Currently :: December 2020

Hi there, friends, and happy last month of 2020! Can we all just stop and have a little moment of joy that this is the last month in this absolutely completely ridiculous year? As in any year, there have been a lot of moments of joy, but this one has brought more than enough strangeness to last us a decade. And I’m so ready to flip the page on the calendar and see 2021.

Not that all this insanity will immediately disappear when we hit 2021, but because 2021 is going to bring a lot of great changes for our little family. For one, we’re moving to Florida next summer {crossing my fingers everything works out!} so that we can be closer to family and Scott’s next job. My next job is still in flux, but we’re figuring out the details.

We’re going to miss so much about Virginia, but we’re looking forward to being closer to family, and just figuring out what the next step looks like. And having a house that doesn’t have five separate levels with about a million stairs…

Currently…

1. We’re excited for Christmas – but the decorations are already up! Everyone has an opinion on when to start decorating for Christmas {provided you celebrate Christmas, that is}. My only criteria? How soon can you start and keep the magic? It’s great if you want to start early, but if you’re going to go screaming mad if you hear “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree” one more time, you probably started too early.

I usually like to make Christmas appear around the house like magic right after Thanksgiving, but this year we needed a mood boost {because, 2020 y’all} so the decorations went up mid-November.

2. Family hikes are my current favorite thing. I’m so proud of our little dude! He’s always been on hikes with us, but he’s spent a lot of those hikes with us in his Osprey backpack. But the last couple months, he’s wanted nothing to do with his backpack and has hiked the hikes himself. He’s going up to 3-3.5 miles each hike with plenty of juice to spare!

It’s great, because the hikes have been tiring him out enough for him to get some great naps. But also, the farther he goes, the more it trains him to go even farther. We’re going to have some serious family ruck marching going on at this rate!

3. Festive cocktails make dark evenings brighter! I’m all about the koselig, the hygge, the whole mentality that if it’s going to be dark and cold and stormy outside, you embrace it by enjoying all the cozy things you can only do when you’ve got frigid weather outside! Although my Swedish grandfather always said there’s no such thing as bad weather, only bad clothes. Dress for the weather and you’ll never hate it. Of course, he never went to the firing range at Fort Lewis in the winter, when you have to lie in winter slush in the prone…

But anyway, I’m loving these festive cocktails and want to try making a few on these cold evenings for Scott and me to enjoy together by the fire when little man has gone to bed!

4. The leaves are all down, but they were gorgeous while they lasted! My favorite thing about teleworking has been being able to see the seasons change in our yard and neighborhood and in the woods by our house. We watched spring burst into being, and now we’ve watched the leaves change and shuffled our feet through them. A storm that just came through took down the last of the leaves, but even though they’re gone now, they were so beautiful while they lasted.

5. We got our family photos done! For the third year in a row, we went out on a gorgeous day and got our fall family photos done with the fabulous Susan Kruger. She does such a great job of capturing gorgeous light – and getting our little guy to show off his cuteness! It happened to be an 80-degree day at the end of October, so we just rolled with it and pulled out our Florida-ready fall wear, and I think it made for some super cute photos.

Just look at that happy little face!

6. We’re embracing simplicity this year for the holidays. Normally I go all out on decorating, gifts, cards, and everything. Not so much this year. I kept our tree really simple and just tossed some ornaments in various bowls around the house. We’re not doing elf on the shelf {because honestly, y’all, I don’t want to teach my kid he has to be good because some doll is spying on him}, but we are baking cookie boxes for friends, we put up all our lights, and we’re really trying to make sure that any gifting we do is simple and quality.

Because I love dragging this thing out, here’s my gift giving guide on stuff for people who don’t want stuff {that would be me, I do not want or need more stuff}.

7. I’m not a perfectionist. But I know a lot of people who claim to be. And you know what? They’re really not. They’re really just stressed out of their gourds trying to live up to other people’s unrealistic expectations, real or imagined. Here are some reasons to ditch that mentality.

8. What’s for dinner tonight? One of our favorite ways to use up our leftover proteins, this chicken and broccoli bow-tie pasta! It also works great with leftover turkey!