Christmas Music/Movies

Today I thought I would highlight some of my favorite/traditional Christmas movies and music with you.  I already feel like I am going to forget something, but here is a list in no particular order:

1.  It's a Wonderful Life

This is a classic that is always a good reminder that your life matters.  Your life impacts so many more people than you realize.  The world needs you.  Keep going and don't lose hope.  Jesus loves you!

2.  Elf

This is just funny with so many great lines.  I haven't watched it yet, but need to, especially after just going to NYC.

3.  Miracle on 34th Street

I love the old version and the newer version (from 1994).  When we visited Macy's in NYC, they have the original store windows on display upstairs.  These windows are from when the original movie was made.

4.  The Holiday

This movie is a cute Rom-Com.  The characters are fun and it just makes you want to be transported to a cozy cottage in England.  

5.  Four Christmases 

This movie has some great lines and stars one of my favorites, Reese Witherspoon.  She and Vince Vaughan have great chemistry.

6.  Hallmark/Netflix/GAC/Lifetime/UPTV

I watch a variety of movies from these networks every season. It is almost impossible to watch them all and if you did, my goodness, they must all run together in the brain.  I do find these are good background movies though while doing things around the house!

7.  Classics

I still feel nostalgic when watching original Christmas shows....Rudolph, Charlie Brown, Frosty, Santa Claus is Coming to Town.  I also like to watch Christmas episodes of any of my favorite shows.

8.  The Nativity Story

Last but not least, this is my most recommended Christmas movie I mention every year.  We watch this every Christmas Day night.  We have been doing this tradtion for at least 15 years now, so we've all seen the movie that many times.  This is my favorite presentation of the Christmas story on film.

Now on to music....

1.  Oh Holy Night &

 O Come All Ye Faithful

by Josh Groban

2.  A Baby Changes Everything

 by Faith Hill

3.  Away In a Manger

by Casting Crowns

Silent Night/Away in a Manger (medley)

by Steven Curtis Chapman

**The third verse is my favorite:  "Be near me Lord Jesus I ask thee to stay, close by me forever and love me I pray.  Bless all the dear children in thy tender care.  And fit us for Heaven to live with you thee there."

4.  You're Here

by Francesca Battistelli

**Go listen to this if you haven't heard it!  It is a beautiful song!

5.  Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas

by Carpenters

6.  It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas

by Johnny Mathis

7.  What Christmas Means to Me

by Stevie Wonder

8.  Tennesee Christmas

by Alabama

9.  You Make It Feel Like Christmas

by Gwen Stefani & Blake Shelton

10.  Never Kissed Anyone with Blue Eyes &

When I Was A Little Girl &

My Gift is You

by Gwen Stefani

11.  Santa Claus is Back in Town &

Santa Bring my Baby Back to Me

by Elvis Presley

12.  The Classic Christmas Album

by Kenny G

*This is a great instrumental album that can be good for background or relaxing.

This list could go a little longer, but I will wrap it up here.  

Christmas Week Menu ~ 2022

 Today I am sharing my Christmas menu, along with a few other random goodies we are eating this week.  I have so many recipes I want to try and I hope to cook a lot of desserts this week and next too. I do work 3 days this week, so we will see how much of this I actually do!  If not, I will cook some of this between Christmas and New Years. 

I'm not sure of exactly which day/order I will cook these items.  One night, I hope we can go out to eat as a family then go look at Christmas lights and I have plans one night, so the family will probably eat grilled cheese, which is always a crowd pleaser.  

I plan on trying this new recipe for a pork loin with potatoes.  

Along side the pork and potatoes, I will cook black eyed peas (which neither of my girls eat, but it is what is in the freezer), and these Rosemary dinner rolls, which look good and sound pretty easy to make. 

The next recipe I hope to try is this festive Cranberry Chicken.  Doesn't it look pretty?

With that, I am going to make a macaroni and cheese kit I bought at Williams & Sonoma and serve this with a salad.

