Post Christmas

How have your holidays been?

Thankfully, ours was pretty carefree and relaxing. What a nice change of pace, lol.

I ended my chest cold with a head-sinus cold thing so that has been lovely. To make me feel worse, the SO caught the latter of my two diseases and it was the cruddier one. :( Luckily, it's only lasts a few days.

FMIL did a ton of baking and made white chocolate dipped pretzels, peanut butter blossoms (pb cookies with a hershey's kiss in the middle), chocolate fudge with walnuts, sweet spiced mixed nuts (walnuts and pecans), wreath cookies (cornflakes mixed with marshmallows and sprinkled with red hot cinnamon candies), and Russian tea cakes/ Mexican wedding cakes. There was plenty for this household and more to give as gifts to friends and neighbors. I decided to try to make homemade salsa again and let it marinate overnight in the fridge.

The tree was decorated and the stockings were hung just in time for the big day and on top of all that baking, FMIL whipped up a mini feast for the three of us for Christmas Eve dinner. Beef roast with green bean casserole, mashed potatoes, and fresh salad with some of my tomatoes. Oh yes, we ate like kings this past weekend.

The next morning, the rest of the boys were here and we had Christmas Day brunch. Something new to try to make many of our lives easier. We've learned our lesson again after Thanksgiving. : ) After we finished munching, we went to gather around to open presents. The SO's family has a tradition of opening one gift at a time (while you have some) and the youngest going first. The pets got some gifts so at the very last moment, we decided to let them go first (they are the youngest after all!).

Oh boy. The cats. If I had been more awake, I should have gotten video footage of them. Their grandma, FMIL, got them these big catnip filled mice with animal print and fuzzy yarn tails and a bell attached. Normally, our kitty is not impressed by catnip but they were both absolutely enamored by these toys! While his kitty cousin did his best to kill his mouse and then roll around on his high, ours was torn between killing it and loving on it and, being normally very reserved in crowds of people, was flopping around and very brave. They were hilarious fun to watch while the people took turns opening gifts.

They also got treats and the doggie got a giant meat-filled bone as well as a bag of smaller ones. That big one was her best friend for the rest of the day. She was torn between eating it, carrying it around, and attempting to hide it but unable to find a suitable spot that no one knew about.

Another half tradition is to ball up your tissue and wrapping paper and chuck it at someone. Needless to say with two kitties rolling around in euphoria, most of the paper was tossed into the middle of the living room at them. They couldn't have cared less. XD

I got some orange-flavored TicTacs that I finished by the end of the day (the same thing happened last year XD), a Native American crafted necklace made with coral, a pretty silver hair pin that also doubles as a sweater clasp (FMIL and I picked out yarn today because she wanted to make be a turtleback sweater as a gift), Phineas & Ferb fruit chews (I've been dying to get my hands on them! We love that show here), and pajama pants that have penguins in winter hats and scarves. So comfy.

I've already planned out an entire workshop to host a month from now and that was kind of stunning. Thank goodness for having someone around to bounce ideas off of. Been slowly but surely getting back into the swing of reorganizing my life again and it feels very satisfying. I think that shall be one of my goals for this coming year- to take most of that time I waste worrying and fretting during mental planning and just use that energy to get something done. Even if it's something small. The steps add up and then the next weight can be put onto my shoulders. Strength and stamina training towards becoming a well-functioning adult. Lol.

After opening gifts, we munched on the treats and played video games together for a little while. The rest of the day and the days since have been pretty uneventful besides running quite a bit of random little errands all over town. I'm very grateful for this chance (however long it will last) to recharge and relax.

Hopefully, I'll have fun stuff to share soon! See you then. <3