Christmas Memories

Christmas Memories 2010 from AnnMarie Rudstrom on Vimeo.

Merry Christmas

Love,

The Rudstroms

We Traveled South of the Tree Line For This

 This being the first time we have had a real Christmas tree, we were lacking a tree stand.  C.O. got resourceful and made our stand from an old cable spool.  We're unsure if one would call this recycling or upcycling as we are not up on our trendy speak around here.

 Harold is at the perfect age for decorating.  He carefully analyzes each ornament before placing it on the tree.  I realize, sadly, that one day he will not be quite so enthused about such things.  So for now, I will appreciate these moments.

 

Don't you love how children decorate the tree?  

You can't see them all here, but there are six ornaments all hanging on one branch.

Leave it to my mother to find an Eskimo nativity set.  (Love you mom!)

So many ornaments tell a story.  This angel brings back memories of a Russian missionary who flew to Brevig Mission to sell trinkets and raise money.  The poor thing barely spoke a lick of English.  She came around carrying a binder with a written description of why she was raising money.  She was all alone, didn't have a place to stay and was being followed by a pack of curious children.  I don't know who put her up to this but they apparently didn't realize her trip could in no way be profitable.  We took pity on her and bought an ornament.

Bring on the Christmas season!

~AnnMarie

Amongst the Trees

 

This Thanksgiving was spent in Elim, Alaska with my brother John.  We were thankful to have made the two flights from Brevig to Nome and Nome to Elim in time for Thanksgiving festivities and some quality time with Johnny.  

Thanksgiving morning, we took some time to hike around town in search of some good sledding hills.  We found a couple good spots and had some pretty exciting rides.  Sledding: the perfect pre-dinner activity.

As in Brevig, Elim hosts a village-wide feast in the school gymnasium.  It reminded me a lot of Brevig feasts minus the reindeer stew, personally one of my favorites.  However, Elim amazingly had huge containers of watermelon, a perfect treat for ending the traditional Thanksgiving meal.  I'm not a huge fan of pie as desert, pie is better left for breakfast in my opinion.  Watermelon however, was very light and refreshing.  The feast experience was very nice and we were able to chat with a few folks from around town that we have met over the years. 

Friday, shortly after sunrise (around noon), we went for a snow machine ride through the woods.  As you can see, the major difference between Brevig and Elim is TREES!  How exciting to be in the forest, if only for a little while.  Part of our ride was actually on the official Iditarod trail.  C.O. and I have a dream of one day taking our children on a snowmobile trip from Nome to Anchorage along this very trail.  That's a long way off however as it is probably best if we wait until their teenage years for such a journey.

 The main goal of our outing was to find a Christmas tree for our home this holiday season.  What a treat it will be, to have a real pine tree to decorate (and smell)!  We will be taking our Christmas tree wrapped up in a tarp as luggage tomorrow on the plane.  That will be a first for me.

Harold convinced us that he needed a smaller tree of his own.

 We obliged.

 

There's about 40 rings there.
Though the woods are reminiscent of Minnesota,
the trees here have to work a lot harder at survival.

Happy Belated Thanksgiving!

~AnnMarie