alternated between grabbing a bite and expressing her irritation.  And then she settled down.  I guess she figured if she had to die in this God-forsaken barn because of a human's stupidity, she could at least have a nice snack first!

At that point, it was just a waiting game.  Gemma and I hung out in the barn for a couple of hours while Freya dried.  The wind would die down for a bit and then pick up again.  It repeated the cycle all afternoon.  Gemma pitched in with some barn chores while I caught up on email and social media.

Then, finally, Freya was reasonably dry and it sounded like the wind was in the blustery category rather than the tornado category again.  It was time to take those pictures.

We started out in the barn.  Gemma was desperate to get pictures by the Christmas tree.  And Freya was actually quite cooperative.  She'd apparently forgiven us for our earlier stupidity and was happy to hang out with Gemma.

I thought maybe we should call it good at this point, but Gemma still wanted to at least try taking pictures outside.  So we saddled Freya up and headed to the Great Outdoors.

Freya was definitely very alert, but I did manage to get a few decent pictures.

It ended up being a long day out at the barn with a little more excitement than I like these days, but the pictures are done.  So at least one force of nature has been taken care of:)

(BTW: In case you are interested, I got the horse Santa gear from Equinavia.  Here are the links:  Horze Santa Horse Cap, Horze Santa Halter, and Horze Santa All-Purpose Saddle Pad.  A search for "Santa" will yield a number of other fun products like leg wraps, a horse blanket, a riding blanket, a helmet cap...)