Hello friends! I hope you had a wonderful week. It’s been a lovely blur between Christmas and New Years, and I’ve enjoyed the whole time with the crew. We enjoyed late mornings, hikes, shopping, nails, reading and movies. I’m definitely not looking forward to going back to school, especially the early morning race and homework hours.
I hope my friends who celebrated Christmas this week had a great holiday. My dad and stepmom were out of town – my stepgrandma passed away. She was so kind and wonderful, and I am thankful that we were blessed to have her in our lives. We had a relaxed Christmas Eve at home with Chinese takeout and Christmas Chronicles, and I met with the madre for midnight. Lights out for Silent night and it was the perfect way to start the holiday.
The girls were up early for Santa gifts and stockings, and then the family came over for family gifts, tamales, beans, egg casserole, Cinnamon rollsand the famous pilot’s egg.
We spent the morning together, drinking coffee and eggnog and exchanging gifts,
and everyone went home to relax for a few hours.
We took a walk and left cookies for our neighbors. — I bake for two weeks in December and freeze everything. That way, it’s stress-free and we have a great selection of neighbor goodies and holiday cookie trays. These cookies, these cookies and mint bark is always on the list.
Then we had 20 people for Christmas dinner and it was everything.
Appetizers were this giant cheese board:
(plus a smaller board I put on one of the snack tables)
Artichoke dip and crackers
ALL the sweets (bourbon pecan pie, pear pie brought by a friend, yule log, various coffee cakes and cookies)
and for dinner, we smoked two large organic turkeys, two giant grass-fed beef tenderloins, made horseradish sauce, gravy, asparagus, salad, and mandre brought cheese fries. The meat was all from Butcher shop and cooked perfectly in the Traeger.
The hit of the night was the matches!! I got this idea from a friends Christmas party: Saran Wrap Ball! You roll a bunch of goodies into a ball and then one person unrolls it while the person next to them rolls two dice (die? I don’t know this stuff). When that person doubles, the timer stops and the ball goes to the next person. If the person uncorks a mini bottle of alcohol, it is an option for them to take a shot (or give the mini bottle to another willing adult to take the bottle for them).
Here are some of the goodies I wrapped in the ball:
and the final product:
It was a day full of fun times, good food and great gifts, and as always, my favorite part is being with so many people we love so much at the same time. I’m so sorry the holidays are over!!
It’s time for the weekly Friday Faves party, but I’ve got just a few for you:
– Wonka. Was it that good? much better than i expected. Hugh Grant is a 10/10 Oompa Loompa.
– This retention cleaner. I didn’t want to spend $100 on one Zimabut it was found the one with better reviews and it was only $40. Made my Invisalign look brand new.
– Join us for it Challenge for healthy habits! All the details are here. I can’t wait to do this with you.
– THE Organifi Shilajit gummies are SO good – I can do a post on them if you want. You can check them out here and this link will automatically apply the code FITNESSISTA for 20% off.
I wish you a happy new year and see you soon!
xo
