this holiday by the #s

-

 Well, we made it through the holidays! On the other side of New Year’s, I’m happy to “countdown” a few favorites from the Christmas —> New Year’s season!


4 advent calendars

The Mr got a snack one with flavored nuts and meat sticks. It was good for the first 6 (varied nut mixes) and meh for the latter 6 (the same 3 meat sticks repeated. 


LM got one of her favorite YouTuber’s Christmas advent which had 12 little plushies of some of the characters in holiday outfits. Now, as a Moriah Elizabeth forward family, there was some sadness with missing favorites, but overall a huge win and great for decorating LM’s pink tree. 


I had a 24 day calendar with miniature versions of classic literature each day. It’s super cute - each one has a quote on the back and a loop from the spine so I’m going to make a garland for my office - and I may have squealed when I opened Anne of Green Gables. 


As a family, we also did the Taskmaster Advent calendar which was the highlight of our December. It’s basically a series of tasks/puzzles that you have to solve to figure out what door to open the next day. A new family tradition, we hope!, and has ignited a renewed interest in cold case and escape room tabletop games for us. 


3 good bakes

San had commented on my sourdough adventure and I felt so chuffed because I really am so proud to be baking with Sadie, my sourdough science experiment. For the holiday week, I made sourdough cinnamon rolls and was overly excited both when they actually rose and that they tasted great! 


I also updated my chocolate chip cookie recipe with using brown butter and omitting the potato chips (but adding a bit extra salt) which were great. 


The final bake wasn’t mine, but Lil Momma’s! She took on making the Mr’s favorite peanut butter cookies all by herself (minus the oven). Not only did she get through the recipe twice, but (in her own opinion) improved her “technique” for the New Year’s batch!


2 must see shows

We are still awaiting the Taskmaster New Year’s special and have been filling some pockets of time with Taskmaster Australia’s most recent season. 


We are also Stranger Things fans and we’re grateful our Netflix didn’t crash for the final episode last night.  


1 much-needed vacation

Everything has been a lot. Work is agonizing, my back is all messed up, this estate drags on… Taking these 12 days off was the best thing I could have done. I got some things checked off my list, got some planning done, did some decluttering, and got to spend a whole bunch of time with my little family which recharged my energy (and filled my heart) in a much needed way. 


Any must see (or must eat) things from your week?

Comments

  1. Birchwood PieJanuary 1, 2026 at 12:19 PM

    Happy New Year Lindsay! Also Happy Vacay! Hubs took these two weeks off as well and it's been fun having the whole family home.

    I hear you that the nuts and meat sticks calendar wasn't that great, but I like the concept of it.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

why would we get a dog right now?

-
Why would we get a dog right now? Honestly. Everything is wildly chaotic and I live in a constant state of overwhelm. The news this week has been so horrifying and that’s on top of the sad and awful it’s been. Why would we get a dog right now? We just survived the back to back of the Mr. and my 20th dating anniversary and Lil Momma’s 12 birthday. For our anniversary, we saw it was the year of “metal” and pulled the plug on buying new kitchen appliances (much needed), including our first working dishwasher and a fridge with water (with water!! So fancy!!) that arrive tomorrow. We have to take a cabinet down tonight somehow and then find a place for the fridge contents. I’m sourcing ice and coolers. Don’t even ask me about the ballet barre and turning pad we got LM; no clue where those will be stored. Why would we get a dog right now?  School starts next week. Besides the fact that LM is 5 feet tall now and 12 years old, the idea that she’s in 7th grade seems unfathomable. This yea...
Read more

cast away

-
Image
  I am having one of   those work weeks that just beat you up . Vague asks that do n’t make sense, changing timelines and details, being behind the ball but not having any way to get ahead… Sigh, this is not when I shine. However, I had my personal pity party last night and am trying to let the stress go and do what I can do with what I have when I have it.   For this week, I wanted to ramble away about  Lil Momma’s audition for a special production class  at her musical theater school as it took up most of our energy last weekend:   Lil Momma went in strong on Saturday am and was so ready with her bit of song and good attitude. With both us knowing more than half the auditioners would NOT make it in, I tried to balance my car ride pep talk with real talk ride to the studio, for sure.    When I picked her up, she was devastated, unfortunately, because a bunch of the younger kids and some of the competition team kids had gotten a callback for that ...
Read more

on plans and puppies

-
Image
  I think where we left off was that my little family was getting a puppy in the latter half of September?   I’m allergic to everything, so we had to make some concessions in breed. I so want to be the person to walk into a shelter and save a pup, but we had been waiting for a year for a dog that wouldn’t turn me into a sneezy, hivey mess and that just didn’t happen. So, we researched ethical companies and found one that could help us get a 18-week-old    Bernedoodle from Wisconsin to us here in Massachusetts.  LM has been so excited to dive into puppy prep; she also won the name voting with “Maysie”, named after a character from Seussical the Musical . We got Maysie a crate, worked on ways to separate her and our senior population Morkie, Bella, and dove in to house decluttering while waiting for our transport weekend.  We were supposed to get a call on Saturday letting us know she was dropped off with the transporter. LM and I had seen a play the night be...
Read more