This year we experienced a very different version of Christmas than we are used to.

Instead of seeing all our friends and family and enjoying classic family traditions, we spent this December in Fort Collins. However rather than just be mopey, we decided to take advantage and enjoy all the Christmas things we don’t usually get to do.

Firstly, decorating has to be one of the best bits about Christmas. I love getting all the trimmings up and we made our flat / apartment no exception!

Notice our possible over use of fairy lights (although can one ever have too many?…)

We also got a Noble Fir Christmas tree – notice a sensible height for the room. Unfortunately we couldn’t find a fairy for the top, but we did manage a small squirrel and our lucky Shinto cats.

Thanks to the wonders of Amazon and varying success of international posting, we got a lovely bunch of presents and cards – including several warming aids (jackets, socks, hats, gloves and long johns) so thanks for those (it has been between -2 and -18oC since Christmas day). Perhaps the most unusual and innovative was a Cat calendar featuring our friend Rachel’s Cat Cooper dressed up in a series of movie poses.

We wanted to go out on Christmas Eve but weren’t sure where to eat or go. But, having walked passed the “English pub” (the Crown Pub) maybe 10 times and laughed at how stupid it would be to go there and not explore new places instead… we went on Christmas Eve. It was actually really nice and had pictures of the London Underground on the wall and served ‘pub chips’ (English oven chips), although hilariously our waiter couldn’t understand our accents at all.

Two things we would not normally be allowed to do on Christmas would be to cook our own meal and spend the day in a dressing gown. We could not find crackers, Yorkshire puds or stuffing, but we did have roast chicken, all the veg (including Brussels sprouts), sweet roast potato and my attempt at homemade gravy (I still have NO IDEA how to make homemade gravy, is it black magic? Do you have to summon it? Is this just something only mums know? Pffft!)

We also got to watch Love Actually and Die Hard – two fantastic Christmas films. In fact, the only bit of Christmas that did not go to plan is that our fish – “fish” was found floating on the top on the morning of the 23^rd (/ gone to meet his maker / he is an x-fish / ad infinium). We plan to get our remaining fish – “chips” some friends after the holidays and come up with new matching names…

But not wishing to end on a sour note and wanting to make everyone across the sea jealous, we did have a white Christmas (about 1 inch in the afternoon, plus 2 foot already on the ground) and as proof:

Rob and Cat x

PS: the title is still my favourite Christmas song ever. Here is a link to it, but be warned; it’s pretty loud!