December Loves | A Month of Faves 2016

Remember when he was just a baby???

Thu. | Dec. 22 – I Love … December #AMonthofFaves2016 – Favorite holiday festivities, favorite ornaments, home decor, places to go, holiday drinks, holiday eats, holiday themed reads

I have a love/hate relationship with December. It’s the darkest month, it’s cold, it’s busy—but for all of that, it is a time to huddle up in the evenings and a time to think over the previous year and ponder the coming year. My kind of December involves mostly wearing pants of some kind but also short-sleeved shirts; a temperature that’s mild with maybe a couple of cooler nights here and there. I actually prefer it to be overcast on Christmas if it isn’t going to be snowing (snow is only when I’m in DFW, elsewhere—Houston or Florida—it is/was never the case) because overcast and a slightly cool temperature makes the day cozier and more fitting for lounging around all day in pyjamas and stuffing ourselves with food. Otherwise 50s at night and 60s or 70s in the day is my ideal December weather.

Holiday festivities are becoming more fun as Forest is now becoming a kid who can understand it all so I am working to incorporate some more traditions. We bought a Christmas tree once or twice when lived in Melbourne, FL back in 2002-2004 but we never bought one again until 2014 and we had Forest. There are several Christmas tree farms in the greater Houston area and one is just a few miles from our house. Our custom for 2014 and 2015 was to go and cut down our own from the farm but this year the weekends were wonky with bad weather the first weekend in December and a trip out of town the second weekend. Leaving it any later wouldn’t have been nearly as nice to enjoy the tree for the holidays. So, this year Chris bought one from Lowe’s and that’s what we had for the year.

My mom is the holiday treat maker in the family and usually busts out a variety of waist expanding goodies: puppy chow, toffee, cookies (sometimes), caramel, peanut butter balls (sometimes), are among her usual baked treats at Christmas. This year I made cut-out sugar cookies with Forest and we had a lot of fun! He likes Play-Doh and I think he was under the impression it was kind of like that but he didn’t quite use the cookie cutters all that well so it was mostly a watch-mom-do-it affair. It was fun, though!

As for other foodstuffs at the holidays Christmas always seems to be the holiday for finger foods with maybe a main dish of ham and a few sides. I’m thinking of doing something similar this year—have the ham and a bunch of little finger foods. I’m a fan of the ham and mustard crescent roll pinwheels, sausage and cheese balls, Rotel dip, and maybe some King’s Hawaiian bread paired with the ham. There might need to be a veggie in there.

As for what our house looks like this year, we keep the Christmas tree upstairs in the family room/play room because that’s where we have the space so most of the decorations are upstairs. Chris bought fake greenery and lights for the staircase and that makes it look a little more decorated downstairs. I keep a few other decorations downstairs but for the most part it is pretty sparse downstairs. One of these years we will get our act together and put some lights up on the fence out by the right-of-way and maybe do something down on the dock over the pond.

I did a little digging in my archives and found this post from 2009 with some thoughts about Christmas at that point in my life. 2009 seems like yesterday but it’s now 7 years ago.

How about you? What are some traditions or favorites for December and the holidays that you have?