Photo Friday: Holiday Wrap Up 2024

Welcome to 2025! I'm glad you're here. Here's a re-cap of where I've been and what I've been doing over the past six weeks:

In November, we took the grandkids to the Akron Tree Festival. My husband and I have been attending off and on for about 40 years. The trees are decorated by different organizations and sold to benefit Akron Children's Hospital. This Grinch Tree was my favorite this year.

And this was the oddest tree. Most of the trees are not as whimsical as these two.

I met some friends at this pop-up Christmas wine bar. It was so festive that I took my husband the next week. 

Two of my granddaughters take dance class, so we attended their holiday recital. Apparently, the 3 year old's class is very small and only one other child showed up for their performance. Hence, it looks like my granddaughter had the stage to herself. She did a great job in front of the crowd of 1100 people. 

Middle Child had a holiday piano recital in a beautiful church. She performed Waltz of the Flowers from Tchaikovsky's The Nutcracker. 

My 5 year old granddaughter's preschool had a Christmas show that we decided to attend, as these kids aren't getting any younger. This particular grandchild is a hoot and is the biggest joy to be around. She's the one in the green dress with the beautiful red, curly hair. She gave the show everything she had, while the boy to the left looked absolutely miserable the entire time.

In my last post, I talked about my BFF who has the same Walnut Baby Jesus ornament as me, made when we were in elementary school. She sent me this ornament to commemorate our 56 year friendship this year. What a surprise and treat!

Christmas Morning: The Calm Before the Storm

I had attended a friend's Christmas party, where someone brought a lemon ricotta cake for dessert, and I declared it to be one of the best cakes I'd ever tasted. I decided I had to make one for my family to have on Christmas Day. It was good, but didn't seem to be as good as the one at the party.

My husband and I go all out for the Christmas Feast. It's part of our gift to our children/grandchildren. Pictured from left: strawberry pretzel salad (a tradition), chickpea cucumber pomegranate salad, caprese salad wreath. Fruit platter in the middle. Middle Child's 2024 gingerbread house also pictured.

From left: beef tenderloin, cheesy bacon roasted potatoes, pesto panko crusted salmon, roasted asparagus, red wine mushroom sauce for the beef. Not pictured, but also for dessert besides the lemon ricotta cake were a Bûche de Noël (yule log) and an apple caramel walnut pie (both purchased at a bakery).

My husband and I struggle with what to give each other for Christmas. The last few years, it's been consumables. This year he gifted me with these mini bottles of champagne with my favorite dark chocolates (Ghiradelli).

We always host the Cousin Christmas Party, a tradition since the 90's. These would be my children's cousins but also includes their parents (my husband's siblings that he still speaks with) and now the cousins' spouses and cousins' children (actually, only our kids have kids at this point). It's a six-hour fest of games and food. My husband is the king of hosts and always comes up with the games. This year, we had the usual white elephant gift exchange, the Who Am I game, a Survivor style auction, and the above pictured horse race. At the other end of the ping pong table were the rolls of toilet paper that you had to roll to get your horse to win. Some of the names people came up with for their horses . . . Elmer!

To conclude the season, my husband and I have our own tradition of crab legs and champagne, this one from one of favorite Napa wineries, Tank Garage. For New Year's Day, I made my famous homemade sauce (gravy, for you Italians) with penne pasta and a Caesar salad with garlic bread. My son's family came over to watch the Rose Bowl. Go Bucks!!!!!

I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday season! Thanks for being here!