Yup, I've been fighting a cold since Saturday. 'Tis the season I guess. And though it isn't a horrible cold (despite that I sound like a frog and my head is pounding), it still doesn't make me want to do much despite the pending holiday. So our advent fun has been slightly derailed...but alas, we still try!
Day 17: Happy Chrisma-Hanukwan-Zakah Celebration: Every holiday, hubs and I host our annual holiday gathering for our close friends. Uber casual affair: claymation (specifically Rudolph, hubs fave) and other holiday movies are shown while people mix and mingle with drinks & nosh. Featured this year was hubs home brew of Nut Brown and Hefe - both delicious - and mix of food, including jalapeno popper dip, mini crab quiches, fruit salsa and gorgonzola & pear pizza's drizzled with a honey balsamic sauce. It was a wonderful, laid back evening - thanks to those who joined us!
Day 18: A Stately Affair: We modified this day, as we were going to visit the Indiana State Museum to see both the Titanic Exhibition and 'Odd Indiana.' Plus, Celebration Crossing is always cute if you want to get in the holiday spirit. They even have this little train you can ride, it's adorable. Unfortunately, neither one of us were quite in the mood to go and ended up catching up on some DVR'd tele and holiday shopping. But I'm not complaining! We even decided to have a home fondue evening. We only made it through the cheese course (a basic swiss with adobo chili and bacon) as we were too full for our pending chocolate. Maybe we'll get to it later in the week, and if not, we'll just have lots of fruit to eat up!
Day 19: A House of Ginger: This is another modification, because we didn't build our Gingerbread house as intended. I guess the weekend of no plans was in full force! Instead, we finished holiday shopping and made lots of yummy food throughout the day, including bleu cheese meatballs in this rich and creamy bleu cheese sauce (note - sounds like a lot of bleu, but in reality, it wasn't at all. Fantastic with some good bread too, which we had), sausage and cheddar biscuits and bacon wrapped jalapenos (of course I had to use up the leftovers from the dip!) This was all after a yummy breakfast of pumpkin spiced waffles (subtly, cause we spread some blueberry sauce on top still) and thickly sliced bacon. Lazy Sunday, my favorite.
Day 20: Holiday Exchange: Our own private holiday gift giving, hubs and I have decided to exchange a few small items because we are going to get something 'big' after the holiday. By big, we mean probably another pup. We plan on rescuing one from Tri-State Rescue, so we are waiting for the right one to come along as well as the right time. Nala does need a playmate, so we'll see...but back to the evening. I must have been a good girl this year, because I got lots of Disney love, especially Nightmare Before Christmas. I heart Disney's Vinylmation, so that was a fun treat. And the ornament exchange is tradition, as is the Disney Precious Moment (hubs gets me one every year since we've been married because we had one on our cake table.) I gave hubs his ornament, some basic beer mugs for the sharing of home brews (time to pack up some of those pint glasses!) and his last gift hasn't arrived yet. He really wanted the 1 liter beer mug, similar to the Hofbrauhaus glass. What my baby wants, my baby gets - it should arrive a few days after the holiday.The final week of the advent calendar is here - looking forward to some great food (my taste buds better start working as should my nose...) with friends and holidays with the family! And of course, happy Winter Solstice!
Gift giving - anything you excited for if you are giving or receiving?