Hi, friends!
I just wanted to do a little recap of our 24 Days of Togetherness so far since I haven’t blogged about it everyday, but want to remember our experience!
- December 1: Bake sugar cookies
- December 2: Give each other 10-minute massages
- December 3: Dress Murphy in holiday garb and snap a photo of him
- December 4: Get Lime Leaf for dinner
- December 5: Listen to “A Christmas Together” (John Denver & The Muppets)
- December 6: Drink hot cocoa together
- December 7: Make a snowman
- December 8: Make holiday-shaped pancakes
- December 9: Perform an anonymous good deed <— Mal and I just did this last night and there could possibly be a hilarious story that goes along with it, so I will tell you about it soon!
- December 10: Watch a holiday movie (Home Alone or Elf?)
Here are a couple of photos from our recent picks!
There was no snow on Saturday when we picked “make a snowman” (wishful thinking by Mal), so he drew us a snowman on our chalkboard.
We picked “make holiday-shaped pancakes” on Sunday morning right before leaving for the Pats game, so we knew it was unlikely we’d make them, but we have a firm “no throwing back” rule in our house, so we thought maybe we’d eat pancakes for dinner.
Well, we didn’t get home from the game/picking up Murphy until after 9:00 PM, so pancakes didn’t happen on Sunday. I didn’t want to break our 24 Days of Togetherness tradition, so I made them for breakfast this morning. Better late than never!
Ok, they weren’t the prettiest-looking holiday pancakes, but they sure tasted delicious, especially with maple syrup and creamy almond butter spread on top. Mmm”¦ pancakes.
Health News & Views
It’s that time of year again when holiday calories lurk around every corner. Family parties, office get-togethers, Saturday night soirees”¦ you get the picture.
But even if you try to be “good” around the holidays and stick to your healthy habits, you could still be committing diet mistakes that leave you a few pounds heavier come New Year’s. Avoid these December diet blunders!
4 Worst December Diet Mistakes
CVS Twitter Party TONIGHT
My Twitter party with CVS is TONIGHT! We’ll be chatting about snacking during the holiday season. I’ll share my favorite ways to indulge, but not overindulge, and how to snack smartly all season long, no matter what you have planned or where your travels take you. And there will be a number of awesome giveaways to win products from the Gold Emblem line! I hope to see you there!
CVS Gold Emblem Twitter Party
TONIGHT (Tuesday) from 8:00 PM (EST)
#GoldEmblem
Questions of the Day
What holiday tradition do you always keep up with no matter what?
When was the last time you performed an anonymous good deed? What was it?
I closed someone’s gas tank on their car the other day. Not very strong as good deeds go! 😀
Holiday movie… Could I vote for Home Alone 3? 😆 That’s my favorite of the bunch but I have a feeling that you are talking about the originals.
I love your 24 Days of Togetherness! It is such an awesome way to embrace the holiday spirit and spend time with those you love doing things you love!
It’s hard to choose between Elf and Home Alone!
I bought four pairs of pajamas for children in need the other day.
Christmas tradition…Christmas Eve pajamas!
Cookie baking! It’s a 66 year tradition in our family. Last year my dad was in the ICU for most of December so I continued the tradition by spearheading the cookie baking production.
We always put the tree up the day after Thanksgiving! Since I was away at college this year and didn’t have a tree, I found a magnetic tree and put it on my fridge 😀 It worked!
We have a whole shelf of Christmas movies that we go through, one by one, night by night, with a fire crackling in the background.
My favorite tradition is reading The Night Before Christmas with my family around our fireplace every Christmas Eve!
I always love to go and look at Christmas lights and never miss it at least once during the holiday season! Baking cookies is alsoa must have tradition!
those pancakes are adorable!!
I love your 24 days of togetherness! Since this year is our first year as a married couple, we are doing a 12 dates of Christmas starting this Thursday and going all the way up to the 23rd. (We chose to go up to this date and not Christmas day because Christmas Eve is when we will start doing things with our families, and we wanted this to be with just us). I am really excited about this new tradition!
Doesn’t it kind of defeat the purpose of doing an anonymous good deed if you’re broadcasting it on your blog??
Tree goes up the Friday after Thanksgiving. No Black Friday shopping, just putting up the tree, decorating the house, Christmas movies, Christmas carols playing, and eating lots of yummy Thanksgiving leftovers! Usually in pajamas all day until we realize some lights aren’t working and need to make a run to Home Depot! 🙂
Tina, just a quick question. Did you ever do a reveal post of your yard after doing your driveway and paving? I remember you talking about doing it when you were done, but I don’t remember seeing it. Just curious because I’m always looking for ideas!
Yep! Here’s the post: http://carrotsncake.com/2012/10/after-pics-driveway.html
We always make holiday cookies. We are traveling this Christmas, but will make them before we leave and bring them with us.
I always spend Christmas Eve with my parents no matter what but since I was a baby I also spend a couple of hours and exchange gifts with my bestie! 🙂 Hope you’re travels are going well ! Eek!
