One of my favorite traditions for nearly 30 years My sisters Glenda & Kathy, my Mama Irene & myself visited the Norfolk Botanical Gardens during the Christmas Holiday Season the first Saturday evening in December then we'd stop at a fast food restaurant to get hot dogs, fries & shakes fror dinner. Then the second Saturday in December we'd start at 5 PM & drive around & look at commercial & residential Holiday lighting displays: small towns & cities Courtland, Boykins, Newsoms, Franklin, Sedley , Ivor, Hunterdale, Portsmouth, Newport News, Suffolk & so many places we'd drive for nearly 5 hours & then grab pizzas for late dinner & bring a meatball sub home for our Daddy. Recently my sister Kathy & her fiance Max want to restart the tradition: we stopped back in 2019 after Mama passed away & Glenda passed in 2022 so I'm excited to restart such a special tradition.
Our favorite holiday tradition is ice cream for breakfast on Christmas morning. We layer it with strawberries and cereal flakes. My normally very uptight British Grandmother started it with her kids, and I'll be passing it onto mine this year.
a favorite thing from November was my in-laws making a fully vegetarian thanksgiving since my husband and I have recently made the shift. all we told them was that they didn't have to make *as much* meat as usual and could still eat meat around us, we wouldn't mind. it was unexpected and very kind.
I started decorating a gingerbread house with my niece when she was almost 3. She’s now almost 18 and we have done it every single year. She’ll move away for college next year but I hope we’ll continue the tradition when she comes home for winter break.
This is our second Christmas with our little boy, so still figuring out traditions! We’ve committed to not traveling anywhere Christmas Day and having just us at home in the morning, so giving Christmas morning cinnamon rolls a go 😌
Favorite thing for me in November was definitely an experience: one of our Humanitarian master's students from Yemen has spent 5 years in the U.S. and never attended a traditional Thanksgiving meal (I work at Fordham and she works with the U.N.). I was attending solo this year so I invited her along and we had the best time! She also loved all the amazing food. Lot's of great conversations during the 3 hour drive upstate and laughs at the hotel later!
The gingerbread house is adorable. One new tradition we have is to make Thanksgiving dinner on Christmas. We got a free small turkey this year, so we're very excited about it, especially since it'll just be the three of us. We can enjoy it without the stress of a big dinner.
My favorite thing from November was the book All the Beauty in the World which is a memoir about a man who becomes a guard at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in his 20s after his brother dies a cancer. It’s a beautiful story about art and grief and the people who do the job of guarding the galleries.
We have so many holiday traditions, because I really love this season. My current favorite is a homemade book advent calendar. My mom gave me a bunch of Christmas/winter books from my childhood and I always give my kids a Christmas book each for St Nick’s Day. A few years ago, I realized we were having a hard time reading them all. So now I wrap all our books and number them from 1-25. Each night my kids open a book and we read it together. We then read a second book from the ones we’ve already opened because they are 4 and 6 and love to hear stories multiple times. It’s something they look forward to each night and it brings me so much joy.
Other traditions are going to see the holiday light display at Meadowlark Gardens every year, picking out a fresh Christmas tree, setting up our crèche with pieces I’ve had since my childhood, and making cookies. I’ve also given myself the gift of not doing everything, every year. So some years we see the nutcracker or visit Santa but some years we don’t and that’s fine too.
A favorite thing from November was taking my mom to Book of Mormon for her birthday. It was my third time seeing it, and I loved watched the mixture of my mom finding it hilarious and being slightly horrified by the language as she watched it for the first time. 😂
my favorite book from November was Wreck by Catherine Newman. I recently saw her at an Author Talk in Cleveland and her wit and candor shone extra bright in person!
