Holiday season is in full swing, so I thought it would be nice to talk about nice things that are either happening already or being anticipated. We don’t need to limit ourselves by just perfume-related sides of our lives (but of course don’t hold off any of those).
Saturday Question #94:
What Are You Looking Forward To This Holiday Season?
Do you have any family or friends gatherings planned? Are you giving or expecting to get any special gifts? Are there any special dishes you know you’ll cook or get to eat? Will you have any time off? Do you travel somewhere? Will you do anything special for yourself?
My Answer
I have just 7 work days left this year: starting December 23 I’m taking time off until after the New Year holidays. I hope to survive until then because the amount of work I have to complete before my staycation is just insane. But I’ll get there and will have a 12-day break – I didn’t have such a long vacation in… I don’t remember how many years.
We plan to decorate our house outside tomorrow before the predicted with the 100% probability rain on Sunday, which is a positive thing on its own because my vSO and I love rain. And while it rains outside, I’ll be decorating the Christmas Tree. I’m sure Rusty will be “helping.” And since I’m not driving anywhere, I’ll start playing my Pandora Christmas Music channel at home whenever I can. (Love-love-love all those Christmas songs that people complain getting tired of!)
My Perfume Advent Calendar turned out even better than I expected: I genuinely look forward to opening the next numbered bag every morning. I anticipate wearing my most favorite perfumes for the celebration days ahead. And I’m thinking about one last important addition to my perfume collection (about which I’ll tell you if it happens).
I plan to cook several dishes that I do only around these holidays. I don’t have the complete list yet, but I will definitely make a cranberry-apple-walnut mold salad (see the picture below) and a cheese pie. Just thinking about these two dishes makes me happy.
During our staycation, we plan to meet with several friends whom we haven’t seen in a while, make several day trips and hopefully spend more time outside of our house.
Undina's Looking Glass 
Spending time with Pickles, my feline granddaughter.
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Is Pickles reddish brown or black? I remember seeing her picture but wasn’t sure if it was her color or lighting.
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She is one hundred percent black. Depending on the light it her fur looks like dark chocolate (reddish brown) or bluish black. I will send you some photos :)
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The best thing will be the moment we drive home after a Christmas eve with my ever lamenting mother and spend at least the second day of the holidays in peace. I love my mother, but it is much easier to love her from afar….
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Let’s hope that your Christmas Eve goes better than you expect, and in any case, you’ll have a Christmas Day!
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We decorated our house last weekend, because everything else has been on hold – tonight is my son’s football state championship. Still being in the football season makes it less holiday-ish! (There will also be a letdown when it’s over, it has been very exciting.) We used to have a huge party every December. Hoping to return to that someday. I’m playing with the band at church on Christmas Eve, but otherwise we will be super low key this year. Our food tradition is a roasted beef tenderloin for Christmas Day, looking forward to that. We are also hoping that we’ll start hearing from some of the universities that my son applied to (he has an acceptance to Pitt but that’s not at the top of his list, too close to home…)
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I hope your son’s game went well (but in any case you smelled great! ;) ). And good luck to your son with the universities applications!
We all scaled down on our gatherings, and I hope eventually we’ll be back to the previous “normal.”
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I’m looking forward to having one son home for 48 hours. He’s requested a gammon & a turkey for Christmas dinner & I’ll make our corned beef hash & beans for Xmas Eve. My brother, who is single, is cooking at my elderly mums & we’ll pop to see them whilst the turkey is in the oven.
The elder son is doing a drive across the county to see us & my mum to deliver pressies & I’m adjusting to him spending Xmas Day with his g/fs family. They make a big thing of Xmas, whereas ours has always been low key as one of us was always working, the joys of being nurses.
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Thank you to you and your family: I’m sure your sacrifices over years made many other people’s Christmases less painful, miserable or unhappy.
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Thank you
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I am going on a trip which will involve three days of camping, then four days with my elderly parents. Like Tanja, it is easier to love them from afar, but my mother’s health is declining rapidly so we need to go see them for the holidays, as it might be the last one. I always look forward to coming home after such trips, even though I’m desperate to get out of the house in general.
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Since we are coming back to Rusty, I actually love coming home, no matter how much I enjoyed the trip.
Is Mila going with you on that camping trip?
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Yes, Mila will be coming with us. :-). I always miss my pets when I travel.
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I love reading about everyone’s plans :)
We’re not sure what we’re going to be able to do-i want to visit another friend in another province, but we’ve just had a hideous outbreak of virus here-all the restaurants closed, and probably a stay at home message coming at us. So. My tree is up, I have a few presents to wrap, and it could be a low key sort of holiday. I always like to wear perfume at Christmas time-I have some Nahema, and Chamade, and Cuir de Russie. Sometimes just wearing Coromandel and cooking something makes me happy-my favourite recipe is lemon poppyseed pound cake, from The Cake Bible. It always turns out well, it’s an uncomplicated recipe.
