Our Holiday Season
- Admin
- Jan 2, 2018
- 4 min read
If you’ve been following my blog for a while, you know that back in the middle of December I decided to take some time off from writing. I was just feeling burnt out and like I didn’t have too much to offer. It feels so good to be back in the swing of things and excited for some ideas I have for the next couple of months.
But for today, I just want to fill you all in on we’ve been up to lately. 🙂
The last few weeks of December were crazy busy. We had quite a few nights out with friends, entertained family at our house, and finally put the last touches on our guest bedroom (yes, I will still eventually do a before and after post on our remodel!). Work was busy for both of us, and we somehow managed to finish our Christmas shopping and wrapping a whole week before we needed to. I had a girl’s night out with my mom and sisters to tour an old mansion and see its’ gorgeous decorations, and Chris and I were both able to spend a lot of time with our siblings due to them being home from college or on winter break from jobs/school. I think the busyness really helped the time to fly by, because as I am writing this I totally feel like it was just yesterday it was all happening.
On the weekend before Christmas, we had our first visitors stay in our new guest room – my sister Olivia one night and my grandma for two nights! I loved, loved, loved having people stay with us. It was so much fun. I am also so glad that all our work on that room is actually going to good use. Olivia stayed with us the night before Christmas Eve, so when we woke up in the morning we all headed off to the gym for a workout together and then to grab some Starbucks before church.
After church we had lunch with Chris’s family and then had a little time at home to relax with my grandma before we headed to my parents’ house for dessert, a hot chocolate bar, and to open gifts. We also got a huge snow storm on Christmas Eve, making for some not-so-fun driving conditions, but for a gorgeous white Christmas.
We changed things up for our Christmas day, which we are all hoping is a tradition that will stay. Instead of doing gifts on Christmas morning we did them on Christmas Eve, and instead of Christmas dinner we did a brunch. It made for such a more relaxed than usual day – no one seemed rushed or stressed and we were pretty much done with festivities by like 5pm! That allowed my grandma, Chris, and I to have a quiet night in at home watching Gone Girl and going to bed early. Wonderful.
The couple of days after Christmas were a mix of cleaning out our house/kitchen (Whole 30 update coming soon….), getting some good workouts in, watching a lot of Lost, and having to work a little bit for Chris. On Thursday morning we packed up the car to head up north to first visit my grandma and then to stay with Chris’s parents for a couple days!
I always love going to visit my grandma. Her house is so cozy and tucked away in the woods. We don’t typically do too much when we stay with her, but that’s just the way I like it. This time we went to go see The Greatest Showman (SO GOOD), made some savory crepes (she got both Chris and I and herself crepe makers for Christmas!), did a 4-mile walking DVD (oh yeah ;)), spent a whole afternoon reading, and went out for dinner at a local diner.
On Saturday morning we helped her take down some decorations and then hopped in the car again to go to our next destination, where we also did a whole lot of nothing. The main things we did were again, watch a lot of Lost, and I did quite a bit of work on the blog, meal prepping, and setting up my new planner for 2018. Our New Year’s Eve was especially wild and was full of ordering pizza, drinking champagne on the couch, and watching a little bit of the festivities on TV before falling asleep well before midnight. It was so nice to have almost four full days of mainly relaxation with very little responsibilities before kicking it into high-gear on Monday.
Even though I woke up with a really annoying cold on January 1st, I also woke up with a bunch of motivation to make 2018 wonderful. I mean it. I can just tell that something is going to be different about this year. 2017 was so good to me (and that is mainly due to my amazing husband), but I just think 2018 is going to top it somehow. As we drove home from up north yesterday morning, I had plenty of time to read, write, and reflect. I am lucky that Chris loves to drive, so I get that time to myself in the car. 😉
We intentionally left early enough for me to make it to a yoga class with my mom at 11am, and then we spent most of the rest of the day grocery shopping, meal prepping, doing laundry, cleaning the house, and getting ready for real life again. I also may or may not have had my girlfriends over at night to watch the first episode of The Bachelor….
I am so happy that Chris and I still have today together before having to go back to work on Wednesday. He is doing the Whole 30 this month and I am *kind of* doing it with him, plus a mix of the Tone It Up program and some regular eating, because let’s be real – Whole 30 “ketchup” really just won’t cut it for me. At least I don’t have high hopes that it will. Our plan for today is to get some good workouts in, watch a ton of Lost, and work on cleaning out some closets/drawers/areas in our house that need some serious attention. What better time for a home cleanse than New Year’s?
Tell me about your holidays! Best and worst parts? Also, how was your New Year’s? Are you a go out or stay in type of person?
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