Monday, December 21, 2015

Holiday Fun

This weekend was filled with lots of holiday fun!  I started off by celebrating Christmas with Phil on Friday night. We had a "Feliz Navidad" theme for our meal as he requested lentil enchiladas, since that is one of his favorite meals out of everything I'd made for him. We also had some Mexican rice with it. I made the enchiladas and he made the rice so it was a team effort!


When we started dating, I established a tradition of baking something together when we celebrate Christmas. Coming up with gluten free recipes is tough but it's nice to have a fun activity to do together. This year we made chocolate chunk cookies. The recipe was VERY particular as you had to measure most ingredients out to the gram. I've mentioned before that I fall under the "upholder" tendency (see a description of the tendencies here) and Phil asked if this recipe came from an Upholder cook book because he thought the detail of the recipe was to the extreme. Hahaha. We each rolled out a pan of cookies and put them in the oven.  Phil's are on the left, mine are on the right.

Let's pretend the ones on the right were supposed to form a Christmas tree

#disappointing Turns out this recipe was NOT compatible with air bake pans. Lesson learned. The good news is that they tasted good, even though my pan was NOT presentable.

After enjoying some cookies for dessert, we went back to Phil's place to open presents.  Oscar enjoyed playing with the wrapping paper and ribbon!


On Saturday morning, I was up and at 'em early for a Holiday run with my running club. I wore a red coat to be festive. It was so cold - only 9 degrees when we started!  I warmed up quickly but was glad when our 7 miles were done!

This is how you dress for a run when it's 9F. The less skin exposed, the better!
On Saturday night, Phil and I went to his work holiday party which was really fun. He works with a lot of people around our age and I've gotten to know them well over the years so always enjoy attending their holiday party. Since it was fuh-reezing on Saturday night, I opted to wear a dress with sleeves.


On Sunday, I got a bunch of stuff done around my place and finished up my wrapping. It feels good to enter Christmas week feeling prepared for the fun ahead!  We'll spend Christmas Eve with Phil's extended family and Christmas Day at his mom's. Then on the afternoon of Christmas, we'll head to my parents so that we can get there in time to have dinner with my family, and will stay there until Sunday afternoon!  This is the first year that Phil and I are celebrating Christmas together - I'm really excited to spend the holiday with him and our families!

The Christmas season has been fast and furious for me, but it's been a great one. My mailbox has been full of greetings from friends and family both near and far...

Holiday mail is the best kind of mail!
 And there is an abundance of presents under my tree to share with family and friends.

'Tis better to give than receive.

This will be my last post before the holiday, so for those who celebrate Christmas, I hope you have a wonderful holiday with family and friends!

How are you celebrating Christmas this year? If you don't celebrate Christmas, do you have any fun weekend plans for this week?

18 comments:

Charis Faith said...

Merry Christmas!!! I loved my card from you!!! So glad that y'all are able to celebrate together this year! Christmas is already off to an amazing start! That is such a great picture of the two of you!

Big HUGS!!! Love you!

Kyria @ Travel Spot said...

Merry Christmas! I hope you have a wonderful week!

I will be driving up to my parents house on Thursday evening, having dinner with them on Friday, opening presents and then having our annual Christmas breakfast with the girls (moms and high school friends) before heading back down the hill on Saturday evening. I am looking forward to it and hope that this week goes by fast!

Vanessa Meads said...

Merry Christmas!

J and I are celebrating Christmas over brunch with his family the morning of the 25th, then heading home to host dinner with my family that night. We've planned a non-traditional Mexican themed meal specifically so we can do the majority of the prep work the day before and not have to worry about cooking a turkey or anything (we don't eat meat so this was not an appealing thought). I'm really looking forward to it!

Marlys said...

Looks like a great Christmas already! I am so excited to have the family, or most of them, to gather together and celebrate the Birth of Jesus! I am almost ready except for food prep, but that has to wait for the last minute!

Your tree looks so pretty!

Linda said...

Ooh, interesting. Lentils enchiladas!


This is my first time spending Christmas with any S.O. and I'm excited too!

Merry Christmas to you dear Lisa. I love you and your blog. <3

Stephany said...

Merry Christmas, Lisa!

This year, my mom volunteered to host Christmas dinner for my family, so I'll be helping her with that since my stepdad won't be in town (sad face!). It'll be a busy day, but hopefully a fun one. :)

Anonymous said...

Marry Christmas to you and your family, Lisa! ...and sorry about those darn cookies. At least they tasted good!

Jenny said...

Merry Christmas! Your tree and cards looks so wonderful! And Oscar looks full of mischief hehe :) I hope you, Phil and your families have a great holiday. We celebrate Christmas by eating and drinking too much! I've frozen some cranberry juice in heart shaped moulds to add to some fizzy wine for Christmas day and I have my menu all planned out - I even bought my cats some fancy Christmas themed food so they can join in the celebration too haha :)

Carolina John said...

Wow 9* is cold to run! I'm backing out when it's in the 30's here.

Good times at the Holiday party! I bet that was a blast.

Gracie said...

Your tree looks so festive! And if it's under 30 here (which happens every few years), I wear a sweater...so you can keep that 9 degree stuff.

Jeanie said...

It looks terrific, Lisa! What a special way to celebrate -- I love your baking tradition. (Last night I have THE BEST GF cut-out sugar cookies at a party! Who would know?)Your dinner looks good and your cookies look fine!They always look better once they get off the baking sheet!

We're having friends for dinner on Christmas Day, so that'll be fun. As you know, we did kid Christmas this weekend. This week is a whirlwind with friends in town, last minute stuff! Can't believe it's in just a few days!

Raquelita said...

Merry Christmas, Lisa! I hope you have a wonderful holiday with your family. I'm really looking forward to seeing mine.

Thanks so much for the card. I love getting so much fun mail this time of year. Between the end of the semester and finishing book revisions, I didn't have time to do holiday cards this time around, but I hope I can rekindle that tradition next year.

Leigh said...

You had a fun weekend! What did you end up getting Phil for Christmas? If you don't mind sharing of course :) What is an air bake pan as well? I've never heard of those. I love holiday mail too!

J and A said...

What an awesome weekend!! You look so pretty! I didn't know there were different pans!! At least the cookies still tasted good!

Kelly (She Wears a Red Sox Cap) said...

Merry Christmas!!! I love your traditions with Phil and Oscar is SO cute! I think Max and Oscar could be lifelong friends if you lived closer ha ha. So fun that you and Phil will be spending Christmas together this year! Sounds like you have a good plan in place :)

Jolene - EverydayFoodie said...

Ooooh, olives on the enchiladas, mmmm!! Glad to hear the cookies tasted good. I like your tradition of baking together.

We're spending Christmas in Vegas!! We're going back to the hotel we stayed in when we went on our very first vacation together.

Merry Christmas to you, Phil, and your family!!

The Many Thoughts of a Reader said...

I hope you had a good holiday weekend with your family. We had a good mix of on the go and on the lazy! ;) Just what I needed.

Amber said...

Ok measuring ingredients out to the gram is crazy!!! I am an upholder but I don't think I could do it, I would probably wing it and then my cookies would turn out terrible haha. Maybe I have a bit of rebel in me ;) Phil's comment about an Upholder cookbook is hilarious!!