Christmas Recap

Did you have a lovely Christmas? I hope you did. 

We spent time with family and on our land, and relaxed indoors with good food and drink. It's the first year that we -comfortably- (without much scrambling or chaos) made it to both Christmas Eve and Christmas Day masses, and that was such a joy.

Foods:

Some of our holiday food highlights this year aside from the usual favorites were sautéed garlic string beans (just sauté in a pan with plenty of butter, dried onion, and garlic, add a splash of lemon juice towards the end), my husband's homemade ice cream (which I will have him do a recipe post on), and flambéed calvados pears. We had these a couple times this fall, including for Thanksgiving, and here is a video of my husband nearly burning our house down as he made them:

Gifts:

We received so many wonderful gifts this year. A few favorites are this babyliss hair straightener, motorized trains that work on any wooden train track, this Melissa and Doug ice cream shop, and this cozy Columbia fleece.

This year seemed like the year of the Matching Christmas Pajamas's to me, at least on social media. Did it seem that way to you? I have to say, though I looove the matching jammies for the kids I don't see myself joining in on that trend. It is certainly cute to see my friends do though.

We leave our tree up as long as it doesn't look like a terrible fire hazard, and decorations until about Epiphany, or realistically a bit longer since I've always got (what seems like) more important priorities than un-decorating.

A note on the New Year:

If you're interested in goal setting, I highly recommend checking out Crystal Paine. She has a blog called Money Saving Mom, and a book called Say Goodbye To Survival Mode both of which are excellent and have tips that have helped me so much in both setting and accomplishing goals.

I tried a few different word of the year generators as well as thinking of my own. I got "rest" the first time, "new" the second time, and my word for myself was "rejuvenate". This is my favorite word of the year generator, by Jennifer Fulwiler.

My saint of the year was Saint John Vianney, patron of priests and confessors. This is exciting and interesting to me, especially since St John Vianney's heart was traveling around the US. It would be really amazing to get a chance to visit and venerate this holy relic.

I hope you all enjoy the rest of your Christmastide and have a fantastic transition to the New Year

<3
Michelle