One night, we will plan on an easy breakfast for dinner meal, including pancakes, bacon, sausage, eggs and fruit.

Christmas Eve, I will bring some veggies and a dessert to our family gathering.  I am not sure what we will do for dinner that night.  Last year, we went to a Christmas Eve service and realized when that is over, it is hard to find food anywhere so this year I need to plan ahead.  I am thinking of possibly just having some chips and our favorite queso and guacamole along with some other snacks.

Christmas Day night, I always make spaghetti while we watch our Christmas movie.  This year, I may switch it up a little bit and keeping with the pasta theme, but changing it to chicken pesto pasta & this bread.

Now on to desserts!

Last weekend, I was craving sweets (just a normal day for me) & made these brownies.

I used a sugar free brownie mix, but then I added in about a cup of these chocolate chips with cream cheese flavor and a cup and a half of Christmas M&M's.  They tasted delicious!

I have been wanting to make this recipe for a Chocolate Pecan Chess Pie and plan to bring this to our Christmas Eve lunch.  

For Christmas morning, I will bring these Red Velvet cookies to our brunch.  I will add a cup of those Hershey's white chocolate chips with cream cheese to the cookies. That powdered sugar sure adds a pretty look!

I am thinking of making these Pretzel/Rolo/M&M's favorite for Christmas morning brunch too. I may not add the sprinkles like is pictured below...depends on what I have on hand!

If I am not too desserted out at this point, I would like to try this Keto Cheesecake. Maybe I will do this for New Years.

For our Christmas brunch, I am thinking of bringing these two things, along with my desserts:

Cinnamon Roll Muffins

Bacon Rotel Cups

Last random thing to share...a few weeks ago I went to Trader Joe's and bought the Jingle Jangle.  Let me just say, it is delicious.  I am glad it is seasonal, becuase this would not be good for me to have this in my house year round!  If you haven't tried it though, it is worth the hype.

How is your menu different these next few weeks of holidays? 

Weekend Wrap Up ~ December 19, 2022

 Good Monday morning to you! I am linking up today with Sarah and Holly with a weekend wrap up.

As I mentioned Friday, my sister and I organized a coat drive for the 2nd year in a row to collect coats for 2 schools in memory of my great nephew born into Heaven in December of 2020.  It was so rewarding to donate 85 coats!

Saturday morning, I went to my great niece's 2nd birthday party. It is always a joy to see all my greats at the same time!

This is my newest great niece who is 2 weeks old today!  That hair!!

This is my nephew and his son, who will be one in 2 weeks.  

The rest of my Saturday was spent doing random little things at home, watching the remake of Miracle on 34th Street, working on the blog and Grizzlies basketball.

Sunday was church, laundry, watching a Hallmark movie and my oldest arrived home for the week!

Come back tomorrow and I will be sharing my Christmas menu for the week & have other Christmas themed posts for this Christmas week as well.  

Friday Favorites ~ December 16, 2022

 

Happy Friday!  It's crazy to think we are one week before Christmas! I still feel like I haven't done a lot of my normal Christmas-y things like listening to a ton of Christmas music or watching traditional Christmas movies.  I listen to podcast so much, I haven't listened to as much Christmas music and Hallmark consumes any time I have to watch tv, but I want to watch some of my traditional favorites too (Elf, Christmas Vacation, Four Christmas's, The Holiday).  However, the most Christmas thing I have done is go to NYC, so that counts for something!

The week was a busy one because I have worked every day this week.  Not each day has been a full day at work, but I have had a lot to do.

ONE

Recapping NYC!  If you are interested in my reap, I blogged this week on our trip.

TWO

While at work this week, I indulged in a candy bar I brought back from a dessert place in Little Italy.  I also did some light reading with a book from Hoda :)

THREE

While distrubting donuts to staff and families at our children's hospital this week, I ran into a childhood friend who was there to volunteer with this project.  I had not seen her since high school graduation, over 34 years ago!

