Prepping for Christmas, and providing chemo counsel

It’s dark in the Klondike, with the sun scheduled to rise at a minute before noon today, and then set at 4:24pm Yukon time (MST).

I’m working hard on my seasonal hibernation, aiming to leave the house only for parcel pick up runs to the post office, and dog walks in the evening.

I had this amazing Snoopy and Charlie Brown Christmas shower curtain in my Amazon cart for over a year and finally made it mine:

Last week my friend Tarie asked if I wanted to join her at the Tr’ondek Hwech’in Farm for their first Christmas event. I broke my strict hibernation protocol and drove out of town in the dark to pick her up.

Crafting and Christmas bazaars are a big deal here, and have had a huge hit due to the health protocols for Covid-19. The farm decided to do something about it, and used all these little canvas tents they have in place for summer farm worker accommodations, and let vendors take them over. It was cold along the Klondike River, and with the new mandatory mask rule in place, we all had surely ineffective, wet soggy masks on outside, and fogged glasses.

I met some new people that I have no idea what they look like, so I look forward to being introduced to them again. And I bought this most amazing Sasquatch ornament!

Some of the tents were decorated so nicely. Only a few people were allowed in at once, for health protocol reasons, so there was plenty of time to stand in a line staring at each one 😀

And look, their chickens were wearing Santa hats!

I also bought some Christmas cookies and a bag of doggie snacks for Hank. And some homemade raspberry jam that is almost gone already. It’s great!!

On our evening dog walks, I’m usually trailing Jeff and Hank by a block as I take pictures of buildings in the dark, and catch Pokemon (just hit level 39 last night!)

The iPhone makes it so easy to take nice winter pictures in the dark without having to lug around my “real” camera and tripod.

OH! And last Saturday I got to babysit!! Jeff was teaching a course that young baby Cerys’ mother was attending, so I got to babysit at the museum. We took a selfie:

We watched some Christmas movie on my iPad and played with toys. Mostly she was pretty grumpy she missed her morning nap but we got through it (okay she cried enough to pull her Mom from the course to soothe her a bunch of times). She slept for about 20 minutes in my arms. That was sweet. I admit to propping my arms on a table though. Babies get heavy 😀

I mentioned Chemo in the title. I’ve been revisiting my blog posts from my chemo rounds in 2018 and 2019. My mom was recently diagnosed with breast cancer and had her first dose of chemo yesterday. I’ve been trying to pass along tips and expectations to help her through it. She’s got a great cancer centre that is covering every need and treating her well. It’s a nasty aggressive one, but she quickly had a lumpectomy to get rid of it and was able to start chemo quite quickly to make sure it doesn’t return. She’s staying with my sister’s family and gets to play with her granddaughter Selinah ANY TIME SHE WANTS! Hardly fair.

Jeff decorated our house with lights, AND installed a hunting themed snowman on the lawn that has a shotgun. He is so giddy about this thing! I wonder how many people we offended. Not enough I guess, since our house has a star on the map of Christmas lights for a voting thing that is happing this week.

Despite my attempts at hibernation, I also wasn’t going to miss a night out for wings and drinks with friends this week. We have a mandatory mask order now after a few cases in Whitehorse and a couple here, but you can take off your masks once you are seated in the restaurant (there is no science here). We went out twice in the last week and it feels so good to laugh with friends and support our local establishments.

First we had Hank and his brother Griff our for a run in the ball park. Since we didn’t change our clocks here this winter, there is now this dusky period around 5pm instead of the pitch black it was at 5pm in their first couple of years in December.

Last night we had light snow and no wind, so the fine snow was piling up on every twig and branch. Really pretty in the dark, believe it or not! Here are a few more pictures.

So ridiculous that I didn’t notice my shadow in that one! ^

That’s all for now! If you have a moment, leave a message for my Mom in the comments and I’ll make sure she sees them!