December-ing
2018 is almost over. How is that possible?
This is the first December we’ve truly celebrated advent, after so many years of wanting to make it a yearly practice. I also finished my Christmas shopping a solid week before Christmas, which is really saying something. We stretched out the holiday season as long as possible, and it was a sweet time. Here are some things I’ve been engaging in this December…what about you?
Reading…
Well, I still haven’t finished many of the books from my November list. Here’s my current reading list…
All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr
Almost Everything: Notes on Hope by Anne Lamott
Boundaries With Kids by Henry Cloud & John Townsend
Book Girl by Sarah Clarkson
The Complete Guide to Fasting by Jason Fung
Watching…
Here are some favorite Christmas movies we watched this month - Emmet Otter’s Jugband Christmas (if you know about this movie, we can be friends), Holiday Inn, White Christmas, It’s A Wonderful Life, All I Want for Christmas, Home Alone, Miracle on 34th Street (new one), Elf.
My life is so complete since they put Bob Ross on Netflix. Both my girls watch it too, enamored. Right after an episode is over, someone inevitably asks, “Oh pleaaaaase can we watch him paint just one more winter landscape?” We’re an artistic family, we can’t help it.
Mary Poppins Returns. We had a little family fun night a few days before Christmas and surprised our girls with dinner and a movie. Any Mary Poppins fan was understandably nervous at how the sequel would hold up, but I had a permagrin the entire time. It was delightful. The ending gave me the same wonderful, buoyant feeling as at the end of the original. So many creative parallels & cameos in the story as well. Dying to see it again!
Listening…
I loved the Advent playlist from Tsh Oxenreider’s Simple Advent Guide.
The Mary Poppins Returns soundtrack. Again, delightful.
Andy Gullahorn’s album, Everything As It Should Be. The song “Different Now” could be my own words. I love this whole album.
Cooking…
Lots of dips:
Minimalist Baker’s Simple Baba Ganoush.
My favorite beet hummus.
The Only Hummus You’ll Ever Need from Nutrition Stripped by McKel Hill.
Pioneer Woman’s four-layer chocolate cake recipe with peppermint cream cheese frosting. This is my go-to chocolate cake recipe, and it always turns out so moist and fluffy. For the frosting, I doubled the recipe and added 2 tsp organic peppermint extract instead of vanilla.
Discovering…
How much I love power tools. I made the above advent candleholder using some salvaged driftwood and a spade drill bit, and now I want to make holes in everything. I’ve always left the drilling for my husband (translation: begged him to fix things for me) but there’s so much freedom and fun in learning to do it myself.
How much I love and need winter. Maybe it’s just a break from bugs and sweat and a chance to have smooth hair for a change. But the more I live by the seasons, the more I realize how much I need them. There’s absolutely a beauty to winter that I don’t want to miss.
Seeing…
My home through different eyes since reading Cozy Minimalist Home by Myquillyn Smith last month. We did a huge purge in my girls’ room, and there’s breathing room now, with much more space for doing the things they actually love: playing dolls and Lego’s and crafting. I’m about to tackle the mud room next, which is currently piled up with coats and dirty farm boots and completelydrivingmeinsane. The biggest thing I took away from that book is that I don’t have to wait for things to be perfect in my home to love my space now. There are plenty of things I can do with limited funds to make each room one we truly love being in.
What did your December look like? Anything to share? I’d love to hear!
