A Very Poolridge Christmas (in pictures)

Before leaving for Southern California, Steve hangs the final ornaments on the family advent calendar he inherited (thank you, Natalie!). He had fond memories of it and I think it's charming.

Once in Southern California, Steve eagerly awaits Christmas cookies in my parents' kitchen. He not only baked the traditional Spritz, he prepared Christmas Eve and Day dinners. Christmas Day was some wonderful beef short ribs. Yum...

 My brother and I are not morning people.

Steve watches the goings-on from in front of my mom's ever-impressive Christmas village.

My brother does his traditional Christmas Eve car repair.

My brother and mom play Christmas carols (one taking over the left handed notes, the other the right). I give encouragement from beside the Christmas tree (and warm fire).

My brother tries his hand at the awesome R/C forklift he got me for Christmas. Rotten kid is much better at it than I am.

My family plays a rousing round of "Unexploded Cow" (a card game Steve and I gave Jim for Christmas) while my Grandma rests. Steve has a winner's grin this round.

We had a good one, and hopefully you did too!

I'm dreaming of a white...

... toilet! Yes, the things homebodies get excited about are really... special. By the way, before I move on, alternate titles considered for this post included Little Plumber Boy and Joy to the Commode. So it could have been worse.

City of Santa Cruz offers a $150 rebate for ultra high-efficiency toilets. Our toilet had started running a bit, and while that would have been a fairly inexpensive problem to fix, it reminded us that we had wanted to upgrade to a model with greater water savings anyway. The toilet was one of very few things the previous homeowner hadn't trashed when we bought our place, so we hadn't acquired a new one.

Since the largest open space in the house is in front of the Christmas tree, it looked like Santa had visited upon us the most practical of gifts.

 Obligatory before picture (exciting, I know):

 Ta da!

Okay, I'll admit one toilet looks pretty much like any other toilet. The thing I'm happiest about is that we bought a soft-close seat for it. Another small move toward a quieter household (I'm admittedly very weird about noise, and I've absolutely loved the soft-close hinges on our kitchen and bathroom cabinets).

Stay tuned for more thrilling news, from our home to yours... perhaps next week we'll clean out the dryer vent hose. Or the rain gutters. You really never can tell what exciting adventure awaits.

Christmas!

Fair warning, I am entirely too excited about Steve's and my first real Christmas tree. So I'm going to post a bunch of pictures. Because I can.

 With Steve, for scale:

 Stockings for the bunnies (hung above the computer with care):

Awesome advent calendar my friend Gail got me (the 24 penguins before Christmas):

 Close up of tree (remember, because I can):

 Tree from below (why not?):

 My cardboard safari is very festive as well:

Wider view of the living room (including awesome gold hang-y thing I got from my Grandma and we attached to the ceiling fixture):

This year, we put up some garland, a wreath and a few strings of lights as well.

Neighbors came up to us as we were decorating to praise us showing a little cheer (Santa Cruz is very under-decorated). One neighbor gave us a thumbs-up from across the street. One of a few pictures a neighbor took of us on the porch:

We intend to do more elaborate outdoor displays in the future, but the weather has been extremely cold this year and we'd had enough of being outside after doing just this much. I think it looks pretty festive, though.