When Lorelai was a tiny kitten, she was fascinated with the television. These photos are from 22 May, when Rory had been with us for about two weeks.
She really got into trying to interact with the people on the screen! She’s since outgrown her interest in the TV, but it was awfully cute (and not a little bit annoying) while it lasted. Also, if you look closely at the second photo, you might notice some previous Miniature Monday post subjects.
All the snow we had before Christmas melted away on Boxing Day, but we got a little more on Tuesday. So, Wednesday, I thought Lorelai might like to go out and have another run in the snow since she enjoyed it so much the last time.
It was a little colder that day, and the snow was very thin on the ground.
So, she was a little less enthusiastic this time.
Rory wanted to stay close to the trees, where there was still some grass.
There were also birds to watch up in the branches.
Something seemed to bother her feet, too. I think it was the gravel they use to add traction to the snow. They don’t use the snow melting stuff that they use in Boston.
But she did seem quite content to sit at the base of the tree and contemplate the sunset.
I love little kitty pawprints in the snow…
Markis, our upstairs neighbour, was also outside enjoying the snow.
Rory just absolutely loves exploring outside, no matter what the season.
Here’s a little video of Rory the Explorer!
The struggle to keep the door to the cabinet we keep the cat food in continues.
We reinstated the door stopper…nope. We added a baffle to the bottom of the door so it was harder for him to grab it and open it…nope. Then we adjusted the magnetic latch…which seems to have worked…for the time being.
But he’s working on it. Look how miffed he is that I heard him working on the door and brought the camera! And it appears he has recruited Lorelai as his accomplice. Sneaky boy!
About a year and a half ago, Skövde got a Flying Tiger store. If you haven’t gotten one of these near you (there are something like 900 stores in the world and counting), you have missed a treat. Flying Tiger stores are filled with awesome things you never knew you needed. It doesn’t help that everything costs 10kr/$1/€1 – 40kr/$4/€4…
So, of course, I had to buy one. I stashed it away and ended up putting it in Jacoby’s Christmas stocking. Today, I brought it out.
It was a thing full of dry cat food. What’s not to like?
Of course, it attracted an audience.
Including Izaak, who doesn’t eat dry food and only eats raw.
Jake cottoned onto the system pretty quickly. Instead of chasing the pellets being shot from the gun, he sent straight to the source.
He basically went up to the crunchy gun, licked it, and tried to open it. That’s my boy.
Lorelai especially loves to hunt and catch the dry pellets. We have played “chase the dry food” many times, but it’s way more fun to use the gun.
At least we had a better response to it than this Sphynx blogger in Finland had with her cats.
Here’s a video of everyone chasing little bits of kibble all over our kitchen.
We have this Victorian-style Christmas cat garland as part of our Jul decorations. It looks great with our kitchen curtains…
…but getting them up there in the first place was quite the challenge.
Mainly because Lorelai insisted with helping Björn with them.
And as you can see…she was very helpful.
Although, I am not sure she was as helpful as she thought she was.
Still…at the end of the day, we got the kitty garland up, so we won? Or something?
For the past three years, Björn and I have hosted the New Year’s party for our friends. This year, due to a number of random circumstances (ours and our friends), we ended up being a party of seven – us and the cats.
Of course, we didn’t know it was going to be just us when we were preparing everything in the run-up to Jul and New Year’s, so I managed to find the largest turkey I could to cook for the party.
At 8.5kg (almost 19lbs!) it’s the largest turkey I have been able to find since I moved to Sweden.
Oh, how I have missed the monster, American super-sized turkeys! Okay, so we’ll have lots of leftovers.
I think we’re going to have lots of help finishing those leftovers, too.
Combined, Alfred, Lorelai and Zak weigh 10.6kg…so the turkey weighs more than any two of them put together.
The size difference didn’t stop them from investigating its edibility.
Zak was especially interested in the big bird.
Rory, without the boys flanking her, did seem a little more intimidated by it.
She is our smallest cat. The last time I weighed them all, she clocked in at 2.6kg.
I think she thought it wasn’t really dead!
She tentatively approached the bird. I’m sure she’ll be a lot less tentative once it comes out of the oven!
I love the randomness of Hipstamatic…
Even though we ended up not having any guests, everyone got dressed up. The boys all wore their leather bow ties.
Rory wore a festive red bow.
Freddy can’t ever keep his tie on straight.
Angel wore her sparkly sequin collar I got ages ago at a Seacoast show. Next year, I want to see if Arja can make the girls feminine festive collars, perhaps with flowers instead of bows.
Regardless, when the turkey came out of the oven it. Was. AWESOME.
Easily the best turkey I have ever cooked. And, ironically, I have been cooking them since 1999.
But yeah, in 20 years of cooking turkeys, this was one of my best.
Someone else thought so, too.
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Of course, his opinion is slightly biased…he's never had a whole cooked turkey before in his life.
Izaak tried so hard to eat off that big turkey…but it was too hot.
Since it was too hot to eat, Zak tried smacking it with his paw instead.
It was still too hot…but it wasn’t too hot when I put it on a tray for everyone to share.
Everyone seemed to enjoy their bits of turkey.
As you could probably tell by the general swarming going on.
Björn and I also did some Incredibooth selfies…enjoy!
In Sweden, the main Christmas celebrating is done on 24 December. After the ritual of Donald Duck, the presents are opened and then dinner is eaten.
The traditional Julbord, which Björn’s mother orchestrated every year to perfection, consists of pickled herring, smoked salmon, hard-boiled eggs with kaviar,
the Julskinka (ham with mustard), boiled potatoes, Janssons Frestelse (a sort of potato casserole with anchovies), cabbage rolls (which I can totally get behind because they’re also a Russian thing), handmade köttbullar (meatballs – ours were moose, lamb and wild boar),
Prinskorv (sort of like hot dogs, but better), a ball of cheese and bread, and a cheesecake.
This was our first year assembling the feast ourselves, and the first we have done at home instead of going to Jönköping. Beer, wine and shots of aquavit are usually drunk before, during, and after the meal, but this year we also added my kickass eggnog with rum, tequila, whiskey and hazelnut liqueur. Because, hey, let’s start our own traditions! (I also introduced the hanging and filling of stockings, which we open on Christmas day, because that was MY tradition. I still have the stocking I was given on my very first Christmas, when I was six months old.
The one Swedish Jul tradition I am not completely onboard with is the Christmas Day dinner of lutfisk served with potatoes and peas. Not that lutfisk is bad…it’s just bland. It’s basically like eating hard-boiled egg whites. Which is great, I love hard-boiled eggs. Just not necessarily for Christmas dinner. And I don’t really like peas all that much, either. We would always eat it at Björn’s mom’s house…but this year, we are having goose and starting our own tradition (which also includes the oranges my mom always used to put in our stockings).
The first Christmas I spent in Sweden, I drew this silly little drawing of a “lute fisk” as a joke for Björn’s brother…and today I got the idea to update it a bit with Abys. And a Singapura. Just a sketch for now, but…Happy Christmas, everyone!
