# Holiday Homemaking 2023 | Week 3

An episode of [The Art of Home: A Podcast for Homemakers](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1557993655), 13 Dec 2023, 1 h 27 min.

Audio: https://www.buzzsprout.com/1587457/episodes/14137681-holiday-homemaking-2023-week-3.mp3

Send me a text about this episode! Welcome to the coziest corner of the podcast world, where I invite you to wrap yourself in a warm blanket of holiday cheer! By my side is a merry group of six homemakers, each with a Christmas story to share, unique traditions to reveal, and a heart filled with the joy of the season. FROM THIS EPISODE • Recipes & Resources Companion Blog Post (Coming Soon!) HOLIDAY HOMEMAKING RESOURCES • Advent Devotional Guide • Holiday Homemaking 2021 & 2022 (enter "holiday homemaking" in search bar) Support the show HOMEMAKING RESOURCES • Homemaker's Journal, AoH Seasonal Magazine • Private Facebook Group, Homemaker Forum • JR Miller's Homemaking Study Guide SUPPORT & CONNECT • Review | Love The Podcast • Contact | Text/Voicemail-use the link at top of description | Website | Email • Follow | Follow The Podcast • Support | theartofhomepodcast.com/support DISCLOSURE • **Buy | as an Amazon affiliate, AoH receives a small commission at no extra cost to you when you use our links to purchase items we recommend • AI Content | Portions of this episode’s copy and/or show notes may have been drafted with the assistance of AI and then reviewed and edited by a human, Allison Weeks.

## Transcript

[0:03] Allison Weeks: Merry Christmas, homemakers.
[0:04] Allison Weeks: Welcome to episode 3 of Holiday Homemaking 2023.
[0:08] Allison Weeks: I'm your host, allison Weeks.
[0:10] Allison Weeks: I am a wife, a mom to forgrown kids, granny to one little boy and I have been practicing the art of holiday homemaking for over 31 years.
[0:19] Allison Weeks: Welcome back to all of our regular listeners and if you are new to the podcast, welcome.
[0:24] Allison Weeks: So glad you found us.
[0:26] Allison Weeks: We have a great episode for you today.
[0:28] Allison Weeks: It is busting at the seams with Christmas Joy.
[0:31] Allison Weeks: You will hear from six more Homemakers about their holiday recipes, tips, favorites and memories.
[0:36] Allison Weeks: Don't forget to subscribe to our newsletter, homemaker Happy Mail, because that is where you will get some of the recipes mentioned in today's episode, as well as some special writing on the Advent theme of Joy from an art of home listener.
[0:51] Allison Weeks: Sign up for the newsletter using the link below or go to theartofhomepodcastcom.
[0:56] Allison Weeks: In today's episode, you are going to hear from Mandy Thompson, elizabeth Dillard, roan Johnson, alexis Molnar, samantha Bain and Tiffany Harris Homemakers of All Ages and Stages.
[1:12] Allison Weeks: I have some tips for you on decorating with the unexpected and unusual, including my top things to thrift for at Christmas time, and I'm sharing some Advent thoughts on joy in homemaking.
[1:25] Allison Weeks: There is so much here.
[1:27] Allison Weeks: I know you will get lots of ideas and inspiration for your own holiday homemaking.
[1:31] Allison Weeks: So whatever you are applying your hands to as you listen today, I know you will enjoy these holiday stories of home.
[1:55] Mandi Thompson: The girls will come up and get us up at five o'clock Still.
[2:00] Allison Weeks: Still At 15 and 12.
[2:04] Mandi Thompson: That's so sweet.
[2:06] Allison Weeks: You know Are they typically morning people anyway, or it's just because it's Christmas.
[2:11] Mandi Thompson: It's mainly because it's Christmas, but we're usually, I mean, even on Saturday morning, we're up at by like 7, 7.30.
[2:17] Mandi Thompson: You're early risers, we are, but yeah.
[2:22] Mandi Thompson: So we get up at five and see what Santa brought, and do that, and then we start opening presents.
[2:32] Mandi Thompson: We usually get the coffee going I'll usually have a breakfast casserole or something that I can pop in the oven while we're doing that and then just presents ensue for hours because we go around one by one, one at a time.
[2:47] Mandi Thompson: Okay, so the last couple of years my mom, stepdad, my brother and his wife, you know, have all been a part of that with us.
[2:57] Mandi Thompson: So it's been fun just to kind of share that with them as well.
[3:01] Mandi Thompson: But yeah, and then, you know, after it's all done, we just kind of clean up a little bit.
[3:09] Mandi Thompson: Girls will go to their room and play with all the new, and then we usually will try to take a nap.
[3:19] Allison Weeks: I'm like, yeah, by that time it's probably nap time yeah.
[3:22] Mandi Thompson: Yeah, so that typically will happen.
[3:25] Mandi Thompson: And then the afternoon we'll our family loves playing nerds.
[3:30] Mandi Thompson: It's a card game.
[3:32] Mandi Thompson: It's almost like double solitaire Okay, I'm slightly different.
[3:36] Mandi Thompson: It gets.
[3:36] Mandi Thompson: You can have so many decks of cards.
[3:39] Mandi Thompson: You have to have at least two, okay, and you can either work in teams or alone.
[3:43] Mandi Thompson: It gets loud.
[3:45] Mandi Thompson: My mom usually yells, I yell, but it's a lot of fun and the girls love it.
[3:52] Mandi Thompson: So we'll typically do, you know, something like that, either midday or something.
[3:55] Mandi Thompson: But yeah, so this kind of Christmas for us, do you do a big meal later in the day?
[4:02] Mandi Thompson: Yeah, and the last couple of years we've really tried to find something that's a tradition, like a traditional Christmas meal, like what people did long ago.
[4:13] Mandi Thompson: So we'll try to find what kind of game or meet that was.
[4:18] Mandi Thompson: We'll try to figure out a way to prepare it.
[4:21] Mandi Thompson: Oh, cool, that way.
[4:22] Mandi Thompson: And then we'll look up some older side dishes and stuff as well.
[4:26] Mandi Thompson: So that way it's kind of a that's fun tradition.
[4:29] Allison Weeks: Yeah, so like, maybe like a colonial style Christmas or something like that.
[4:35] Mandi Thompson: Yeah, I mean, don really likes history and he, he's so funny.
[4:41] Mandi Thompson: I feel like I talk about him a lot, but he is your husband.
[4:45] Allison Weeks: Yes, that's probably a good thing.
[4:48] Mandi Thompson: We spend a lot of time together.
[4:49] Mandi Thompson: But yeah, so we yeah, he'll kind of look up and research different kinds of meat, so we'll try to do something.
[4:59] Mandi Thompson: I don't know We've gone anything from.
[5:02] Mandi Thompson: We've looked at doing cornish hens to like the crown.
