We Illuminate…
Merry Christmas:) This past week has been something of a roller coaster. Christmas with the family was… rather interesting to say the least. I took a train over the Chelan which is always a lot of fun. I’ve loved trains since i was a child. In fact i think my first Halloween costume that i can remember may in fact have been a train conductor costume… complete with wearable train to go with it… !
View on the way to the house
View of the front yard before Christmas!!
Christmas at my parents house in Chelan always reminds me of the ideal American Christmas… or at least how it should look. My mother really takes decorations and the holiday spirit to a new level… and nothing feels like the holiday more to me than after everyone has gone to bed turning the lights down low and curling up in a big chair next to the roaring fire… with a book and a mug of cider and watching the snow fall outside the window.
Some of the ‘holiday spread’…
Ahh… I love curling up in front of that fire…
Apparently this happened just a few weeks before i arrived…
Of course there were plenty of other things to do… Holiday shopping with my mom and niece, plenty of snow shoveling and plowing with my dad, and of course the enormous holiday party… My mother has always been a terrific hostess, even if she does get herself worked into a frenzy. I was also pleasantly surprise to learn that my dad is a scotch aficionado! So he and i shared a couple of fingers of scotch together and they managed to surprise me with a terrific bottle for myself as a present… I mean… a truly terrific scotch. In fact, here are some comments on it: CRAGGANMORE SINGLE MALT SCOTCH 12 YEAR: Nose: Silky, elegant and rich: currant bushes, sweet fruits, honey, cream, leather, rich malt, chestnut. Water makes it smokier. Fruity with a savoury edge.
Palate: Lovely weight: honey, blackberry, cooked fruits, walnut, dried apricot. A mid- to back-palate whisky which is robust, yet silky; meaty but elegant. The word is complex.
Finish: Tingle of heathery smoke binding it together.
Now I don’t know how much of this i go in for. I don’t have anywhere near the nose or palate as the people who get paid to interpret these things… One of the reasons i enjoy scotch so much is that it truly can be experienced on a number of different levels, the flavors and aromas that speak to the region its from, how it was created, its history and practice. Even more so than wine, i feel, it can be experienced in a sip of fine scotch…
The Cragganmore has definite hints of fruit with a bit of what reminded me of old antique wood furniture. And the after taste reminded me of wood smoke on a winter day in England as a child with hints of peat that stayed with me for hours after…
Truly the best Christmas present i have received in a good long while. So all in all a pretty great Christmas. Sadly though some of the usual family drama managed to worm its way into the holiday spirit and upset the balance… I ended up heading back to Seattle a little earlier than i had originally intended… but thats neither here nor there…
I hope everyone else had as terrific a holiday as I did 
Truly to early for me… But at least i have the decency to coordinate…. right?
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