Merry and bright

It's crazy how quickly the holidays come and go. After all of the anticipation leading up to it, our Christmas was fairly anti-climatic. We had family at our house the weekend before Christmas. This made the Newfies extremely happy, as they got spoiled big-time by their "grandma." I swear, my mother has single-handedly contributed to Thatcher's ever-increasing chunkiness. Of course, Thatcher doesn't mind one bit. Both of the dogs like to act like we starve them in front of guests, despite the littering of bones and rawhides around the house. We've learned to tread carefully in the dark, because stubbing your toe on one of their giant bones really hurts. It hurts bad. Anyhow, they had a jolly time showing off for my mom and sisters all weekend. One of my little sisters slept downstairs on the basement futon, and when we went to check on her before bed, we saw that she had in fact found a nice boy to keep her warm for the night. Apparently they were both equally exhausted from the weekend and had passed out together in the nice quiet basement.

After spending Christmas Eve with one family, we drove up late that night to the next family gathering. We swung home to pick up Thatcher and Boden and began our three hour trip, only to end up in what felt like the North Pole. Because of the sub-zero temperatures and the heat from the dogs in the backseat, the windows stayed frosted over the whole drive. We would periodically hear a licking sound and would glance back to see either Thatcher or Boden melting the ice of the window with their tongue. I've always joked that if our dogs were actual children, they would be the kids in their kindergarten class who eat glue. So we finally arrived pretty late that night, and spent most of Christmas day there. Thatcher, as usual, ran around frantically looking for my dad's cat Che, and Boden sneakily tried to eat the ornaments off the Christmas tree. Once again, the dogs were stuffed with treats and plenty of leftover ham from dinner. They slept soundly the entire way home.

As if they just weren't spoiled enough in the past week, Thatcher and Boden were surprised with a visit from Santa. To their delight, they received a plethora of new toys (which are by now mostly shredded) and bones (which are by now mostly eaten). The first thing Thatcher did when he saw all of their goodies was to grab at the largest treat he could find, a rawhide in the shape of a big candy cane, and run upstairs to stash it away in a safe location. As I discovered later, this location turned out to be our bed. And in the process of trying to bury it thoroughly, he managed to claw a hole in the sheets. We also created a new game, in which the we stomp on all the toys with squeakers repeatedly while the dogs try to find out which toys are squeaking. It makes them go nuts and trot around hilariously, inspecting every suspicious toy. It's true, sometimes the humans are as easily-entertained as the dogs.