FOUR

I finally wrapped some Christmas gifts!  I honestly don't have a ton to wrap this year, but it still is fun to have a few under the tree.  I had about 2 hours at home to myself this week and wrapped these while one my 10,000 Hallmark/GAC/Lifetime Christmas movies was playing in the background.

FIVE

I have been coordinating a coat drive, along with my sister, this past month.  This is our 2nd year to collect coats for Callaway's Coats.  Callaway was my great nephew and my sister's grandson who was born into Heaven in December 2020.  As a way to honor his memory and namesake, we collect coats to donate to two local charter schools in Memphis.  Last year, we collected 47 boys coats and this year we collected 85 girls and boys coats!!  We will be delivering them to the schools today. I have been working on this project a lot, especially this past week by making tags and tagging them to the coats with my tagging gun.  

Enjoy your weekend!

NYC December 2022 Wrap Up

Here I am on day 4 of blogging and wrapping up my trip to NYC last week.  I hope some of the information has been helpful.  NYC is one of my favorite places &  I am so thankful I had a few days with my girls.  My youngest is on the quarter system with her university, so she finished school the week before Thanksgiving.  My oldest actually had exams while we were in New York, so that was poor planning on my part.  She was able to take 2 of them virtually from our hotel room.  She went back to school after the trip and will come home next week for Christmas break.  

There is so much to do in NYC and I always try to do at least one new thing.  On this trip, the new thing was ice skating!  Again, we didn't do many of the regular tourist things that weren't related to Christmas.  We have all done most of the big things, but there are many things still on my list to do on my next visit. Christmas time is a beautiful time to go to NYC, but it is crowded.  However, NYC has always had crowds, which honestly gives me a feeling of safety.  

Thanks for reading along this week and I am winding this trip up with some random pictures I took along the way.

NYC December 2022 - Part 3

 Happy Wednesday!  Another day of recapping our NYC trip last week.  Waking up the next day we were once again so thankful for another good weather day to be in New York City!

We headed out for a quick breakfast at a diner for pastries and walked to Radio City Music Hall for the Christmas Spectacular with the Rockettes.  

It is such a beautiful theater!  On one of my visits to NYC, I did a tour and you could meet a Rockette at the end of the tour.  It was so cool to walk across the stage during the that tour.  

The crowds are back in NYC!

Honestly, I don't think there is a bad seat in the house.  We had the front row of our Mezzanine level and it was great.

Here is a picture of Radio City at night:

We exited the theater underground into the NBC Building next door.  As we were looking for a restroom, we saw Hoda Kotb from The Today Show walk by!  She was in a hurry, but was so kind to stop for some pictures.  Funny story, 6 years ago when we were in NYC, we passed by Hoda on the sidewalk in this same area, but didn't get a picture with her and have often talked about that.  This was like a redemption to get a picture with her!

We hopped on the subway and headed to Soho for some shopping.

We saw this walking from Soho to Little Italy...anyone watch this show on Netflix??

Little Italy was darling.  Outside of the restaurants are these little seating areas, which I found to be so fascinating.  We also saw these in Midtown as well.

We went back to the hotel to get ready for our Broadway night out on the town...The Music Man! This began in February this year and was scheduled to close the end of December, however, due to poplar demand, it has been extended through mid-January.  Why you ask?  Because Hugh Jackman is fabulous.  It is a cute, family friendly play.  And it stars Hugh Jackman.  The leading lady is Tony award winner and Broadway royalty, Sutton Foster.  Did I mention this stars Hugh Jackman??

Winter Garden Theater

This is not my original photo, but it showcases the final scene from the play. 

The play is delightful.  Hugh Jackman is made for the stage.  He has the best prescence and facial expressions.  We headed to the stage door afterwards to get a glance.

We were energized afterwards and enjoyed taking in all the lights and action of Times Square.  It was definitely the most fun Friday night I've had in 2022!

This was our last night, so a few more random pictures and recap tomorrow....