[5:08] Allison Weeks: Oh, like a rack of lamb kind of thing.
[5:10] Allison Weeks: Okay.
[5:11] Mandi Thompson: Yeah, yeah, we like their lamb a lot, so we'll try to do lamb a lot yeah that's fun.
[5:17] Allison Weeks: Does everybody sort of pitch in for making Christmas dinner, or is?
[5:20] Mandi Thompson: that it just depends on who's going to be here and what the plan is.
[5:24] Mandi Thompson: So yeah, typically Don and I'll carry the meat and then at least one bigger side dish.
[5:32] Mandi Thompson: And then if anybody else wants to, we're like here's this, if you want to contribute.
[5:38] Allison Weeks: Yeah, this is what we're going for.
[5:39] Allison Weeks: Okay, well, that's fun.
[5:41] Allison Weeks: So what about sweets and desserts?
[5:44] Allison Weeks: Is there something that you always need to have either during the Christmas season or on Christmas Day?
[5:52] Mandi Thompson: So every year the girls and I do a Christmas cookie party.
[5:55] Mandi Thompson: Oh my, my aunt made tea cakes and it's just a sugar cookie that's not very sweet and I loved them.
[6:04] Mandi Thompson: Growing up it was like my favorite thing about Christmas.
[6:07] Mandi Thompson: She would make tea cakes, gingerbread, men fudge and peanut butter balls.
[6:12] Mandi Thompson: And so every year without Phil we make.
[6:16] Mandi Thompson: I don't do fudge anymore.
[6:18] Mandi Thompson: I had a really good recipe growing up for microwave fudge.
[6:22] Mandi Thompson: That was like failproof.
[6:25] Mandi Thompson: It was so fantastic and I have not been able to find it which is so sad.
[6:30] Mandi Thompson: So I don't do fudge because it scares me.
[6:33] Mandi Thompson: But.
[6:34] Mandi Thompson: But every year we do the peanut butter balls, the gingerbread men and then the tea cakes.
[6:39] Mandi Thompson: So this is your aunt's tea cake recipe.
[6:42] Allison Weeks: Oh, is it a secret family recipe or can you share it with us?
[6:45] Mandi Thompson: No, I can share it, okay, cool.
[6:47] Allison Weeks: Awesome.
[6:47] Allison Weeks: Well, that is so fun.
[6:49] Allison Weeks: So you have a Christmas cookie party with just your girls, or do you invite people in?
[6:52] Mandi Thompson: We invite people in.
[6:53] Mandi Thompson: So when they were younger my aunt had this really great tip.
[6:59] Mandi Thompson: She helped Alzheimer's people.
[7:01] Mandi Thompson: They moved to Delano several years ago and she kind of headed that up.
[7:05] Mandi Thompson: But she gave me this great tip when the girls were a little to water down the icing so they could paint with it.
[7:12] Mandi Thompson: Oh yeah, and so when they were little we would make all the cookies, I would get brand new paint brushes and then water down the icing in different colors so they could paint in every set of having to use their little hands with squeezy bags and even the ones you buy in the store that are in the bottle.
[7:29] Allison Weeks: Those are even hard for little hands to.
[7:31] Mandi Thompson: That's such a good idea.
[7:32] Mandi Thompson: So that was great.
[7:33] Mandi Thompson: And they every year they get to invite some friends.
[7:36] Mandi Thompson: One of the little friends this year she was like I love getting to decorate cookies, so it just is fun.
[7:42] Mandi Thompson: They get to take them home.
[7:43] Mandi Thompson: We've kind of added some new things over the years on.
[7:46] Mandi Thompson: You know new things the girls want to try and stuff.
[7:48] Mandi Thompson: But we typically have a big girls day and we have Dawn sister and her daughter come over and it's just it's so fun.
[7:58] Allison Weeks: I love that.
[7:58] Allison Weeks: Well, besides the cookie party, are there any other family traditions that you guys do during the holiday season?
[8:06] Mandi Thompson: Not typically.
[8:07] Mandi Thompson: We used to always go and do Christmas lights.
[8:09] Mandi Thompson: We would go and I would make a big thermos of hot chocolate and we'd drive around and look at Christmas lights.
[8:15] Mandi Thompson: But yeah, we haven't.
[8:18] Mandi Thompson: We didn't do that this last year.
[8:20] Mandi Thompson: This last year, it just was a very busy season, more so than usual so.
[8:26] Mandi Thompson: I felt like there was some stuff that we didn't get to do, but just spending time with family is probably our biggest one.
[8:34] Mandi Thompson: Like I said, kenny and I enjoy playing games, so typically the holidays is filled with puzzles and games and family time as much as possible, so that's good.
[8:45] Allison Weeks: Yeah, Well then how do you omit all of that and all the activity and the busier schedules that tend to happen at the end of the year?
[8:54] Allison Weeks: How do you keep your focus on the main thing throughout all of that?
[8:58] Allison Weeks: What are some things you do?
[9:00] Mandi Thompson: We don't do great on this.
[9:01] Mandi Thompson: We don't.
[9:03] Mandi Thompson: I'm totally honest.
[9:05] Mandi Thompson: I wish we we were more intentional, because one of my favorite things is just being together.
[9:11] Mandi Thompson: I think that's the greatest gift that God gave us, right?
[9:14] Mandi Thompson: I mean, from the very beginning he tells us that you know, it's not good for me to be alone, yeah, and so sharing that time with each other is, I feel, like just the greatest reminder and the greatest gift that can happen.
[9:25] Mandi Thompson: But we try.
[9:31] Mandi Thompson: It is hard.
[9:33] Mandi Thompson: We're still learning, the girls and I every morning on the way to school and stuff.
[9:38] Mandi Thompson: We always do a little devotional.
[9:40] Mandi Thompson: The Bible app has a great kids devotional every day.
[9:47] Mandi Thompson: And so they have like a minute or two minute person talking.
[9:51] Mandi Thompson: They kind of go over some scripture.
[9:52] Mandi Thompson: This year was particularly really good.
[9:56] Mandi Thompson: The guy that they had doing it really was just a reminder on what it is to wait expectantly, so it was just really beautiful.
[10:05] Mandi Thompson: So to kind of get to have that in the morning together and then talk about that was always something that we really enjoy.
[10:13] Allison Weeks: I love that idea of doing the devotional with them on the way to school, because it's like just the right amount of time.
[10:20] Allison Weeks: Yes, and this is something you'll find more and more that your girls are teenagers.
[10:25] Allison Weeks: I don't know what it is about riding in the car, but they will talk more to you when you're in the car.
[10:33] Allison Weeks: I think it's cause they don't have to look you in the face Like you're looking ahead cause you're driving and they're looking ahead.
[10:39] Mandi Thompson: Yes.
[10:39] Allison Weeks: And you can have these.
