baking: while I'm sure we'll be doing our usual cut-out cookie baking and decorating (though not with the extended family as usual - ugh, quarantimes), Hendrik and I also used the Thanksgiving break stretch to try out baking gingerbread house cakes thanks to this fun mold pan and cake mixes my grandma sent. Our little village turned out so cute (though more apparent that it was decorated by a 7-year-old boy than the image from the packaging shown here), and tastier than crunchy gingerbread, I think.
decorating: even more rooms in the house than usual for the holidays. I have my go-to items for the main floor (see past year holiday home tours here) and front porch, but this year I added a couple of touches to bathrooms and bedrooms upstairs too, because (a) quarentimes, (b) Target totally got me on some mini faux trees, and (c) we had to take the opportunity to update our customizable tile mat in H's bathroom!
gifting: Legos to Hendrik, Eureka Crates to nephews, books to nieces and friends - and plenty of other things I can't mention in case people read about them here! (More ideas for gifting here, if you need 'em.) I always pick a new gift wrap theme each year and am so excited about the cuteness I snagged from the Hearth & Hand line that I have just about everything wrapped already.
hoping: it feels safe at some point during Christmas break to see our parents indoors. Not sure whether Hendrik will end up being in in-person school at all this month (definitely virtual school for another week here), but even if he and I have isolated at home for a couple of weeks, we still have Peter at work of course, and the number of infected people out there just means his risk is higher than it was when we bubbled up with parents for the summer. So we're not at the safe point for even small holiday gatherings at the moment, sad to say. Come on, everyone - wear your masks, stay home, keep your distance, all that good stuff so that we can get the numbers down and be able to all safely see our families again in the future! Either way, we can at least keep up our tradition of a Christmas morning walk, which we do with my family no matter what the weather, as you can see.
sending: cheery mail to friends and family with our annual Christmas cards. And I'm having fun looking back at all of the versions I just dug up from previous years - I think I'm going to make a little album for them. Wouldn't that be such a fun thing to pull out each year at the holidays?
Whatever holiday(s) you and your family are celebrating at this time of year, I hope that you find joy and love despite the anxieties, uncertainties, and (necessary) restrictions of our time. Stay healthy out there, have a happy holiday season, and see you back here on January 6 for a New Year's edition of the linkup, chatting about what we're currently: beginning, feeling, organizing, resolving, and wondering.
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