Good morning, everyone! It’s the day after Christmas, and I’m hopping here to share some photos from our special day. I know this is an unpopular thing, but I love taking down all of my Christmas decorations the day after Christmas. Now that I have a baby and more stuff hanging around, I feel so claustrophobic and need to organize my space. I’m ready to start my month of decluttering, organizing, and deep cleaning. January is always cold and dreary, so I use that time to get my home in order! So, I’m sharing my photos of Christmas today, closing up the holiday chapter and getting down to the cleaning business! ♥️
One journey I plan to hop on this year is the homemade bread one. I just purchased a sourdough recipe book and the sourdough starter. I cannot wait to dive into breadmaking. I made a whole wheat loaf on Friday, and it turned out pretty good! We had it with jam, butter, and cinnamon!
This post is going to contain about a million photos of bugs and his mugs. He’s obsessed with them! He pretends to drink them so I ended up buying him some toy coffee cups. I guess it’s true that they imitate you. This kid is saying “mama”, crawling all over, and now drinking from coffee cups!
Friday, I made a huge batch of chicken fajita tostadas that we could eat for dinner all week. I’ll post this recipe soon! They are so tasty and quick to make.
On Saturday morning, my mom came over to watch Buggy so we could have a date. Honestly, day dates are so much better than evening ones for me.
We decided to try out a new breakfast spot in our town, Poppyseed Kitchen. It was amazing, and for being a new restaurant, they were on top of everything, the food was incredible, and I left with zero complaints. I can’t wait to go back and try more from their unique and fresh menu.
We ordered the local breakfast with bacon, a homemade biscuit, rosemary potato hash, and over-easy eggs. Everything on my plate was cooked to perfection. It’s hard for me to write this post because I want this plate fo food right now! Kyle ordered the ranch hash with braised short rib with rosemary potato hash, poached egg, tomato onion jam, and arugula. Again, it was amazing! We decided to split an oat milk cappuccino and the sweet toast, and I’m glad we made that decision! The sweet toast had honey grain bread with whipped ricotta and blackberry chutney, and local honey! I am going to try to remake this at home because it was unique and delicious! I look forward to going back!
After breakfast, we went to see Avatar: The Way of Water. I was so excited to see this in the 4DX, and it did not disappoint. The film was so good, and it brought me to tears so many times. I’ll be watching this again as soon as it comes out. I always loved the first one, so I was worried this wouldn’t live up to it, but it did!
After the movie, we went to Open Rice for dinner. It was a last-minute decision, but I’m so happy we went. I had the chicken and egg noodle dish. I can’t even explain the texture of the noodles, but it wasn’t like anything I’ve ever had. I need this again in my life.
We split the Good Morning Tiger Boba. This was Kyle’s first time trying boba, and he’s now a fan. It was made with non-dairy milk, Vietnamese coffee, and brown tiger sugar.
Little Christmas Eve Bug!!
We were all up bright and early on Christmas Day. For Christmas, Kyle installed a camera down by my back fence, so I could watch the wild animals eat the seeds and nuts I leave down there. I was so excited!! My next purchase will be the bird feeder with the camera inside.
*update – this morning, my camera caught a coyote! 😱
These cinnamon buns were a Christmas tradition when I was a kid, and I can’t wait to continue making them every Christmas for my family. They make the house smell so good!
Christmas best friends.
He loved all of the presents and opened them up! His grandparents spoiled him this year.
And he’s on the crawl, which is exciting and terrifying.
We decided to make Christmas easy this year, so we ordered Japanese and sushi instead of making a big lasagna dinner.
I hope you all had an amazing holiday ♥️
Questions for you!
- When do you take your decorations down?
- What are your January goals?
- Tell me one thing you loved the most about your holiday celebrations!
I’m the same! Day-after take-downer.
Honestly, I haven’t even thought about goals for January! Organizing our storage spaces has been high on my list of things to do, and that’s a big winter activity for me – so I’ll make that my goal to complete in Jan/Feb!
I love everything 😆 Christmas Eve dinner, sleeping over at my parents, Santa comes Christmas morning, and our big Christmas breakfast! love it all.
Merry Christmas to you, Kyle, Bugs, Tux, & Leo! I’m glad you had such a good week!
Hope you had the best Christmas, Jennifer!
Organizing for me too!!
Hi, hope you are having a great time during the holidays!
1. Probably before Saturday, I love starting the new year with a clean and neutral place
2. Grooming my dog daily, doing yoga, also daily, stop buying things off budget
3. Seeing my dog soooo happy to see his friends (my mom, my sister and the three other dogs)
Christmas food (we’re French, so it was a raclette) (lots of cheese, charcuterie and more cheese)
I think I need to do a French-style Christmas next year! Yum!
Decorations, including our tree come down on Epiphany, Jan. 6, due to my Catholic upbringing. There were a few times when the live tree required being taken down on Jan. 1 when I lived in NY because it got too dry, but that is typically our tradition. By the way, I still do live trees!!!
I wait to take down until the end of January, Iowa is so cold and dreary I need something to make it feel cozy lol.
My January goal is to get back into the gym after shoulder surgery!
My best Christmas memory is playing bingo with all of our family on Christmas Eve, it was something we used to do with family when I was young and I brought it back a few years ago and it’s been such a joy every year❤️.
Ohhh yes, and January/February in Iowa is FREEEEZING!!!
What a fun Christmas!!! Bingo is the best, especially with a group of competitive people lol