[10:40] Allison Weeks: That's some of the best conversations I've had with my kids were riding in the car, because there's something about that.
[10:45] Allison Weeks: It breaks down their, their barrier.
[10:47] Allison Weeks: Yes, have you found this?
[10:48] Allison Weeks: I don't know.
[10:49] Mandi Thompson: Yes, yeah, and I try not to let them be on their phones too much.
[10:53] Mandi Thompson: Madison is a bookworm and she always is reading, and so she can't get a book, a hard copy she's gotten it digital.
[11:01] Mandi Thompson: Yeah, which great.
[11:03] Mandi Thompson: I'm glad she's reading by the same time too.
[11:05] Mandi Thompson: I'll try to keep it as much where they're off their phones and they have to talk to me as much as possible.
[11:12] Mandi Thompson: No phones in the car.
[11:13] Mandi Thompson: So yeah, but so yeah, it's good yeah that's a great suggestion.
[11:18] Allison Weeks: That was on the Bible app that you had that, so they I'm assuming they do it all year.
[11:22] Allison Weeks: There's an emotional all year and then at Christmas time it's geared towards towards Advent.
[11:26] Allison Weeks: Okay, very good suggestion, awesome.
[11:29] Allison Weeks: Thank you very much for sharing all your Christmas tips and stuff.
[11:32] Allison Weeks: Merry Christmas, merry Christmas.
[11:34] Allison Weeks: All right, I'm back here with my friend and single homemaking gal, elizabeth Dillard.
[11:49] Allison Weeks: All right, we're going to talk about Christmas, elizabeth, so why don't you tell us how do you embrace holiday homemaking as a single homemaker?
[11:59] Elizabeth Dillard: So I love Christmas.
[12:01] Elizabeth Dillard: Christmas is so full of joy and bestivity.
[12:05] Elizabeth Dillard: It's my favorite time of year.
[12:07] Elizabeth Dillard: It's actually like I don't really like cold winter months, but Christmas makes cold.
[12:12] Elizabeth Dillard: Well, in Texas it's not that cold, so maybe that's why I like it so much.
[12:15] Elizabeth Dillard: But the holiday aspect of it, like it's just like this is Christmas and so happy, and, of course, as Christians, like there's so much joy that comes out of it as well.
[12:22] Elizabeth Dillard: So you mentioned in there, like decorating, hospitality so embracing that I love to decorate for Christmas.
[12:31] Elizabeth Dillard: When I still lived at home, I would decorate the whole house for Christmas and I still like go over there and decorate their house, and I had to like remind myself to like decorate my house too.
[12:41] Elizabeth Dillard: I actually, I also.
[12:44] Elizabeth Dillard: So I mean we were talking about being a single homemaker so much flexibility and freedom there is.
[12:51] Elizabeth Dillard: I have time to go help Danny at church, so I'll help her.
[12:54] Elizabeth Dillard: I've helped her for the past I don't know how many years like four or five years decorate for Christmas.
[12:59] Elizabeth Dillard: So, I don't come up with the planning part of it because that's a little outside of my brain scope.
[13:05] Elizabeth Dillard: But when she's like I have this plan, can you glue these things to that, Can you cut this out?
[13:08] Elizabeth Dillard: It's like, yes, I can do that.
[13:10] Allison Weeks: And.
[13:10] Elizabeth Dillard: I enjoy it I also.
[13:13] Elizabeth Dillard: I still try to connect with people, so that's something we're talking about with home, like I connect with people outside the home, I have noticed recently so I don't know if it's always been like this, but it's more of a Christmas time it's the out of town people or the single people that I meet with more.
[13:31] Roan Johnson: Christmas time.
[13:32] Elizabeth Dillard: And I think it's because the moms with their kids and stuff, they it's Christmas is more of like a family time and so they're obviously like, well, we're going out of town, we're seeing family or they're hunkering down, or maybe it is a stressful time for them, so they like we're just, you know, zoning out for a while.
[13:49] Elizabeth Dillard: It's like that's okay.
[13:50] Elizabeth Dillard: So it's more of the single people in the out of town people that I connect with a lot more.
[13:55] Allison Weeks: Yeah, oh yeah, that makes sense, that makes sense.
[13:58] Allison Weeks: So, so what is a typical Christmas day look like for you?
[14:02] Elizabeth Dillard: So, being a single girl, I still go hang out with my family, so at my parents house, and it's just a nice calm day Like there's never.
[14:14] Elizabeth Dillard: I don't ever remember stress around Christmas or still not stress.
[14:17] Elizabeth Dillard: I guess maybe the stress of it can be like now that I have two sisters that are married, sometimes like one of them's like well, we got to go to the other family members house yeah.
[14:29] Elizabeth Dillard: Or we haven't quite had it yet, where they're like well, we're not coming this Christmas, like we're going to do New Year's instead.
[14:35] Elizabeth Dillard: So so far they've all been there for Christmas.
[14:37] Elizabeth Dillard: I haven't missed a Christmas yet due to work, but I think this year maybe the year that I miss last Thanksgiving.
[14:44] Roan Johnson: So I had to be.
[14:45] Elizabeth Dillard: I had to celebrate Thanksgiving with firefighters, which is great.
[14:48] Elizabeth Dillard: It was not happy at all, but I didn't make a pumpkin pie though.
[14:54] Alexis Molnar: Oh no, it was a sweet potato pie.
[14:57] Elizabeth Dillard: And they, I remember.
[14:58] Elizabeth Dillard: I know we're talking about Christmas, but Thanksgiving to me, so I think I'll mention it later, but Thanksgiving kicks off Christmas in my brain.
[15:05] Allison Weeks: I listen to.
[15:05] Elizabeth Dillard: Christmas music all day.
[15:06] Elizabeth Dillard: I start Christmas music in October.
[15:09] Allison Weeks: Oh, you're one of those people.
[15:11] Elizabeth Dillard: But it's like a random like oh, I want to listen to this song again, Unless the song versus Christmas day is like now we're just listening to all Christmas music.
[15:17] Elizabeth Dillard: Or Thanksgiving day.
[15:18] Allison Weeks: Yes.
[15:19] Elizabeth Dillard: Yes, but anyhow, last Thanksgiving was, for some reason we ran like all of the calls and so it was like all day I've like work, work, work.
[15:27] Elizabeth Dillard: And then I would squeeze in like they'd go watch TV and I'm like I don't want to watch football, Like that's stupid.
[15:32] Elizabeth Dillard: So I'd go upstairs and like sweat some, because our station was at, then the gym was upstairs, and then it was like evening and they were like you told us, you're going to make a sweet potato pie.
[15:42] Elizabeth Dillard: And I was like they all like.
[15:44] Elizabeth Dillard: So it wasn't till like nine or 10 PM at night when the pie was done and they were like well, I guess we'll stay up and eat it.