It seems like you guys are having so much fun! No matter what we always, always drive around looking at all the lights. I can’t think of the last time I did anything nice, gah! I think I am going to get right on that tonight!
We have a girls cookie bake weekend with all my Aunts and Cousins. We bake non-stop from Friday till Sunday. Its one of my favorite traditions. On Black Friday, I baught a coffee for the lady who was behind me in the drive at Starbucks.
Tina,
I loved your advice on cutting back calories during the day of a holiday party instead of skipping meals. Leaving off the cheese, dressing etc…
thank you!
So glad you found it helpful! 😄
I’ve been reading quite a bit lately about people “paying it forward” It’s definitely inspiring me to do something myself…
Baking Christmas cookies and getting a Christmas tree Thanksgiving weekend. Nothing says holiday’s like sugar cookies in the shape of snowmen.
My goal is to try and do one good selfless thing everyday. Yesterday, I helped an elderly gentleman to his car with his groceries even though I had my own cart and a baby in my arms. It felt so good doing something so small that I think he appreciated.
I always keep the tradition of eating cookies- does that count? And I usually don’t try to make them healthy, haha.
Good dead would be just left a cupcake for a yoga instructor who always subs for me! 🙂 She is a dream and I am blessed to have her work with me. Cupcakes are like giving 45 hugs, right?
YES! Not healthy sugar cookies (with frosting) are my absolute favorite this time of year! 😄
Those pancakes are awesome, I’ve been meaning to make some for a while and now the craving isn’t going anywhere! Must.Make.
Have fun in Cabo!
I always make latkes but I haven’t this year! It takes so much effort to grate all of the potatoes! Id love to do some sort of togetherness with my husband!
I actually just wrote a guest post about our Christmas traditions.
for our tradition, we get a new special/fun/funny ornament for the year . its been so much fun collecting them the past four years and looking back on them
I looked back at your driveway photos and reading about Murphy with the chicken finger is hilarious! Love the look on his face in the picture. When the kids were little the dogs would steal food out of their hands. We always do a taco bar and enchiladas on Christmas eve. Have a safe and wonderful trip.
Exercise !!
I love how you’ve gone with the list so far, it is awesome!!
My boyfriend has bought an advent calendar and has not yet opened it and plans to binge on chocolate potentially on Christmas day”¦I see this may become a tradition for us or him rather 😉
Such a random question, you mentioned going to another bloggers baby shower semi-recently. I wanted to find her page again, but I’ve had no luck, can you help me out???
http://ontapfortoday.com 😄
@Tina: Thanks!
A ten minute massage sounds great right now!
I always make my own christmas cards. I’ve been doing custom created cards since 1996 and haven’t missed a single year….I’m thinking for the 20th year i’ll do some sort of mosaic showing little thumbnails of all 20 cards. This year’s is quite a riot. I’ll post it on my blog over the weekend after those that I mailed cards to have received theirs.
I’m going to use your better late than never approach and do today’s workout tomorrow morning =)
The tradition we always keep is decorating the house!
Love Actually is hands down my favorite Christmas movie! I watch it every year. And I make homemade peppermint bark. Delish.
We watched that last night. Such a good movie!
We have quite a few holiday traditions, but the ones we never miss are: watching Christmas Vacation, Home Alone & Charlie Brown Christmas at least once each during the season, giving each other one gift on Christmas Eve – new PJs!, going to my great aunt’s house for a turkey dinner on Christmas night and decorating our two Christmas trees together while listening to holiday music.
My mom makes my sister and I take pictures with Santa every year. This has been a family tradition since I’ve been a baby. She then puts up every photo I’ve taken with Santa since I’ve been a baby during the holidays and as much as I don’t like seeing some of the photos (and fashion trends) lol, it’s cool to see how different I look every year. It’s a great one that I will make my kids do. Oh, and I forgot to mention that I have to take pictures with Santa until I get married. HAH!
We have to watch disneys sing a long very merry Christmas songs while putting up our tree! It’s an old VCR tape and has a few warped bits as it’s so old but I couldn’t imagine Christmas without it! 🙂
I always make a spiced hot chocolate while watching a Christmas movie and buying a season Starbucks while looking at Christmas lights. those are my two must do traditions!
The house has to be decorated inside and out… and there doesn’t have to be any rhyme or reason to it, just Christmas decorations EVERYWHERE! My husband says that chex mix baking smells like Christmas, so I make sure to make it a bunch this time of year. And we MUST have a real tree. Even when we lived in Los Angeles and pine trees cost a million bucks, I insisted 🙂 This time of year is my absolute favorite. Jackson 5 christmas album has to be played during present opening time too… this is from our childhood. We of course now all have it electronically, but we still play it!
I love the idea of the 24 days of togetherness. I am hoping to implement something like this for next year. Thanks for the ideas!
On an unrelated note, I went to Whol Foods today (in Hingham) and one reason i went so early was to try their bacon you rave about.
I can now see why, and may have to make it a weekly Wednesday visit with my little girl (who also loved the bacon!)
Thanks!
Love the diet mistakes – great reminders!