Dee Sem Ber

December has started, so we're in full Christmas mode, and there have been various holiday activities. I'm paring down my expectations this year—I don't have to do all the things, because there's plenty already.

On Monday, the City of North Salt Lake hosted a winter lights festival where they were "unveiling" a new mural on a building that is apparently a historic railroad building, which I didn't know. But they weren't actually "unveiling" it, just turning the lights on. We all gathered on a corner across from the building and kitty-corner from the city offices. The corner is where Hatch Park is currently being remodeled, so it's just surrounded by a fence. They had some people speaking, but it was very hard to hear on their quiet speakers. It felt pretty sad that we had this community event on a construction lot at a busy four-way stop at rush hour. That is our "downtown." We really are a bedroom community. There are summertime events at Legacy Park, which are more enjoyable, but they have to bring food trucks and vendors for those events.

At city hall, they also gave out scones, which was a nice Utah thing, and there were people singing carols, and Santa and Mrs. Claus arrived on a firetruck. But part of the time, they were playing a Christmas playlist with a disproportionate amount of Pentatonix. Ugh, why do people love that group? I find them a tad obnoxious.

On Tuesday, my work had our holiday lunch at Loveland Living Planet Aquarium, so we got to tour it. I don't think I'd been there since 2014, so it was fun to go back. I think it's nicer than Hogle Zoo. It is pricey, so I was glad that work paid for me to be there, but it's so cool that I can see why it's expensive. One of my colleagues is married to a guy who works there, so he showed us the new Asian exhibit that's under construction. In the public part of the museum, I also got to see the employees interacting with the penguins, sloth, and leopard.

As I was standing near the penguins with some colleagues while wearing my reindeer shirt, we got on the topic of my pet peeve about Christmas penguins. Puffins are much more suitable for Christmas! So imagine my surprise when I got on Facebook this morning and saw this post (which I had to remove a swear from). I have been saying this for years (I think even decades).

But I'm not autistic, at least as far as I know

After the aquarium, I wanted to go over to Brooker's Founding Flavors, the quirky ice cream shop themed after the American Revolution, which has a location in Draper. They often have seasonal flavors, but I was dismayed they didn't really have Christmas flavors. Even though Thanksgiving is over, I wanted to try Priscilla Alden's Caramel Cornucopia, because it's aligned with my very niche interests; I got the coconut-flavored Valley Forge Shoe Leather, because it looked like a temporary flavor that aligned with a wintry theme, but apparently it's a year-round flavor; and "Candlelight Cookies and Cream" sounded Christmassy, but it was made with Halloween Oreos, because it was originally themed around the Headless Horseman. The employee didn't understand what I asked for, so I ended up with two ice cream cones. OK, I guess?

Candlelight Cookies and Cream and Caramel Cornucopia

Valley Forge Shoe Leather

On Wednesday, I made gingerbread cranberry apple crisp. I invented the topping (recipe in this blog post), and I love it, but I picked the apples from our own tree in October, and they're not the greatest apples.

Because we have had light snow showers this week, I didn't do any running, and I went swimming on Wednesday and Thursday. So I got to wear my Christmas jammers.

As I was working from home on Friday, it was lightly snowing. I was amused when the snow on our deer fence slid so that it was upside down.

In the evening, I attended my home ward's Christmas party, even though I go to a singles ward. It's an older building, and currently there's only one ward that meets there, so the Church is going to sell it. So I always wonder if it will be the last time I go there. It's sad, because I have so many memories of the building, ever since I was in nursery. It's also the only LDS meetinghouse I know of with three levels (though the top level is only a classroom and closets).

Since I spend so much time trail running during the spring/summer/fall months, I feel like I should do more biking when the trails are snowed over / muddy, so yesterday I went on a bike ride. I only went six miles, but it was very steep, to the top of the Summerwood neighborhood. I'm proud of myself that I can do something that hard, even though I'm not great at biking. But I didn't go to the top of the road that goes to the trailhead, because I didn't trust my biking skills to avoid the snowy patches on a steep, curved road.