[15:51] Elizabeth Dillard: And anyhow they went and got back second.
[15:54] Elizabeth Dillard: So I'm assuming it was fine, yeah, whatever.
[15:58] Elizabeth Dillard: Anyhow.
[15:58] Elizabeth Dillard: So yeah, it's.
[16:00] Elizabeth Dillard: You know, christmas is at home with family, it's.
[16:04] Elizabeth Dillard: It's always just a real calm, quiet day, I love it Okay.
[16:08] Allison Weeks: So, besides your sweet potato pie that you made at the firehouse which, by the way, elizabeth is a firefighter paramedic yes, okay, cause, if you didn't catch her original interview, we talked a lot about that and so she has to spend several days at a time at the firehouse with a bunch of guys, with a bunch of guys who will judge your food 100%, but then like every time, if I do cook something cause I'm not like, oh, I have to cook, like usually the guys are better than me, but afterwards they're always like that was actually good, like they don't want to admit
[16:37] Elizabeth Dillard: that it's good, but they're like that's actually, but during the process it's hardcore.
[16:41] Elizabeth Dillard: Like you, better make this good.
[16:42] Allison Weeks: Yeah.
[16:43] Elizabeth Dillard: I mean it's, it's like a competition.
[16:44] Elizabeth Dillard: It's, yeah, it is, and if you fail, they will remind you of it for months on end.
[16:51] Allison Weeks: So it's yeah, that's funny.
[16:53] Allison Weeks: Okay, so besides sweet potato pie that Thanksgiving, is there other food that you like?
[16:59] Allison Weeks: You feel like you need to have, during the Christmas season, a special cookie or something.
[17:04] Elizabeth Dillard: Yes, so our family, we've always done tamales Christmas Eve.
[17:08] Elizabeth Dillard: Okay, so there's a little hole in the wall place in downtown San Antonio that we always and I.
[17:15] Elizabeth Dillard: The tamales at H E B here, our grocery store, are pretty similar, so sometimes if we can't get downtown like, we'll get those, but it's always tamales at least Christmas Eve, and sometimes we buy a whole bunch so it lasts like a couple of days so it's gotta be a tamale Cool.
[17:30] Allison Weeks: Good to know, all right Well, do you have any other holiday traditions that you do during the season?
[17:37] Elizabeth Dillard: So I like I kind of mentioned it a little bit but I like to decorate the day after Thanksgiving, so Thanksgiving Day is full of Christmas music while you're cooking even if.
[17:47] Elizabeth Dillard: I'm not the one cooking, I'm the one that's putting the music on.
[17:49] Elizabeth Dillard: It's like you have to listen to this Christmas music and then the day after is decorating.
[17:54] Elizabeth Dillard: Yeah, so the house.
[17:57] Allison Weeks: Usually, if I'm helping Danny with the church, it's the days leading up to Thanksgiving, so she tries to knock it out before Thanksgiving, obviously so that we have day, and then the church is decorated for that first Sunday after.
[18:11] Elizabeth Dillard: So it's usually the the Monday through Wednesday that we're trying to knock out the church, but the day after is focused on and I usually I still do my parents' house.
[18:20] Elizabeth Dillard: I don't do the outside lights my dad does those but I do like the inside and then slowly trying to do my house.
[18:28] Elizabeth Dillard: So, but I'm not here a lot because I am a permetic firefighter and I'll meet friends and stuff, so it's more of an afterthought with, like, oh yeah, a tree.
[18:35] Elizabeth Dillard: My tree is so gross Like.
[18:37] Elizabeth Dillard: I bought this like a cheap tree at Walmart and it's like purple.
[18:41] Elizabeth Dillard: I don't know why it's like a black print.
[18:43] Elizabeth Dillard: The box showed it is like this beautiful green spruce and then I opened it.
[18:47] Elizabeth Dillard: I'm like it's black with a tint of purple, what?
[18:50] Elizabeth Dillard: But thankfully my house is dark enough to where you can't tell that it's black when you have light strung on it and little ornaments.
[18:57] Elizabeth Dillard: So it's like, okay, I can survive, but I seriously considered spray painting it because I was like it's so gross but anyhow.
[19:03] Elizabeth Dillard: I also like listening to a Christmas Carol.
[19:06] Elizabeth Dillard: We have like an audio version oh yeah, so it's not like I don't do it every year.
[19:11] Elizabeth Dillard: And sometimes it's instead of the audio, it's the movie or something, but I used to read the story.
[19:18] Elizabeth Dillard: But I feel like audio is easier because you can go do other stuff.
[19:22] Allison Weeks: Oh yeah, I'm a huge fan of audio books.
[19:24] Elizabeth Dillard: I like the story.
[19:27] Allison Weeks: Cool.
[19:27] Allison Weeks: Yeah, I think Patrick Stewart does a really good audible version.
[19:36] Elizabeth Dillard: He reads a really a really good audible.
[19:38] Elizabeth Dillard: There's some like what is that called Audio theater or something that?
[19:42] Allison Weeks: Yeah, like radio theater.
[19:43] Allison Weeks: Yeah, radio theater that I have Cool so very nice, very nice.
[19:46] Allison Weeks: Well, okay, so even though you're a single girl and you have a bit more freedom in your schedule and whatnot, it still can get crazy at the holiday time, you know, because you still have.
[19:56] Allison Weeks: You're decorating your parents' house and you're working and you still have gifts to buy and all that kind of stuff.
[20:02] Allison Weeks: So how do you maintain balance during the busy season and keep your focus on Christ?
[20:08] Elizabeth Dillard: It's easy for the Christmas season to fly by.
[20:10] Elizabeth Dillard: Yeah, and that's the part that's sad to say, hard quote unquote is because I want to enjoy each joyful Christmas day and so sometimes, especially if it's like well, it's easy to just go from work shift to work shift and it's like no, I want to enjoy the four days in between, right, and then Christmas at the fire station, I'm the only paramedic.
[20:33] Elizabeth Dillard: Well, there was one other guy actually was Danny's husband.
[20:36] Elizabeth Dillard: Luke Hamilton is a firefighter paramedic and he used to work for the Department of Workforce.
[20:41] Elizabeth Dillard: He was the first one that did it and I've been doing it ever since.
[20:43] Elizabeth Dillard: We streamed Christmas lights in the ambulance and so to me it's fun because first off, it's more for me, not really the community.
[20:50] Elizabeth Dillard: I've had at least two patients.
[20:52] Elizabeth Dillard: One of them was a psych lady that was like acting like weird and then she saw him and she was immediately happy.
[20:59] Elizabeth Dillard: And then another one was a poor cancer lady that was just super sad and then it just made her happy to see the Christmas lights.
[21:06] Elizabeth Dillard: And so I love that it was just two people, so it's more for me, but anyhow that's bringing joy to the fire station, because other than that it's like we still like they left the Christmas tree up this year.
