Friday Faves 12.29 + Christmas recap

Hello pals! I hope you’ve had a beautiful week. It’s been a beautiful blur between Christmas and New Years, and I’ve loved all of this time with the crew. We’ve loved sluggish mornings, hikes, procuring, nails, studying, and films. I’m positively not trying ahead to highschool returning, particularly the early morning scramble and hours of homework.

I hope that my pals who celebrated Christmas this week had a gorgeous vacation. My dad and stepmom have been out of city – my step-grandmother handed away. She was so type and fantastic, and I’m grateful we have been blessed to have her in our lives. We had a low-key Christmas Eve at residence with Chinese language takeout and Christmas Chronicles, and I met up with madre for midnight mass. They turned the lights down for Silent Evening and it was the right technique to begin the vacation.

The women have been up vibrant and early for Santa’a presents and stockings, after which the household came to visit for household presents, tamales, beans, egg casserole, cinnamon rolls, and the Pilot’s well-known egg nog.

We spent the morning collectively, consuming espresso and eggnog, and exchanging presents,

and everybody went residence to relax for a number of hours.

We took a stroll and dropped off cookies to our neighbors. — I bake for 2 weeks in December and freeze every thing. This fashion, it’’s not disturbing and we have now a giant assortment of goodies for neighbors and vacation cookie trays. These cookies, these cookies, and peppermint bark are at all times on the listing.

Then, we had 20 individuals over for Christmas dinner and it.was.every thing.

Appetizers have been this big cheese board:

(plus a smaller board I positioned on one of many tables for snacking)

Artichoke dip and crackers

ALL the sweets (chocolate bourbon pecan pie, pear pie {that a} pal introduced over, yuletide log, completely different espresso truffles and cookies)

and for dinner, we smoked two massive natural turkeys, two big grass-fed beef tenderloins, made horseradish sauce, gravy, asparagus, salad, and madre introduced over tacky potatoes. The meat was all from ButcherBox and cooked completely on the Traeger.

The hit of the night time was the video games!! I acquired this concept from a pals’ Christmas celebration: Saran Wrap Ball! You wrap a ton of goodies right into a ball, after which one individual unwraps it whereas the individual subsequent to them rolls two cube (die? I don’t know these items). When that individual hits doubles, the timer stops, and the ball goes to the following individual. If the individual unwraps a mini bottle of alcohol, it’s an possibility for them to take a shot (or hand the mini bottle to a different prepared grownup to take the shot for them).

Listed below are a number of the goodies I wrapped into the ball:

and the completed product:

It was a day filled with enjoyable occasions, good meals, and beautiful presents, and as at all times, my favourite half is being with so many individuals we love a lot, on the identical time. I’m so unhappy the vacations are over!!

It’s time for the weekly Friday Faves celebration, however I solely have a number of for ya:

– Wonka. It was SO good; means higher than I anticipated. Hugh Grant is a ten/10 Oompa Loompa.

– This retainer cleaner. I didn’t wish to spend $100 on a Zima, however discovered this one with better reviews and it was solely $40. It made my Invisalign look model new.

– Be a part of us for the Healthy Habits Challenge! All the main points are right here. I can’t wait to do that with you.

– The Organifi Shilajit gummies are SO good – I can do a publish on them for those who’d like. You can check them out here and that hyperlink will auto-apply the code FITNESSISTA for 20% off.

Sending you needs for a Glad New 12 months and I’ll see ya quickly!
xo