Here’s to a new year

– Everything is an Adventure: Column by Julia Wolf –

And, just like that, it’s 2023. My year ended with a pretty laid back Christmas and New Year’s weekends, and another Christmas celebration coming up in January, to look forward to.

In true Wolf household fashion, most of the Christmas gifts got distributed well before Christmas came around, so we could start getting use out of the items right away. All of us have already gotten great use out of the early gifts, too.

I still had a few nice surprises waiting for me under the tree – a 2023 state park sticker, a new air mattress for when I have visitors, a photo book from a trip and an electric tea kettle.

The cats thoroughly enjoyed helping us unwrap presents, because the paper crinkles and makes noise. They couldn’t help but walk over the paper every time we looked the other direction. I usually try to save some of the bigger pieces of wrapping paper and did manage to spare a few this year, but one or two nice pieces fell victim to a cat attack.

Then, there were the boxes. It is apparently a very fun kitty cat game to lay inside a big box and thrash around. I’m not sure what the goal of the game was. It could have been catching the box flaps or chasing shadows, but it could also just be the cats making as much noise as possible. Dinner and a show.

The entertainment was honestly right up there with the year the cat ran back and forth underneath the tree skirt, while we poked at the tree skirt from above, so she had something to chase.

We also played multiple rounds of guess the Christmas cookie. The game consisted of other people giving us trays of cookies for gifts and then us sitting around the kitchen table snacking on them. You never know when the cinnamon swirl cookie is actually raisin, the fudge has an unexpected kick of peppermint or the chocolate-covered crispy rice cereal treats are actually chocolate-covered almond mounds.

Everything was delicious and went pretty well with the grasshoppers we were drinking. A lot of the cookies were prettier, and more work, than anything I will ever have the motivation to make myself.

Other than a couple of trips to church, that was about all we did.

My New Year’s weekend was pretty easy-going, too.

I visited with my grandma for an evening and we ended up watching a movie. My little dog came along for the visit, because she loves grandma’s house. After she begged for treats, she must have decided she was ready to go home by the rest of her people. She made herself known and very annoying the rest of the night.

Upon going home, she made one loop around the house to discover the rest of her people weren’t home either, then laid down and slept. What a dork of a dog.

My family also made a trip into town, to celebrate my brother’s birthday a little bit early. We went out to eat and got some shopping done. I ended the weekend watching football and pestering the animals. Overall, it was a pretty great weekend.

I hope everyone else’s holidays went well, and you have a happy and healthy New Year.