Wrapping up Christmas 2019

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A quick recap of our Christmas activities for memory-keeping purposes. Brian, the kids and I spent Christmas morning at home then joined Liz, my parents and grandparents for the rest of the day. We played a lot of Nertz and did a lot of snacking. Becky, William, and Xavier arrived the day after Christmas and with a house full of 3 middle schoolers and 1 high school boy, you can imagine the noise level.

I'm calling Christmas 2019 the year of the Bombas (remember when I used to name Christmas every year?). Not only did I purchase Bombas socks for Brian, Camden, William, and Xavier (and myself), but Liz bought Bombas socks for the girls as her favorite item of 2019. 

BTW, buying our favorite things for mom and sisters is still one of my favorite Christmas traditions. We've done this for 3 years. Gifts (both giving and receiving) is my love language so it's a perfect tradition in my opinion. This year I purchased Victoria Emerson wrap bracelets and Korean face masks for everyone; Liz handed out Bombas socks and caramel popcorn; Becky gifted us 5-year one line a day journals, and Mom gave espresso powder (have you ever tried to buy that stuff in a grocery store?) and cute kitchen labels.

My favorite items we gifted the kids were tickets to see JohnnySwim and Lauren Daigle in concert and 5-year Question/Answer journals for each of them. I've tried to emphasize how they will be glad they put forth the effort in 5 years but it's hard to imagine at 13 and 16. I also just want to note how thankful my kids are for gifts in general. We've always kept Christmas simple in terms of gifts, and the result is that they are a grateful bunch and I love it.


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A few of my favorite snacks this year included Twice Baked Shortbread and chocolate peanut clusters. Both recipes are new to us this year, but now have a place on the permanent holiday list of goodies. Of course, homemade chex mix is always on the menu (I will not admit how many batches of this we went through in December). I repeated the cheese and charcuterie board twice which means we have had countless lunches consisting of fruit, veggies, cheese and crackers. A few favorites are brie with fig butter and lemon ricotta on rosemary crackers. Seriously, I just want to eat like this for the entire year! Who says we only get the good stuff in December?

Just a few more memories:
  • singing Christmas carols; hearing my grandpa sing along with the kids is always precious
  • my parents wrote each of us a letter and I will treasure it always
  • the new Little Women movie was just lovely; we've all tried to come up with a more apt description but it's just lovely (the girls saw Little Women while the boys went to Star Wars)
  • Xavier drooling (literally)
  • the sounds of giggles and wrestling (when the boys finally let in Rory and Addison into their fun, they all had the best time) 
  • I continued to feel well, nearly almost normal during this Christmas break, and I could not be more thankful
  • All the time spent with Becky; it's hard to face that I won't see her again until summer
Really the only downside to this year's Christmas break was that I had serious trouble sleeping which made the first couple hours of my day nearly impossible. But feeling well made up for it, truly.

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And that's a wrap. I'm already counting down the days until Christmas 2020; it's my favorite time of year.

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