Writing a blog post about the months of November and December seems like I’m writing ancient history. I’ll stretch my mind back to 2024 and share our list of things accomplished, enjoyed, learned, tried and remembered.
1. The Boys Trip. This is an annual tradition that Super Rockstar started several years ago. He takes our boys (and my dad joins them) away to a cabin for a few days to teach them things, do ‘guy stuff’ and have ‘guy conversations’. We had just received a huge dumping of snow and were worried that it would limit outdoor fun, but they LOVED it and had a great time.
My mom and I got to enjoy doing some of our favorite things while the guys were away. This year we went on a hike in one of my favorite places–Fox Run, then on a bike ride on the Sand Creek Trail, and finally we decided to go check out the Olympic Museum. It is fantastic. We joined the guys on the last afternoon and evening of their stay at the cabin.
2.Thanksgiving. What a day to feast, feast, feast, feast. It was just us and we loved being home, eating, watching football and napping.
3. All the Christmas Stuff.
–The decorating. For us, this begins around mid-November. I always was a staunch –‘you must wait until after Thanksgiving’ person–until we started hosting an annual Christmas party every year the first Saturday of December. That’s not much time to get our semi-truck load of decorations up and prepare all the food. The upside is that the temps are still pretty warm in November and getting the outside decor done when it’s 60 degrees is much more pleasant.
–Making Cookies. Having teenagers help make Christmas cookies is always an interesting undertaking. They eat more sprinkles and icing than make it on the cookies, and I hear myself saying things like: “that’s not appropriate” or “that looks too bloody”.
–The Party. Our annual Christmas party was another fun time for us and all who came. We love having Santa join us and the kids as well as adults got to enjoy singing along and hanging out with him. My parents came out this year and were a HUGE help in getting us ready for it all–my mom cleaned up leaves (it took her all day) and my dad ran every errand.
–School Break. The boys enjoyed a lot of down time–which they needed after a tough week of finals at the end of the semester.
The boys and I got to go sledding when we got a little snow on a very cold and windy day.
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And we had an epic family nerf battle.
–The Ornaments. We have the boys select a new ornament for our tree each year and I always love how their choices reflect their ever-changing interests throughout the years. This year Grayson was intrigued by the Nightmare Before Christmas collection. He chose Dr. Finkelstein and plans to collect the other ones in the future because when they are plugged in, they recite lines from the movie, and it sounds like they are talking to each other. Morgan chose a Chinese food take out box because fried rice is his favorite food.
–The Santa Videos. Every year Super Rockstar creates Santa videos via PNP (Portable North Pole) for our boys and Barney. They have several choices of videos to customize for your kids (their names, interests and even what they’ve asked for Christmas). At the end of the video, Santa lets them know if they made it onto the nice list. Barney looked a little concerned–probably his guilty conscience from trying to sneak food from the table.
–Christmas Movies. All throughout the month of December we watch as many Christmas movies and shows as we can. We got to see the new Red One and really loved it. We always try to catch all the oldies, but goodies–Santa Claus is Coming to Town, Rudolf, and The Year Without a Santa Clause. From there we take turns choosing. This year we watched so many good ones: Jingle All the Way, Christmas Vacation, Muppet Christmas Carol, Scrooged (the boys had never seen this. they weren’t impressed), The Grinch (the one with Jim Carry), Fatman (a little on the violent side, but good), Klaus (our traditional Christmas Eve movie), Grinch (the new animated one), Die Hard and Die Hard 2 (yes–they ARE Christmas movies).
–Date Night. Super Rockstar and I got to get away for an evening to ourselves at Top Golf. I love this place with all the fun golf games (my favorite is the Angry Birds ones) and the food is fantastic. I totally smoked him (on the last game) (he won all the others).
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–Christmas Eve. Our Christmas Eve is always spent with Super Rockstar and I leading worship at Calvary Fellowship Monument. They are such a loving church family, and we always enjoy Pastor Tony’s messages. We then go home and have tacos (sometimes we’ll stay for the church chili dinner), open new Christmas jammies and watch Klaus–a fantastic Christmas animated original movie on Netflix. And of course, we set out cookies and milk for Santa.
–Christmas Day. It starts early at our home. 6am. Our boys got up at 4:30 and played in Morgan’s room and came out at 6:01. Presents were torn open by 6:07 and then the rest of the day was spent building Lego, enjoying every gift, naps for Super Rockstar and I, lots of good food and watching movies.
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–Kansas Trip. The day after Christmas we travel to my parents’ house in Kansas. My sister and her husband Todd join us, and we all love having my mom’s prime roast, gourmet cheese potatoes, and poppy seed salad. It’s fantastic. Afterward my dad reads the Christmas story from the Bible (Luke 2: 1-20) and then we exchange gifts. It’s always so good to be in my parent’s beautiful home, sleep in, laze around and eat lots and lots and lots.
4. New Years Eve. Super Rockstar was asked back to Phil Long Music Hall (Formerly Boot Barn Hall) to open the evening with singing a few songs (check out his original) and then he served as the host for the evening–introducing the two bands: Soapdish and SofaKillers (band he sang lead in for 14 years) and then leading the countdown into 2025. I got to enjoyed spending time with and even dancing with him on New Years Eve for the first time in 14 years.
5. My Favorite Memes.
As always, I would love to hear from you. Happy New Year!