Happy New Year, everyone!  How did we get here so fast?  Last thing I knew, it was Thanksgiving, and the next day it was Christmas!  Do you think things might slow down finally in January?  I, myself, am slowing down a bit right now to look back at the last month of 2024 and remember some of the special moments from December.  Let us proceed…

FAVORITE #1

Since Thanksgiving happened so late in November, it was early December when we were enjoying some leftovers!  I mean, come on…one of the best things about Thanksgiving is the leftover food.  I had frozen some of the leftover turkey, and I used it on December 3rd to make one of our favorite Thanksgiving leftover dishes.

You COULD have a salad with it, but you don’t really need anything more than a little side of cranberry sauce.  😋

 

FAVORITE #2

Our daughter Cara and her family had been with us only the week before for Thanksgiving, but Big Eagle and I made the trip to THEIR house in Louisiana on the 5th and 6th of December.  Cara was performing in her first community theater play, and we wanted to be there for opening night!

We arrived in the early afternoon on the 6th, so we were there when the girls got home from school.  Edith showed us one of her most recent art projects.  This girl is SO talented!

 

That night was the opening night of the play!  Cara had to leave early to get into costume, makeup, and whatever else the cast has to do to be prepared for the performance.  The rest of us loaded up in the car shortly after she left, so we would have time to stop and get flowers for the actress, get dinner, and then arrive at the theater in time for the show.  Helen took this selfie of me, Edie, and her in the back seat on the way to dinner.

 

We went to Five Guys for dinner.  I had never been to Five Guys before, so it was a first for me!  The burgers and fries were really good, and the girls’ shake looked really good, but I was way too full to also indulge in a shake!

 

We’d already stopped and picked up the flowers, so after dinner, we headed to the theater!  The production is called The Charitable Sisterhood:  Christmas Spectacular based on a book by Bo Wilson.  It’s a comedy set in Christmas 1977 in the south.  Cara played the investigator, and she did a GREAT job!  Really all 5 of the characters were good.  We thoroughly enjoyed it!  Pictures are not allowed during the performance, but afterward the actors were in the lobby for a meet and greet kind of thing.

Cara is second from the left, and her good friend Elizabeth is on the far right.  Kudos to these ladies!  I am really impressed with the amount of time they had to put in to prepare for the show.  And that is in addition to the day-to-day of parenting!

The next day was Saturday.  Cara was in two performances that day: a matinee and an evening performance.  Edith had a debate competition, so she and Paul had to leave for that.  That created a unique time for us where we got to have Helen all to ourselves!  We took her to lunch at Texas Roadhouse first.  Then we went shopping.  She helped me pick out some makeup to donate to the angel tree for teenage girls.  Then we did a little Christmas shopping for Paul, during which we also picked up some lights for Helen’s room.  She ended up wanting the lights around her bathroom mirror.

It’s hard to see them clearly in the picture, but you can see the glow.  She can change them to different colors, too.  Looking good, Helen! 😘

It was a short visit, as usual, but I think we packed a lot in!  We left for home the next morning.

 

FAVORITE #3

I didn’t put out all of our Christmas decor this year, but I did put up the main tree in the living room and a tabletop tree in the front window.  It was a favorite of mine all month to see the tree there in the living room, but also reflected in both the back window and the patio window!

 

FAVORITE #4

Our community Christmas party was held on the 13th at CERA on Bryant Irvin. It was a fun night during which we were able to meet a few more of our new neighbors!  There were drinks and then dinner, singing, and our neighbor across the street from us, Scott, even made an appearance as Santa Claus!

 

 

FAVORITE #5

On Thursday the 19th, we attended the monthly happy hour at the Hub.  That’s what they call the activity building in our neighborhood.  It’s nice, because we can just walk up there and walk home!  It was a relatively small group this month.  A lot of people were gone for Christmas or hosting relatives.  But there were still a few folks we met for the first time, so that was neat.  At one point someone asked, “Are we in high school, or what?”  They had noticed that we had split ourselves up into a guy group and a gal group! 😂

 

 

 

FAVORITE #6

A couple of days before Christmas, Danny texted me this picture of Leo’s first visit to Santa! 😍

 

FAVORITE #7

I FINALLY made the scones I had been planning to make for Thanksgiving and never got around to.  I made these cranberry orange scones quite a few years ago, and I remembered how yummy they were, so I wanted to make them again.  So that’s what I did for part of our Christmas afternoon.  It was just Big Eagle and me on our own for Christmas this year.  Since there wasn’t much else going on, it was the perfect time to bake them.

Here they are fresh out of the oven!  They get an orange glaze drizzled over them before serving, but since I was freezing them, I didn’t do that yet.  I will be the only one eating these, as Big Eagle is not a fan.  At this posting, I’ve had three so far, and they are YUMMY!

 

FAVORITE #8

For Christmas, our son Danny and his wife Erin gifted Big Eagle and I with a holiday food tour!  It took place on the Saturday night after Christmas.  The meeting place and first stop on the South Magnolia Ho Ho Holiday Food Tour was at the Lockwood Distilling Company where we enjoyed sandwiches and loaded tater tots.  Silly me forgot to take a picture of the food, but it was delicious!

The second stop was at Benito’s where we had chips, salsa, tacos and enchiladas.  While there we were serenaded by a really good mariachi band!

On the way to the last restaurant on the tour, we stopped in front of this mural for a photo:

The other people in our group were from Wichita Falls, TX and Kansas City, MO.  We also popped into a glass blowing shop along the way, which was really interesting, but again…I didn’t think to take a picture.

Cane Rosso was our last food tasting for the night.  Big Eagle and I have actually eaten at this pizza place before several years ago.  I had never tried their dessert pizza, though.  It was really good!

I didn’t realize how big the restaurant scene has become on South Magnolia.  We want to go back again on our own and try some of the other places, too!

 

FAVORITE #9

On the Sunday night before New Year’s, we had our friends Lynn and Mike over for dinner.  Afterwards, we played chicken foot late into the night.  They brought a bottle of chocolatini…something we had never had before.  We had it with our dessert, and it was SO GOOOOOD!

Such a fun night with dear friends! 🥰

 

FAVORITE #10

We closed out the month (and the year) at a New Year’s Eve gathering with neighbors at the Hub!

They had an early champagne toast at 9, and things started breaking up around 10, so we came home and watched TV together until midnight, when we kissed and hugged Happy New Year.  Many a year we don’t make it until midnight, so I was proud of us! 🤪

I hope you’re new year has gotten off to a good start!  We are preparing for our first really cold weather to get here day after tomorrow.  Winter will be arriving!  I plan on posting again on Monday with my Winter Bucket List.  How timely, right?  If you would like to share any favorites from YOUR December or anything else, for that matter, I invite you to do just that in the comment section below.  I would love to hear from you!  Have a great rest of the weekend!