[21:15] Roan Johnson: They just left it, yeah, and I was like when are y'all?
[21:17] Elizabeth Dillard: going to take it down and they were like, oh, we're just waiting until the other crews take it down.
[21:22] Elizabeth Dillard: And I was like, oh my God, anyhow, yeah, just so, maintaining the balance of the season, keeping your focus on Christ, Enjoying each day, yeah, I love that.
[21:35] Allison Weeks: That's a great reminder.
[21:36] Allison Weeks: We want to not just let it fly by and then forget what it is.
[21:40] Allison Weeks: I like I don't even remember what I did this December.
[21:42] Allison Weeks: Right, so very good, very good word, all right.
[21:45] Allison Weeks: Well, thanks for sharing about Christmas and Merry Christmas.
[21:48] Allison Weeks: Merry Christmas, thank you.
[21:50] Allison Weeks: We will get back to these holiday stories of home in just a few minutes.
[21:58] Allison Weeks: Right now, it is time for Homemaker holiday decorating tips.
[22:02] Allison Weeks: This is the part of the holiday podcast where we highlight some decorating tips to help you spread some Christmas joy throughout your home.
[22:11] Allison Weeks: Well, we are three weeks into our holiday homemaking series and many of you are likely already finished with your decorating, but I still want to share some ideas for you to either implement this year or tuck away for some inspiration in the future.
[22:27] Allison Weeks: Today, I would like to talk about how the unexpected can help us experience more joy in the Christmas season.
[22:34] Allison Weeks: I experience joy when I flex my creative muscles to look for holiday decoration inspiration and supplies from unexpected sources, and putting them in unexpected places throughout the house brings me joy, and it brings joy to the people who discover them throughout the Christmas season.
[22:51] Allison Weeks: So here are some of the unexpected sources that I have found some really great Christmas decorations in over the years and I would recommend that you might want to try these.
[23:01] Allison Weeks: First of all, shop your house.
[23:03] Allison Weeks: If you have art hanging on the walls, you can holidayify those pieces of art by hanging a little bit of greenery over the top, by wrapping the whole thing up and wrapping paper and putting a great big bow on it and hanging it back on the wall so it looks like a gift on the wall.
[23:18] Allison Weeks: You can swag a garland down the middle.
[23:21] Allison Weeks: That's something that I do with some in my dining room.
[23:24] Allison Weeks: You can see that on my Instagram holiday stories that I saved in my highlights.
[23:28] Allison Weeks: Another thing that I love to decorate with that is already in my house are dishes and platters and trays.
[23:35] Allison Weeks: So I do collect dishes, so I have quite a lot that are more seasonal.
[23:39] Allison Weeks: But even if you don't, if you have some white dishes, a lovely little pile of white dishes placed on top of a hutch in your dining room or even on the kitchen counter with some maybe a little a little pipe cleaner tree nestled on top, or if you have like some cups or bowls stacked and you can put some greenery in that, or even some just some bald up, ribbon, anything to make it look a little bit more festive than if it were just a stack of plates sitting there.
[24:05] Allison Weeks: Platters are great or larger dishes.
[24:07] Allison Weeks: You can get plate hangers off of Amazon and you can put those up on the wall, whether they're festive or not.
[24:12] Allison Weeks: You can do the same thing that you do with your art that I just mentioned in the previous tip, by putting a bow on it or draping some ribbon or some greenery over the top.
[24:22] Allison Weeks: Stacking some plates or platters especially if they're Christmas themed in a basket is a really fun decorative thing to do.
[24:29] Allison Weeks: That's also functional, because then you can just grab those places you need them.
[24:33] Allison Weeks: I like I have a basket full of platters in my dining room for that very reason.
[24:39] Allison Weeks: Okay, and then the other thing you can do is shop your home for your Christmas colors.
[24:43] Allison Weeks: Most of us decorate with red and green at Christmas time, but even if you have a different color scheme going, look around your house for things that fit into that color scheme that aren't necessarily Christmas decorations, so things like books, book covers.
[24:59] Allison Weeks: So if you look, if say you're doing red and green, look for red and green books all throughout your house and bring them all together and stack them together, tie them up with the bow it looks really festive.
[25:09] Allison Weeks: Linen's pillows, quilts, anything like that that fits into your color scheme.
[25:14] Allison Weeks: You can use those draped across the couch or just even, really, if you want to get super creative, you could tack it up on the wall to make a really big statement or stack them.
[25:25] Allison Weeks: Stack folded blankets or quilts in a basket and that looks so lovely with a little bit of greenery on top.
[25:31] Allison Weeks: Toys can be super fun to decorate with throughout the house because it's Christmas, right?
[25:36] Allison Weeks: So we think often think about toys when we think about Christmas decorations and if you have children, you probably have a lot of toys hanging around.
[25:45] Allison Weeks: So maybe find some that your child wouldn't miss too much if you use them to decorate or get them involved.
[25:50] Allison Weeks: You know I'm going to talk in a minute about hanging stockings in various places around the house and if you find some toys that your child is willing to part with for the Christmas season and you can use those to stuff those stockings, just look around the house for everyday items that fit your Christmas color scheme and then think about unique ways that you could display those items in some unexpected ways around your house to bring some Christmas cheer into every corner of your home.
[26:17] Allison Weeks: Okay, the other unexpected place, not necessarily unexpected, but don't rule out nature, nature and or your grocery store.
[26:25] Allison Weeks: So traditionally this is how people decorated for Christmas.
[26:28] Allison Weeks: They would go out to the forest or their property, they would cut greenery and they would bring it in the house and they would decorate the house with with bowels of holly right, we even sing about that in our Christmas songs.
[26:38] Allison Weeks: They would adorn their homes from top to bottom for the holidays.
[26:41] Allison Weeks: And you can do the same thing.
[26:43] Allison Weeks: Anything that is green and seasonal.
[26:45] Allison Weeks: You can cut it out of your yard and you can bring it in the house, put it in vases, make little greenery swags and garlands and put those across your mantle on top of the piano, down the center of your your table for a centerpiece, tuck them into stockings, tie them together with a big red bow and hang it on the edge of the bed post.
[27:07] Allison Weeks: There's so many things that you can do with just plain old greenery, and it doesn't have to be pine boughs or lovely fir boughs.
[27:15] Allison Weeks: If you don't, if you live in a part of the country that doesn't have that.
[27:18] Allison Weeks: We don't have those kind of trees which we don't have those here.
[27:20] Allison Weeks: Look for something else that would work.
[27:23] Allison Weeks: We have magnolias, so I have a lot of magnolia in in my house for Christmas.
[27:28] Allison Weeks: We also have a type of juniper cedar kind of tree that we could bring that in as well if we wanted to.
[27:34] Allison Weeks: So just think out of the box when it comes to the plants.
