Holiday Season Bucket List
Who doesn’t love the holiday season? The decorations, the festivities, the togetherness, there’s nothing not to love except how quickly it goes by. One way I try to hold onto and appreciate the season is by making sure I carve out time to do a couple of my favorite holiday traditions.
Deck the Halls – Holiday decorations are possibly one of my favorite things of the season. They make everything feel so cozy and festive so I like to be sure ours are put up early to maximize the amount of time we get to enjoy them.
Holiday Baking – I always love to bake, but the holidays seems like an extra special time to do it. Whether for a cookie swap, homemade holiday gifts, entertaining or just to enjoy, I always try to make a couple different types of cookies. A few years ago I rounded up some of my favorite holiday cookie recipes, I’ll be sure to make these this year, but I’m also excited to try a few new ones!
Christmas Pajamas – It sounds basic, but it brings me so much joy! I love picking out our matching holiday pjs at the start of November so I can be sure to pick just the right ones. Every year we take a picture in our matching sets and I get it printed so we can display the collection from all the past years as part of our holiday decorations. I’m extra excited for this years because we now have a baby to include!
Cozy Fire & a Movie – I realize none of these are revolutionary! We have a big beautiful fireplace and love to listen to the crackle of the fire while watching our favorite Christmas movies.
Dress Up – Christmas sweaters, holiday dresses, Christmas pajamas (mentioned above), nothing gets you in the spirit more than dressing the part. I’m a traditionalist and tend to love to wear reds, greens, tartan, fair isle, all the things you’d expect to see! Finding the right outfit for the festivity is always a fun part of the season.
The Great Dicken’s Christmas Fair – We only heard of this a couple of years ago, but now it’s a must! It really does feel like you’ve been transported back in time to Victorian era England. There are so many cute little shops and places to eat, performances to watch and my favorite of all are the costumes! It’s like Renaissance Faire, but times ten! So many more people dress up (and act the part!) plus it’s set during Christmas time—there’s nothing not to love!
Christmas Lights – Our neighborhood happens to have spectacular participation in terms of holiday decorating. We love to take evening walks through our streets to see all the lights. Typically, each street has some sort of common theme—giant candy canes, Christmas tree archways, snowflakes etc—and then people will do their own decorations on top of that. It’s also a tradition in our neighborhood to put out a small Christmas tree on the lawn, so almost every house has one of those as well! I know there are lots of other neighborhoods in the Bay Area we could drive through as well.
Some other holiday traditions that I’d like to start are gingerbread house decorating, visiting Santa and getting photos now that we have a little one, watching a Christmas production like The Nutcracker or A Christmas Carol and I’d love it if we could manage a trip to New York. New York always looks so magical during the holiday season. Maybe it’s not something we could do every year, but every couple of years.
Wishing a happy holidays to all!