A Mom For the Holidays

It's crazy how one day you wake up and realize that the magic of Christmas is now up to you and your spouse to create for your family. And with that freedom comes endless options and a lot of $$$. Now I'm not a DIYer, so I have to buy my Christmas spirit and it starts with a made-at-home holiday drink - Starbucks Verona K Cup with some Starbucks Sugar Cookie Non-Dairy Creamer typically. Once I get fueled up and send the toddler and hubby off to school and work respectively, it's just me and my German Shepherd to mosey up to my large and cozy office where I work from home, sip on my magic-fueled Christmas drink, and work while thinking about all the ways I will make this year special.

As this is my son's first real year understanding what Christmas is and getting excited about lights and presents, he is 2 years old, I want to make this the start of our traditions and making things as sparkly and magical as possible for him. So far that's included putting up our Christmas decorations the first weekend after Halloween - yes we are those people and we love it. However, we did wait a little longer to put our outdoor decorations up. And we started baking a different Christmas cookie every week and freezing them so by Christmas time we have enough varieties to unfreeze and deliver them to all 7 of our neighbors on our quiet little dead-end street.

You may be thinking, what 2 year old bakes? Well not to toot my own horn, but as an only child we do have more time to focus on just him, and I LOVE to bake, so he is inevitably drawn in to see what Mamãe (we go by Portuguese parent names as my husband is from the Açores) is doing in the kitchen. This has worked out quite well for me because I now have the most adorable, if somewhat messy, little helper in the kitchen. He has his own kitchen stool where he will climb up and help me with everything from peeling his clementine for his afternoon snack, rolling out pizza dough and putting the toppings on (we make it from scratch), or adding in the flour and sugar to our cookie recipes.

I'll start to share some of my lists of favorite things holiday-focused for presents, baking, hosting, and general coziness as this season progresses.

Stay cozy!

Sara