[27:37] Allison Weeks: But please, please, practice safety.
[27:40] Allison Weeks: Make sure that if you're bringing anything into your home that is potentially toxic like maybe has toxic berries or something like that just be very careful and put those out of reach of children and pets.
[27:51] Allison Weeks: Now, if you don't have access to fresh cuttings from your yard or from your property maybe you live in an apartment building go visit your grocery store and even if you are using stuff from your yard, go visit your grocery store.
[28:05] Allison Weeks: With this in mind, what can I use from the grocery store to decorate my home?
[28:09] Allison Weeks: One of my favorite things to do is use fruit, because fruit keeps forever in a bowl certain kinds of fruit, apples, oranges.
[28:16] Allison Weeks: They keep for a very long time and they look beautiful.
[28:19] Allison Weeks: A big bowl of oranges with a little couple of little sprigs of greenery, either fake or real, can make a wonderful centerpiece and a beautiful statement, either on a coffee table or on your dining room table.
[28:31] Allison Weeks: You can also dry fruit.
[28:33] Allison Weeks: It's one of my favorite things to do.
[28:35] Allison Weeks: You can cut up orange slices.
[28:37] Allison Weeks: Of course, this is all over TikTok and Instagram, so you can see this everywhere.
[28:41] Allison Weeks: Dried orange slices or dried apple slices make wonderful garlands.
[28:47] Allison Weeks: They make great single ornaments to hang on your tree and also you could use them to adorn a gift as part of your gift wrap.
[28:56] Allison Weeks: Nuts are another great thing you can find at the grocery store.
[28:58] Allison Weeks: I'm talking about whole nuts that are in their shell.
[29:01] Allison Weeks: Usually this time of year my grocery store will have a big bin in the produce section and you can just scoop out and they sell it by the pound.
[29:07] Allison Weeks: You just scoop out what you want and you weigh it and then you pay for however much you need, and I always have a big bowl of nuts in the shell that I keep by.
[29:16] Allison Weeks: It's actually by our door in the foyer and there's a couple of little nutcrackers there like little hand nutcrackers, and anytime somebody wants to go by and grab a little snack, they can stand there and crack the nuts and it looks really pretty.
[29:29] Allison Weeks: You can make ornaments out of cinnamon sticks and butcher's twine you can make a big batch of gingerbread cookies for ornaments and wreaths and garlands.
[29:36] Allison Weeks: And then, finally, a cheap pack of brown paper lunch sacks can make snowflakes, luminaries and even gift bags.
[29:45] Allison Weeks: And then my most favorite place to get unexpected things for Christmas would be my thrift store.
[29:52] Allison Weeks: Thrift is my favorite way to decorate for Christmas and even to buy gifts, sometimes.
[29:59] Allison Weeks: Ornaments always be looking for ornaments, of course, to use in your decorating, but also you can use them as gifts and you can use them to adorn the package of your gift on the outside the gift wrap in lieu of a bow.
[30:13] Allison Weeks: Number two stockings.
[30:14] Allison Weeks: I use stockings everywhere and they're always abundant and they are super cheap.
[30:19] Allison Weeks: I have found some really beautiful velvet stockings at the thrift store for just a dollar or two.
[30:25] Allison Weeks: Usually it's not a Christmas time, but that's okay because I have a little box where I can buy things throughout the year and I can tuck them away for next year.
[30:34] Allison Weeks: But stockings hung in every corner of the house, not just where you're going to hang them to be filled.
[30:39] Allison Weeks: Of course, you would want your stockings for your family members, but I use them in all kinds of places throughout the house and I stuff them with greenery and toys and all sorts of things to bring festive cheer to just about just about anywhere you can think of.
[30:54] Allison Weeks: Okay, number three wreaths.
[30:55] Allison Weeks: Don't let ugly flowers deter you from a good wreath form underneath.
[31:00] Allison Weeks: If you see a lovely grapevine wreath that has the ugliest flowers in the world on it, you might want to invest the $2, because that you're not going to find a grapevine wreath for $2 anywhere brand new and you can take those ugly flowers off.
[31:15] Allison Weeks: So don't discount that Ribbon.
[31:17] Allison Weeks: Always check the crafty area of your thrift store because you'll find some treasures in there, and I have found entire spools full of beautiful velvet ribbon for two and three dollars or less.
[31:29] Allison Weeks: Baskets I'm a big fan of baskets.
[31:31] Allison Weeks: I use them all the time for organizing stuff around the house, but I love to give gifts in baskets.
[31:35] Allison Weeks: It makes a wonderful.
[31:37] Allison Weeks: It's an alternative to a gift bag or a box and it's like a two for one, because they get the gift and they get the basket.
[31:42] Allison Weeks: They're also great for decorating with around the house.
[31:46] Allison Weeks: Books Christmas themed books, of course.
[31:49] Allison Weeks: I found some really great ones at the thrift store that I display throughout the house, but then also red and green linen covered books, like we mentioned before.
[31:57] Allison Weeks: When you shop your house you might not have any of those.
[32:00] Allison Weeks: So be on the lookout, because a nice little stack of red and green vintage linen covered books with a big bow around them is makes the most beautiful decoration Metals.
[32:10] Allison Weeks: You will find tons of silver at the thrift shops.
[32:13] Allison Weeks: It's usually really cheap and it's usually really tarnished.
[32:16] Allison Weeks: So don't be afraid.
[32:17] Allison Weeks: It just needs a little bit of elbow grease.
[32:19] Allison Weeks: Get yourself some rights that's W R I G H T S polish and go to town it.
[32:26] Allison Weeks: You will be amazed how easy it is to get that tarnish off and you will have a beautiful, gleaming piece of silver to decorate with around your home for Christmas.
[32:35] Allison Weeks: Also, look for copper, brass cookie cutters.
[32:39] Allison Weeks: Those are all great things to decorate with at Christmas time.
[32:42] Allison Weeks: Glass, glass, a glass bowl filled with shiny ornaments Do I need to say anymore?
[32:46] Allison Weeks: Number nine nativity sets.
[32:49] Allison Weeks: If you find random, mismatched and missing pieces of a nativity set, you can put those together and make one unique set.
[32:57] Allison Weeks: You could spray paint them and make one cohesive set.
[33:00] Allison Weeks: You can use them and make individual ornaments to put on a tree.
[33:04] Allison Weeks: You can make a wreath out of them, a whole wreath full of a bunch of different nativity pieces.
[33:09] Allison Weeks: That would be really cute.
[33:10] Allison Weeks: So much you can do with nativity sets.
[33:13] Allison Weeks: Photo frames I look for photo frames that are in a particular particular aesthetic.
[33:19] Allison Weeks: I'm usually looking for silver or glass crystal, because that's what goes with my little set that I have.
[33:24] Allison Weeks: This is something that I talk about on that Instagram reel that I've referenced before this year.
