Monday, December 28, 2020

Step Into My Week 12.28

 Hopefully, a Step Into My Week post helped to remind y’all that it’s Monday during a week in which I always confuse what day it is. I’m looking forward to another week off of work, however, and am going to do my best to tackle a few tasks that I had the goal of getting done during my time off from work. I know I’m not alone in being shocked this year is almost over (although I know everyone is ready for that to be the case), and I’ll share some reflections and goals in later posts but will likely wrap up 2020 planned posts before getting there. But for starters, the blur that has been this past week.

I was still in Birmingham on Monday and spent most of the day baking and listening to an audiobook. I only had about an hour and a half left of it to listen to on my drive home on Tuesday. I made another batch of Chex Mix and my favorite sugar cookies. I delivered some of the Chex Mix to friends’ doorsteps while waiting to ice the cookies. I had a bit of downtime in the afternoon before my friend came over, and we made dinner. We made this Pad Thai recipe I’ve made before, but it was Hunter’s first time ever having Pad Thai, so I was pleased to say this was the best he had ever had. After that, we opened Christmas Presents and watched the Claymation Rudolph and Frosty before turning on some Mickey Christmas movie. During our movie watching, we successfully ate an entire package of Pillsbury’s Christmas sugar cookies, which probably isn’t something to be proud of, oops.


Tuesday morning, I loaded up my car with Christmas presents and baked treats to go with Hunter over to his parent’s house to exchange gifts before I ran errands and headed home. The drive was relatively easy. I got home before 4:00 and hung out with my parents that night. Once all my wrapped presents were in the room with the Christmas tree it looked like mine were Christmas presents while the ones my mom wrapped looked like Hanukah and my mom didn't hear the end of that from us! 


Wednesday, I got up to Peloton and shower and then didn’t do much the rest of the day. I did help my dad wrap some of his other gifts for my mom, but aside from hanging out at home with my family, that was most of my day (are y’all sensing a trend yet?).

I think Thursday was the first “eventful” day of being home since my brother and sister-in-law came to town. My mom did some cooking while I arranged the flowers and set the table in anticipation of their arrival. They got to Fairhope around 3:30 with both of their dogs in tow. We aren’t used to being at home for Christmas, so it didn’t fully feel like Christmas Eve, but we had a delicious meal that evening and opened our Christmas crackers to wear our crowns while eating dessert. After all the dishes were washed, we changed into pajamas (still wishing we were a matching Christmas pajama family, but sadly we aren’t), and organized the presents into everyone’s piles for the morning.




My brother and sister-in-law were up early on Christmas, so I was woken up at 6:40 so festivities could begin. My family considers Christmas to be “my thing” which worked well for me to insist we go in a circle and open gifts one at a time to make things last longer. After receiving some DMs asking to share what I received since often people use it as inspiration for what they may want to ask for during future gifting occasions, I won’t go into detail of that here. I will say my dad “won” Christmas gifting my mom a Newcomb Pottery vase. She went to Tulane, where the women’s college was called Newcomb and has oohed and ahhed over them for years, and my dad found one for her. It was the last gift unwrapped, and she was shocked. Tears were shed, and watching her reaction that morning and my dad’s sense of accomplishment was definitely a highlight of the day. 

We made mimosas and talked on the phone with my grandparents while brunch was being made, and we sat down to eat that around 10:00. After that, my brother, sister-in-law, and I took the dogs on a walk-in downtown Fairhope which was completely empty. I guess not everyone started their morning quite so early. After that, it was time to relax and nap before eventually getting dressed for the day. We made drinks and ate appetizers later in the evening and then had steaks for dinner, followed by homemade pot-de-crème. We watched a movie on Netflix that night, but I didn’t think it was that good, and I can’t remember the name. 






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Saturday was my birthday, but I honestly spent most of the day pretending it wasn’t since I wasn’t going to be able to see any friends or do much to celebrate. Technically it was my golden birthday, but I decided I’ll just postpone that celebration until next year (or maybe when I get back to Birmingham and can at least see my roommate and a couple of other friends). My mom and I went to pick up my birthday cake from Warehouse Bakery, and in true 2020 and day after Christmas birthday fashion, we got half of a peanut butter pie. We then went to Publix and came home to see what everyone else was up to. We played a few games of backgammon and hung out before eating lunch and taking the dogs on a walk. Gil and Shannon wanted to run an errand, so I tagged along since I didn’t have anything else going on. On the way home, we stopped for coffee at Provision, and then I decided to take a bubble bath and paint my nails. I worked on some blog stuff after that, and eventually, we opened presents and had dinner. That night we watched a movie, another one that I don’t remember the name of, before going to bed.


I finally got back on the workout wagon on Sunday and did a Peloton workout after making a cup of coffee. Our upstairs living room has pretty much become a workout room, so my brother was in there while I biked. Eventually, I showered, talked on the phone to my grandmother, and had a late breakfast. My brother, sister-in-law, and I went to Panini Pete’s in downtown Fairhope for lunch. I think everyone took a nap afterward, and then we went for a walk altogether. Once we got home, my mom put out some appetizers, and my dad and I played a couple of rounds of backgammon on my new board. We had a short rib recipe for dinner that my brother and sister-in-law enjoy, and I went upstairs to take a bath before coming downstairs to watch TV as a family. I originally was going to head back to Birmingham today, and then it became Tuesday, but now I have a tire alignment scheduled for Wednesday morning, so I’ll head back to Birmingham right after that! 



I hope that y’all had a wonderful Christmas week and were able to see your family either in person or on zoom. I may have fewer blog posts this week and the following since I’ll be spending more of my blog time trying to get everything ready to be transferred over to a new site. That has been quite the process, so hopefully, you’ll enjoy what I am posting! 

2 comments :

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