One of my favorite traditions for nearly 30 years My sisters Glenda & Kathy, my Mama Irene & myself visited the Norfolk Botanical Gardens during the Christmas Holiday Season the first Saturday evening in December then we'd stop at a fast food restaurant to get hot dogs, fries & shakes fror dinner. Then the second Saturday in December we'd start at 5 PM & drive around & look at commercial & residential Holiday lighting displays: small towns & cities Courtland, Boykins, Newsoms, Franklin, Sedley , Ivor, Hunterdale, Portsmouth, Newport News, Suffolk & so many places we'd drive for nearly 5 hours & then grab pizzas for late dinner & bring a meatball sub home for our Daddy. Recently my sister Kathy & her fiance Max want to restart the tradition: we stopped back in 2019 after Mama passed away & Glenda passed in 2022 so I'm excited to restart such a special tradition.
Our favorite holiday tradition is ice cream for breakfast on Christmas morning. We layer it with strawberries and cereal flakes. My normally very uptight British Grandmother started it with her kids, and I'll be passing it onto mine this year.
I got that little Papier clip from a colleague a few years ago and it is one of my favourite things!
It makes me so happy! It’s so useful and pretty ❤️
a favorite thing from November was my in-laws making a fully vegetarian thanksgiving since my husband and I have recently made the shift. all we told them was that they didn't have to make *as much* meat as usual and could still eat meat around us, we wouldn't mind. it was unexpected and very kind.
I started decorating a gingerbread house with my niece when she was almost 3. She’s now almost 18 and we have done it every single year. She’ll move away for college next year but I hope we’ll continue the tradition when she comes home for winter break.
This is our second Christmas with our little boy, so still figuring out traditions! We’ve committed to not traveling anywhere Christmas Day and having just us at home in the morning, so giving Christmas morning cinnamon rolls a go 😌
Favorite thing for me in November was definitely an experience: one of our Humanitarian master's students from Yemen has spent 5 years in the U.S. and never attended a traditional Thanksgiving meal (I work at Fordham and she works with the U.N.). I was attending solo this year so I invited her along and we had the best time! She also loved all the amazing food. Lot's of great conversations during the 3 hour drive upstate and laughs at the hotel later!
The gingerbread house is adorable. One new tradition we have is to make Thanksgiving dinner on Christmas. We got a free small turkey this year, so we're very excited about it, especially since it'll just be the three of us. We can enjoy it without the stress of a big dinner.
My favorite thing from November was the book All the Beauty in the World which is a memoir about a man who becomes a guard at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in his 20s after his brother dies a cancer. It’s a beautiful story about art and grief and the people who do the job of guarding the galleries.
We have so many holiday traditions, because I really love this season. My current favorite is a homemade book advent calendar. My mom gave me a bunch of Christmas/winter books from my childhood and I always give my kids a Christmas book each for St Nick’s Day. A few years ago, I realized we were having a hard time reading them all. So now I wrap all our books and number them from 1-25. Each night my kids open a book and we read it together. We then read a second book from the ones we’ve already opened because they are 4 and 6 and love to hear stories multiple times. It’s something they look forward to each night and it brings me so much joy.
Other traditions are going to see the holiday light display at Meadowlark Gardens every year, picking out a fresh Christmas tree, setting up our crèche with pieces I’ve had since my childhood, and making cookies. I’ve also given myself the gift of not doing everything, every year. So some years we see the nutcracker or visit Santa but some years we don’t and that’s fine too.
My favorite thing from November: NYT Cooking's chicken au poivre. Good enough to make for guests!
Pie from Living the Pie Life in Arlington VA for your local readers - the best!!
A favorite thing from November was taking my mom to Book of Mormon for her birthday. It was my third time seeing it, and I loved watched the mixture of my mom finding it hilarious and being slightly horrified by the language as she watched it for the first time. 😂
my favorite book from November was Wreck by Catherine Newman. I recently saw her at an Author Talk in Cleveland and her wit and candor shone extra bright in person!
Fav thing from Nov was the new season drop of Nobody Wants This! Such a heartwarming escape from many other Nov happenings in our world.
Thank you so much for sharing my mother's helper piece, Alisha! FWIW I totally vote we rebrand the term – agree it's quite antiquated!