[33:29] Allison Weeks: You can go watch that.
[33:30] Allison Weeks: It'll show you how.
[33:32] Allison Weeks: I took a bunch of family photos from Christmas time my kids on Santa's lap, us over the years as a family at Christmas, different Christmas celebrations, and I put them all in thrifted frames and I have this little display of family Christmas photos and it is just so lovely and it's a very inexpensive way to fill a large space with some Christmas themed decorations and it's such a great memory to look at those photos.
[33:57] Allison Weeks: My kids love looking at those and so do I.
[34:00] Allison Weeks: Okay, tree skirts Be unconventional about your tree skirts.
[34:03] Allison Weeks: A tablecloth makes a great tree skirt.
[34:06] Allison Weeks: Scarves, quilts, pieces of fabric, sweaters these are all things you can find, usually in abundance, at a thrift store or at an antique shop.
[34:15] Allison Weeks: A lot of times I'll find quilts that are lovely but they've got holes in them and tears and I wouldn't want to necessarily use them as a quilt or even display them, but they would make a great tree skirt, okay.
[34:26] Allison Weeks: And then, finally, I love decor with purpose, and so we often play games and we do puzzles and all that kind of stuff around Christmas time.
[34:35] Allison Weeks: So I have a big pile of puzzles sitting underneath the table in my living room and it actually looks really lovely because they're very festive, they're brightly colored in red and green and that little stack looks really cute.
[34:47] Allison Weeks: Down there I also have a pile of books and games and coloring books.
[34:51] Allison Weeks: If you've got a lot of kids that are going young kids that are going to be hanging around your house at Christmas time, you might want to put a little basket full of Christmas themed coloring books and some colors and some colored pencils, and that looks really cute too, with a big bow on the basket.
[35:04] Allison Weeks: Okay, that was a lot of ground to cover.
[35:06] Allison Weeks: I hope you got some good ideas out of there.
[35:08] Allison Weeks: That is it for today's holiday homemaker decorating tips.
[35:12] Allison Weeks: As always, these tips are intended for entertainment purposes only, and we leave it up to you, the listener, to determine the safety and soundness of this advice.
[35:21] Allison Weeks: Now back to our holiday stories of home.
[35:23] Allison Weeks: Okay, I am back here with Ron Johnson, who is a seasoned homemaker.
[35:33] Allison Weeks: We're going to talk about Christmas, so, ron, tell me what is a typical Christmas day.
[35:37] Allison Weeks: Look like at your house.
[35:40] Samantha Bain: It's chaos and wonderful.
[35:43] Samantha Bain: So so far, all of my children and their spouses, grandchildren everybody spends the night on Christmas Eve.
[35:52] Samantha Bain: We've had a couple of years that one of the husbands couldn't come, but everybody else.
[35:59] Samantha Bain: We have a rule you cannot wake up or come downstairs before six am.
[36:06] Samantha Bain: So at six o'clock everybody's at the top of the stairs and then we let them down and everybody comes down into the living area.
[36:16] Samantha Bain: Santa Claus does come to our house.
[36:17] Samantha Bain: It looks different from year to year.
[36:19] Samantha Bain: Sometimes there's one gift, sometimes there's multiple, sometimes they're wrapped.
[36:25] Samantha Bain: It just depends on his year.
[36:28] Samantha Bain: Everybody has a stocking and I loved collecting the stockings over the year.
[36:35] Samantha Bain: They're just embroidered stockings that I've gotten from different places.
[36:38] Samantha Bain: They have their names on them, so stockings are filled and everybody has a little area of my living room.
[36:45] Samantha Bain: It's very crowded because it's not a very big area and so they have their little pile of things in there stocking, and I like to have something that's able to be enjoyed immediately, especially for the little children, something unwrapped and not like a Lego set but like a doll, or, for the older kids, you know, a book or just something that they can oh, wow, you know and play with.
[37:09] Samantha Bain: I serve mocha punch, mocha punch.
[37:13] Samantha Bain: Yes, it has coffee.
[37:15] Allison Weeks: I think I might know what this is.
[37:16] Allison Weeks: Ice cream yes, they called it frappe mocha.
[37:19] Allison Weeks: Okay, it was a junior league thing.
[37:22] Allison Weeks: Okay, tell me what it is Coffee.
[37:25] Samantha Bain: You make coffee overnight, let it sit with like a cup of sugar in it, and then you add vanilla ice cream, chocolate ice cream and you whip cream and put that on top.
[37:35] Samantha Bain: It's very good.
[37:36] Samantha Bain: So we drink that all day.
[37:38] Samantha Bain: So we have mocha punch and I serve a breakfast.
[37:43] Samantha Bain: I make the same breakfast casserole, we have sausage balls, fruit salad and the mocha punch and we stay in our pajamas all day long and I let people just leisurely open their gifts.
[37:57] Samantha Bain: I started that and they were small.
[37:58] Samantha Bain: If they open something and they want to play with it, I just let them play with it.
[38:02] Samantha Bain: We just sit there all day.
[38:03] Samantha Bain: There is one little break in the day.
[38:06] Samantha Bain: My husband will, sometime in the early afternoon, will go up to the hospital and I make baskets for the nurses stations of the floors where he typically works, and so he takes those to the people that have to work on.
[38:20] Samantha Bain: Christmas day and sometimes one of my son-in-laws or you know a son, an older person you know, will go with him, and then I just Does he's a?
[38:29] Samantha Bain: Physician correct.
[38:31] Allison Weeks: Yes.
[38:31] Samantha Bain: Okay, and so I will.
[38:34] Samantha Bain: I just gather trash all day and try to keep everything in piles, and then about four o'clock we have Christmas dinner and we have steak, schiskebobs.
[38:45] Samantha Bain: Sometimes we have shrimp.
[38:47] Samantha Bain: Especially if my parents come, they'll bring boiled shrimp, potato casserole, rolls, salad.
[38:54] Samantha Bain: I make a dessert, but it's something different every year.
[38:57] Samantha Bain: I'm not a good dessert maker, so I will try something, and I usually have a platter of Christmas goodies that we had made earlier.
[39:06] Samantha Bain: Yeah, and so that's what we do.
[39:09] Allison Weeks: Oh, that sounds like a wonderful day.
[39:11] Allison Weeks: I have a question.
[39:13] Allison Weeks: Okay, are the children drinking the mocha punch and is it decaf?
[39:17] Samantha Bain: It's not decaf.
[39:18] Samantha Bain: And, yes, all of my children can drink coffee and have drunk coffee from a very early age, except for my son, I mean my older son.
[39:26] Samantha Bain: I have one son that does drink coffee, but all the rest of them they drink coffee.
[39:31] Samantha Bain: And I don't know about the little grandchildren, the little I was talking about the little ones you know well.
[39:35] Samantha Bain: see, last year they were four and two and then a baby and a baby.
