Wednesday, January 6, 2021

Christmas Recap Part 2

You can see Part 1 of our Christmas holidays here

On Boxing Day we really just had one goal, and it was tidy up the house.  That got done relatively early which felt great.  Then I packed up a Christmas Dinner to take to a friend who did not get to travel home to the East Coast for Christmas, and who is also a health care worker so she deserves it.  

The kids played Bingo with the neighbour kids on Zoom, and shared their favourite Christmas gifts.

There was some leftover rice in the fridge so I made a fried rice for myself, topped with leftover shrimp from our shrimp ring. Delicious!

Then we went outside to go sledding.


When I went to deliver the goodies to my friend, she surprised me with a homemade pavlova so we dug into that for our dessert.  Q loved it!

We played some new Switch games on Sunday morning.

And went out sledding again that afternoon with our neighbours.



New inflatable sled.


I made a turkey risotto for our supper, and then packed the rest of the leftover turkey away in the freezer.  It will be a nice treat later on in the month.

E got a 3D Hogwarts puzzle, so we started building that.

He built this robot too.

On Monday morning I cleaned out the fridge to make some vegetable soup.  No real recipe and it turned out well.

I took the kids for a walk.  Our snowman had shrunk a bit!

I definitely bribed them with treats.  Q got a doughnut and E got a danish.


In the afternoon we went for a hike in the woods by our house.



And we tried out our new Hydroflask and brought along some hot chocolate.



Our supper that night - along with some of the vegetable soup I'd made earlier in the day.

And then we watched a movie

It was a beautiful day on Tuesday and Q even got his bike out.



King of the castle.

E and I walked up the street in the afternoon to get a couple of things, like sausage for his carbonara pasta.

Puzzle time after supper.

And some gin and tonics (or just Perrier for E with the same additions). This is fashioned after the ones at Reds, raspberries, cardamom pods, and cacao nibs.


Since the line up for the fish store was so long the day before, my goal was to get there early on Wednesday.  But I was too early and was there an hour before the store opened.  So instead I got some bread, went to Shoppers, and then walked down to High Park and back.


New Year's Eve started out with a run with some friends at High Park.  I found this note under my workout clothes when I was getting dressed in the morning.  What a nice start to the morning.

The squirrel got one of our bird feeders, so we had gone out to investigate.  Just a few seeds leftover.

Then we walked to get some milk at the gas station with a quick stop at the icy park.

In the afternoon we went for another hike.




I was on the walk too!

We celebrated New Year's Eve at home with more yummy food. 

Oysters again, but less this time!

Antipasto spreads and marinated vegetables on croustini.

Our neighbours were having a fire so we went over there for a few minutes, but then I went home to put Q to bed, and while Dave and E were still there, I sat by the tree with wine and my book and it was glorious!

When Dave and E got home, E went right to bed while Dave and I watched some shows and got to bed before midnight. Bye 2020, no need for a formal farewell.

Happy New Year's Day!  I played some songs on the piano and finished with this beautiful Epiphany hymn. 

We walked up the hill to another playground and E got to see one of his friends there.

Friday night, means pizza night.

We had some snow overnight so we did a few runs on the sledding hill on Saturday morning.

The snow was so pretty!

We built another snowman, the snow was perfect for it.



It was so nice I decided to walk to return my library book.  I have admired Baka's tree all season and it looked perfect with the snow so I finally snapped a photo.

Then came the large task of taking down the tree and other decorations. Q was happy to help.


We had a pretty happy Christmas and made the best of being by ourselves, not going to church in person, and missing out on big outings.  

When the song of the angels is stilled.
When the star in the sky is gone.
When the kings and the shepherds have found their way home.
The work of Christmas is begun!



4 comments:

  1. I totally agree with your last line -- we too made the best of it. It was not a Christmas I'd LOVE to repeat but it really wasn't as bad as I'd feared. We spent a lot of time shoveling, watching movies, and just enjoying being at home. The snow was amazing for tobogganing!

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  2. You are a bright light, Sarah! I really like that hymn. What fun you all had playing outdoors and inside over the holidays. And your food offerings...wish I could have tasted that risotto. The hydroflask was a good purchase... the hot chocolate on the hikes looks to be a hit with the boys. Cheers to the new year!

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  3. Always need bribery to get the kids on a walk here too. The hot chocolate is a great idea!

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  4. What an awesome holiday season! I did a turkey quinoa risotto after I saw your inspo on instagram! Was so yummy!

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