Christmas Eve at the Yukon Palace

Christmas Eve at the cabin turned out to be a huge success. We arrived around 2 and were greeted by lots of people gathered around the fire ring enjoying wine and each other’s company. The women went for a walk in the woods and took lots of pictures along the way.
Here, Mom and her cousin Kay are re-enacting a ladder scene from “Chicago” using my cousin Grant’s deer stand ladder.


We got home, took a nice big family photo (48 people, and that’s missing several families!), went sledding, and then sang carols around the Christmas tree until dinner was ready – turkey, stewed venison and venison sausage, vegetables, scalloped potatoes and a beautiful red, white and green Jell-O salad. My dad made wassail (yum!) and there was, of course, an abundance of Christmas cookies.






By the time dinner was over, it was dark enough to light the bonfire, which the youngest boy cousins accomplished by shooting it with roman candles. It took a little while to ignite, but once it got going, we had 30-foot flames and enough heat to require onlookers to rotate themselves regularly to keep faces from getting too hot.


The snow softened up and the youngest boy cousins quickly discovered it was ripe for snowball making. Male bonding ensued (among male cousins of all ages). We cleaned up the cabin, said our long Minnesota good-byes, turned off the generator and drove over the river and through the woods back to Grandmother’s house, where we re-hashed the evening. We discussed which of the new Significant Others we had talked to and how we liked them. I uploaded my photos from the day and played a little slideshow for everyone. We agreed that a good time was had by all. After a quick good-night call to Scott, I was off to bed.