Undone sounds like a marvellous Christmas break for you! Try to stay sane in the lead up to 12 days off :)
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Let’s hope it doesn’t get too bad where you live. But if you can’t visit your friend now, I’m sure you’ll find another time to do that – and for now just prepare to your low key holidays.
I love poppy seed lemon cake but have never tried making it. I should.
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I’m looking forward to my visit with my son, his wife, and the grandbabies this coming week. We’ll be there the entire week so I’ll get lots of baby holding time. The twins are smiling a lot now so it’s really fun to be with them. I’ll be surrounded by a veritable Christmas explosion at their house. My daughter-in-law loves Christmas and she already has her huge tree up and decorated.
Christmas Eve and Christmas Day will be quiet, with just the two of us at home. I’ll probably make something homey like chili or a big pot of soup for Christmas day. I’m going to try Old Herbaceous’s lamb stifado for Christmas Eve. We’ve decorated the outside of the house with some lovely fresh greens and bows, but just some Christmas dolls indoors. Yes, the fashion dolls have Christmas clothes and a couple of mini Christmas props. :-)) My big event is my birthday on Jan. 6, Three Kings Day a/k/a Epiphany.
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I hope to see those dolls on your IG :)
Quiet celebration at home might be quite nice, especially when you are looking forward to a personal event soon after.
Enjoy your time with your extended family!
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Next week will be busy with work, but then it’ll wind down and we’ll spend a few days with my other half’s family. They have lots of young children so it’s always a proper celebration. Their climate is desert so I will have to bring perfumes to wear that won’t evaporate right away, or ones that I don’t mind spraying several times a day.
Good luck with the last stretch, Undina!
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I love desert climates. Sounds lovely. I spent some time in New Mexico a few years ago and loved it.
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I look forward to reading about your perfume choices and how they worked out under the unusual for you climate conditions. I would expect amber perfumes to be well-behaved, but I had a recollection that you weren’t a huge amber perfumes fan (I might be mistaken).
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I’m looking forward to putting up and decorating our tree in our restored living room for the first time in two years! Also looking forward to our son coming home from college next week; meeting our second daughter’s BF for the first time next week; and going to the Christmas Eve early evening service at our church, when our kids will sing with the youth choir as “alumni.” We’re so lucky to have magnificent music at our church, and floral decorations to match. We’re going to have some people over for Boxing Day, though I’m scaling that back with the spread of this new COVID variant; I don’t want to host a super-spreader event. Like Undina, I’m taking a long break of away from work, and I’m looking forward very much to that. I’ll work five days this coming week, then I’ll be done until January 3.
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I like your plans and hope to read more about what’s happening on your blog.
We’re being cautious, and I hope that the situation will remain under control for as long as possible (I really want to enjoy this vacation!). I would have felt better had we already done buster shots, but I think we’ll need to wait until January.
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I am looking forward to not spending Christmas Day on my own, haha – I got invited to have dinner with an old friend and her husband this year. Actually, I could probably have coped with another solo Christmas as last year’s really wasn’t so bad, but this will be more fun for sure. Enjoy your long break – it will be very well deserved!
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No matter how self-sufficient we are, it’s always more fun to share celebrations with friends or family. So, I’m glad that you’ll have a company: they’ll enjoy it a lot ;)
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Our tree goes up today- yay! I have 8.5 working days left (but who’s counting!) and then an 11-day break. Son’s primary school graduation is next week and we’re making a big deal of that :)
Christmas+New Year’s will be very low-key. No parties. I’ll cook some family favourites.
We hope to catch up with friends over the summer school break and maybe visit the arboretum, parks, and the local zoo. And I hope to do lots of drawing&painting in my -ahem- Studio (longe room)
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Hooray for a long vacation! congrats on your son’s graduation! My my…time does indeed fly.
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Thanks, Brigitte! Time does fly. But it’s just primary school. High school in Australia starts from year 7. He’s pretty excited but tries to act blasé,
And he’s still into perfumes and dinosaurs 😆
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Perfume and dinosaurs… What a perfect combo! :)
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The one thing I am most looking forward to is Jin’s Roast Pork and Crackling. Everything else is wallpaper.
Portia xx
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Sounds like a delicious meal, enjoy it
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Thanks Tanja, it is the best!
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I WANT SOME
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Only one way to get it Brigitte. Come over to ours the day after Xmas. That’s when we eat the saved for leftovers. MMMMMMMMMMMMM
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I like the fact that you’ve invited Brigitte the day after ;)) Are you sure there will be anything left? ;)
With all the work I missed your recent updates. Are you working around these holidays? Or is everything closed again?
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