Peanut Butter Fingers

Good morning! Good morning! How are you? Are you feeling festive? Frazzled? Maybe a combination of both? Holiday commitments, parties, activities are already popping up all over the place for our family and while a lot of it is really good stuff, it definitely adds to the mayhem of this time of year. For the most part we’re loving it and the boys are certainly excited for their last full week of school before winter break next week!

The weekend ahead will include a mix of holiday fun — we’re heading out to see Christmas lights at a local botanical garden with friends tonight and have a holiday sip + dip party on the agenda for tomorrow — but we’re also hoping to check some things off our to-do list, get a jumpstart on wrapping Christmas presents and finish up our holiday shopping. I hope to check back in here on Monday but until then, keep on scrolling for a roundup of things that are making me smile this week! Enjoy your weekend, my friends!

Things I’m Loving Friday

Local Holiday Events

As the boys have grown up, it’s been so fun to hear which local holiday events they ask to experience again and which one have somewhat unintentionally become traditions for our family. We have yet to miss a Speedway Christmas since we first drove through the holiday lightshow years ago!

The boys love the experience of being on a real NASCAR track and we have so much fun blasting Christmas music in our car as we all snuggle up in our Christmas pajamas and sip on to-go cups of hot (lukewarm?) chocolate with extra marshmallows. (Speaking of marshmallows, my gosh Dandies peppermint marshmallows are good enough for me to want to eat by the handful. I order them on Thrive market and they’ve been a great discovery this holiday season!)

They also loveee Snowland at Great Wolf Lodge this time of year (you may read waaay too many words about GWL in this post: Great Wolf Lodge Review) and we checked that off our list last weekend. And we managed to make it out to Light the Knights, another favorite, right after Thanksgiving which was apparently the best time ever to go because we barely waited in any lines at all.

Tubing was a major highlight for all three boys and our big kids were making huge progress on the ice skating rink this year which was so fun to see!

And the freshly spun cotton candy took top prize for Rhetty Roo!

We also decorated a giant gingerbread house as a family, complete with a hot tub, which we have proudly displayed on our kitchen counter.

It’s the moooost wonderful time of the year, indeed.

Christmas Eve Tradition Ideas

When I think back on my childhood, some of my most cherished memories center around holiday traditions we did together as a family every year. They weren’t anything other-the-top, but rather special and predictable traditions that made the Christmas season feel a little more magical. A few of my favorites: 1. We’d all bundle up after church on Christmas Eve when the sun set and venture out into the woods behind our house to search for Rudolph (a red light my dad planted deep into the woods earlier that day). 2. We’d all open a new pair of pajamas together after dinner to wear to bed on Christmas Eve. 3. On Christmas morning, I knew I could always count on monkey bread and cheesepuff casserole to find their way onto our breakfast table. 4. Even after my sister and I no longer shared a room when I was in middle school, she’d still sleep with me in my bed on Christmas Eve. 5. My sister and I would frantically search for a gleaming pickle ornament hidden deep within the Christmas tree and whoever found it got to open one extra gift from Santa.

When I start to feel frazzled this time of year, I think to myself how deeply fortunate I am to get to be a magic maker for my kids in this season of life. How lucky am I to get to be a mother to three kids and think up small things we can do together, for each other and for others to make the holiday season more special?

When I saw the above slides pop up on @brookeromneywrites’ Instagram page (she’s a gem and shares valuable tween and teen parenting content), I loved flipping through them because the ideas she shares are creative, not too over-the-top and simple in the way they might add a little magic into a family’s holiday season. A few that popped out at me: Sibling gift exchange (we actually do this on Valentine’s Day!), snack drop at a local fire station/police station/gas station/emergency room (we do this as well!), kind words stockings everyone makes for each other, best lights award put in the mailbox of a house whose holiday lights enchant you, Christmas party for the animals (I want to do this with our boys this year!), new ornament for each child every year (we do this and it’s one of my very favorite traditions our boys adore, too) and the gift card drop on a random car that looks like they might need it.

The Maid by Nita Prose

You know those books with a delightfully quirky narrator you cannot help but completely adore? (Think: Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine) That’s Molly, the narrator in the not-too-mysterious mystery novel, The Maid. The book isn’t your typical mystery — you’ll very likely predict who the “bad guys” are (though the end had a little surprise) — but it’s such a delightful spin on your average whodunit, that it felt like a breath of fresh air kind of mystery. I actually read the sequel to this book first, not knowing any better (this is easy to do when you reserve so many books through the library/Libby app), and I’m so glad I got to know more about Molly and love her even more after reading The Maid.

Molly struggles socially, trying to connect with others through her honesty and often misinterpreting words said to her in a very absolute way. She’s a hard worker and pours her best effort into her work as a hotel maid, a job she’s incredibly proud to have at the luxurious Regency Grand Hotel. Up until 9 months ago, Molly shared an apartment with her grandmother who would help make sense of the world for Molly but after Gran’s passing, Molly is on her own for the first time in 25 years. Molly desires connection with others, something that has never come naturally to her, but she finds purpose in her work as a maid and her passionate love of cleanliness and order helps her excel at her job every day.

And then Molly’s world turns upside down when discovers a hotel guest dead in the room she is set to clean. The guest is the uber-wealthy Mr. Black, a regular at the Regency Grand Hotel, and when Molly finds herself in the center of lies, she becomes the lead suspect in Mr. Black’s death. As Molly sets out to clear her name, she must figure out who could be to blame for Mr. Black’s death and suspects she never would’ve considered make her question everything.

Friday Flashbacks

Gingerbread Oatmeal (This warm, comforting gingerbread oatmeal tastes like the holidays in a bowl.)

Peppermint Icebox Cake (This Peppermint Icebox Cake combines two of the best flavors of the holiday season – peppermint and chocolate! A simple recipe made with homemade peppermint candy whipped cream and Oreos!)