Well, I’ve been plugging along at my 12 Days of Christmas Challenge, inspired by Kae. The first several days were… interesting… but the next three days perked up a little.
Tuesday- The activity for today was more cookie baking! I made my annual orange-chocolate chip biscotti…
They came out great, and I was able to include some with my daughter’s guitar teacher’s present. But when I looked back on my original post, I noticed I said I was also going to make the dough for gingerbread cookies and sugar cookies. Oops.
Wednesday- Long run with a Christmas playlist! This was GREAT. The weather was amazing (60s, cloudy, breezy) and my playlist was fun. The only weird glitch was that I hurt my ARM. Yes, I managed to injure my arm while running- this is a new one. More on that coming up in the Weekly Rundown. But overall I considered it a success.
Thursday-Wrap Christmas presents with kids while watching Christmas movies. Well- we watched an old favorite from when my daughter was little, the Curious George Christmas Movie. And we wrapped the presents we had, which wasn’t a lot. It turns out that their presents to each other and to my husband and me, are all arriving tomorrow and Saturday.
Coming up: Friday- By an amazing twist of fate, my daughter AND son will be out of the house for a few hours this evening, so I’m going to finish wrapping the Santa presents! The activity for this day was to watch a Christmas movie I’ve never seen so I’ll see if my husband wants to watch Love, Actually with me. And, I DEFINITELY have to make the dough for the cutout cookies this day.
That leaves Festivus and Christmas Eve, and those days a chock-full of activities. Oh, I want time to slow down! I love the days leading up to Christmas so much, and I don’t want it to be over.
How’s your Christmas prep going?
Have you made cookies this week? Are you done wrapping presents?
Header photo by Deidre Schlabs on Unsplash
19 Responses
I am so glad your Christmas challenge is going more smoothly! You really know how to inject a lot of Christmas joy into a few days! So sorry to hear about your arm though. What the heck?!
I still have a few things left to accomplish but it all seems doable!
Yes, everything is doable! I have to remind myself that every year, everything gets done.
Love Actually is my all time favorite.
It’s an oldie but goody.
Enjoy.
Ha ha, I didn’t like it! But I may not have given it enough of a chance. My husband liked it!
Merry Christmas Jenny! My son is coming home today for a couple of weeks, so we will all watch Christmas Vacation. I’m also baking sugar cookies, and that will be the end of my holiday baking. Saturday we are having an open house party, then Christmas dinner is here, then we get houseguests next week over New Year’s. Lots of festivity!
Have the best holiday, see you on the other side. xo
Nicole, it all sounds amazing! Have a wonderful holiday!
Runners know so well that all things are possible, which means that I’m dying to hear how you hurt your arm. The closest I’ve ever come to this is a million years ago I strained my shoulder by running on the track at the gym. It was something about the oval shape of the track that set me up for this.
I think I’m going to talk the hubs into watching Christmas Vacation and Elf. I’ve only seen CV once. Neither of us have seen Elf and Will Ferrell is iffy for us, but hubs mentioned it and I think it’s time for us to have this experience.
My baking plans are up in the air. One of my friends posted a picture of an epic black forest cake that she got at Costco, so if I can get that it would be a special thing to have for Christmas and I really don’t need to bake. But is it even Christmas if I don’t bake and will Costco have the cake in stock? We’ve got a smaller crowd so there is a limit on how many desserts we need, even with teenagers. But wait there’s more since we have a COVID case in the family so it’s totally up in the air whether we’ll do a get together with the non-infected families or defer Christmas until everyone is healthy. So many moving parts and so many decisions.
Ha, I vote for the cake AND one batch of cookies! Rum balls?
I hope your Covid case feels better soon.
Christmas prep is okay in our world. I am waiting for one present for my husband to come in (it’s socks, of course), but if it doesn’t come in on time, so be it! We have to go to Costco Saturday morning to get produce for the salad I will bring to dinner on Christmas Day. We still have to wrap a few presents, but it’s mostly under control!
My husband’s big gift is a golf club he asked for. I went to the store last Saturday and bought it, but left it in the trunk of our beater car because I couldn’t figure out a way to sneak it into the house. My husband is ALWAYS home when I am. I thought I could sneak it into the house when he was showering, but it turns out that he takes very quick showers and I’m usually walking the dog when he’s doing that. Last night I finally was able to get it out of the car into the house, but he was coming down the stairs (to ask me why I opened the garage!), so I had to hide it under the couch. This is not a good long-term solution. LOL.
Yes, I guess it’s hard to be sneaky with a golf club! Are you going to wrap it?
Hurting one’s arm while running seems like something I would do, haha! I hope it resolves quickly and doesn’t get in the way of your cookie baking (and eating) or wrapping! I am baking and wrapping all weekend, but planned it this way to have things to keep my mind on. My daughter is quite excited about both as this is her first year wrapping the gifts she bought for people (although, she is inordinately angry at corners on the things she bought haha!). Have a great Christmas, Jenny! Thanks for the card!
Lindsay, have a wonderful Christmas. I know this one will be a hard one- I promise they get easier. Have fun with the baking and wrapping- I’m glad you can do it with your daughter.
I am glad you had a good run aside from hurting your arm! That sucks!
I am all done wrapping – I wrapped everything last Friday when I had the day off. One more small lego set arrived for Paul but I think he has enough under the tree already so I am setting it aside for his birthday in March. Phil bought the stocking stuffers this week and I am not wrapping them – or the Santa gifts! So I am ready for Christmas. Just crossing my fingers everyone stays healthy!
It sounds like you’re in great shape- but yes, everyone HAS to stay healthy!!!
Ugh. An arm injury. No fair, Jenny.
But great work on all the other things. I LOVE that you ran to a festive playlist. How cheery.
I think we have more than the average person does to open on Christmas morning. I’m a bit surprised that most stockings being described to me only have some candy and small toys. THIS IS WHEN MY KIDS GET SOCKS! AND FACE WASH! And all sorts of other things. I feel like such a hypocrite since we are fairly minimal and frugal. YET, apparently, Christmas time I just throw all caution to the wind?
I LOVE the wrapping job you’re showing under your tree. Gorgeous paper and it looks like a gift-wrapping professional put it together. A+ to you. (My wrapping does NOT look like that).
Enjoy these last few days in the lead up to Christmas (and we’ll lean on each other in those tough days that follow as we journey through the Post Christmas Letdown together! #Solidarity).
Oh, I think Christmas is time to throw caution to the wind! Fill the stockings full! And yes… we will get through post-Christmas together, somehow.
Haha, your arm… how, exactly??
Glad you have trucked along on the Christmas challenge! Turns out I was a poor leader in the Christmas Challenge as mine sort of derailed. 🤣 This is why I don’t organize and lead things like book clubs or NaBloPoMo. Hahaha. I haven’t had a chance to do an update post! But I got off the days and then tried to just rearrange and then got busy with travel prep and just kind of gave up. Lol.
Merry Christmas, Jenny! I have loved following along with this challenge. I’m going to start thinking about what I should do for my own challenge in 2024 – hey, maybe that will help with your after-Christmas sadness. Or maybe it would exacerbate it, eeks.
I’ve never had biscotti, if you can believe it!
You knocked some things off your list. The biscotti look amazing. Are they hard to make?