[39:40] Samantha Bain: I don't know if they let the.
[39:43] Samantha Bain: I mean I would, maybe would give them some.
[39:46] Samantha Bain: I don't know if their mother would they probably wouldn't like it because it's got.
[39:51] Allison Weeks: It's kind of bitter.
[39:52] Allison Weeks: Yeah, most kids don't like coffee flavor, so, oh my gosh, we're going to have to.
[39:57] Allison Weeks: We're going to have to share that recipe, if you don't mind, okay.
[39:59] Samantha Bain: I don't mind at all.
[40:00] Allison Weeks: That sounds and I'm curious what's in your?
[40:02] Allison Weeks: I love your Christmas day meal, your shish kebabs, your steak kebabs and potato casserole.
[40:08] Allison Weeks: What do you put?
[40:09] Allison Weeks: Is it like an all grottin, like a cheesy potato?
[40:11] Samantha Bain: Yes, I mean, it's the one that everybody around here makes.
[40:13] Samantha Bain: It's a bag of hash brown potatoes and you do cream of chicken soup, sour cream, grated cheese yeah, it's just a Christmas thing, yeah.
[40:27] Allison Weeks: Okay, Maybe we can.
[40:28] Allison Weeks: Maybe we can include that one too.
[40:29] Samantha Bain: Oh sure, I have all of my recipes typed up, so that will be fine, awesome, okay, so is there anything else?
[40:36] Allison Weeks: since we're on the subject of food, I'm guessing maybe the mocha is really, really important and must make an appearance.
[40:42] Allison Weeks: Anything else that has to make an appearance at some point during the Christmas season, a special cookie or something like that?
[40:49] Samantha Bain: Well, two different things.
[40:50] Samantha Bain: One, we make.
[40:51] Samantha Bain: We call it Christmas goodies.
[40:53] Samantha Bain: I have several recipes that we make big batches of every year that we I set some aside for us to eat, you know, on Christmas.
[41:03] Samantha Bain: But we make bags and tins that we share with with friends and family and some people in the community.
[41:13] Samantha Bain: You know my mechanic and my florist.
[41:16] Samantha Bain: I live in a small area so we know these people.
[41:19] Samantha Bain: But yes, I make.
[41:21] Samantha Bain: We call them Rice Krispie goodies and I heard another guest share recipe that was very similar to mine Is the Rice Krispie treats with the.
[41:28] Samantha Bain: They have peanut butter and carrot syrup but then it has a topping of butterscotch and chocolate chips.
[41:34] Samantha Bain: I only make that at Christmas.
[41:35] Samantha Bain: I make oyster crackers and I make we call it Neiman Marcus cookies.
[41:42] Samantha Bain: It's just a very fancy chocolate chip cookie recipe.
[41:45] Samantha Bain: My mother-in-law's recipe that's called Bumpy Cookies.
[41:48] Samantha Bain: What is that Bumpy?
[41:51] Samantha Bain: It is Rice Krispies and peanut butter and salted peanuts and marshmallows and that white almond bark.
[42:01] Samantha Bain: Yeah, like you melt the peanut butter and almond bark and then you pour it over the dry things and you drop them by spoonfuls onto wax paper.
[42:10] Samantha Bain: And she always called them Bumpy Cookies because they're bumpy with the marshmallows and the peanuts.
[42:16] Samantha Bain: So, oh, I love that name.
[42:18] Samantha Bain: That's probably all of the things, but yes, those.
[42:21] Samantha Bain: And then we make.
[42:21] Samantha Bain: I make one batch of sugar cookies that I roll out and cut into shapes and then once everybody, all the family gets there, whether it's the twenty third or the twenty fourth or whatever, when everybody's there, they put them on my island and everybody decorates.
[42:38] Samantha Bain: Oh, that's fun, that's everybody gets like two or three, you know.
[42:41] Samantha Bain: I just want that.
[42:43] Allison Weeks: That's nice.
[42:43] Allison Weeks: That's really fun.
[42:44] Allison Weeks: Ok, so how about any other?
[42:47] Allison Weeks: Besides cookie decorating and all the things we've already talked about, do you have any other special holiday traditions with your family?
[42:53] Samantha Bain: I send out Christmas cards and that is something that my family knows.
[42:58] Samantha Bain: We're going to make that Christmas card picture and some years it's it's easy and some years it's not.
[43:04] Samantha Bain: We just made it last in August when we all got together, you know, for a vacation.
[43:09] Samantha Bain: I've sent out pictures with a child maybe crying before, because that's the best I could get back in the days of film, you know Right, but I do send out Christmas cards.
[43:20] Samantha Bain: We watch or I watch homework movies while I'm wrapping presents.
[43:24] Samantha Bain: I have Christmas themed puzzles that I put out.
[43:28] Samantha Bain: Like I said, we bake and deliver the treats, decorate the tree.
[43:35] Samantha Bain: And another Tradition I have that the children try to give me a hard time about, but I know they love, is the matching Christmas pajamas.
[43:46] Samantha Bain: I've done that ever since they were little.
[43:48] Samantha Bain: At first my husband and I did not participate because we just had little children, but the last, probably seven or eight years, I get a pair for my husband and I too, and I give them to him Christmas Eve and they all say, oh, what can this be?
[44:00] Samantha Bain: It's a surprise.
[44:02] Samantha Bain: So so, since we stay in our pajamas all day, they say can be cute.
[44:07] Allison Weeks: They can be cute, right, yeah, oh, that's fun.
[44:09] Allison Weeks: That's fun.
[44:10] Allison Weeks: Ok, I have a round of rapid fire Christmas themed questions.
[44:16] Allison Weeks: Ok, ok, favorite Christmas song or Carol.
[44:20] Samantha Bain: It's the most wonderful time of the year.
[44:22] Allison Weeks: OK, favorite Christmas movie.
[44:25] Samantha Bain: It's a wonderful life.
[44:27] Allison Weeks: Gingerbread or sugar cookie.
[44:30] Samantha Bain: Sugar.
[44:31] Allison Weeks: Yes, I imagined after I said you did that every year Fake tree or real tree?
[44:36] Samantha Bain: OK, I'm going to say real because we had a real tree for 18 years and I loved that real tree.
[44:42] Samantha Bain: But last year, for the first time in 18 years, I bought a fake tree because the real trees had gotten so expensive.
[44:51] Allison Weeks: Yes, they are.
[44:52] Samantha Bain: And the and the place where I got them from, like the year before, they just didn't have a good selection and then I just I just got to where I really felt bad spending that much money on the real tree.
[45:05] Samantha Bain: But I loved it and I was really sad but I was able to get one that didn't.
[45:10] Samantha Bain: I didn't want lights on it, because I I use big fat colored lights OK, and that's what I like, lots of color and so I did not want a prelit tree.
[45:19] Samantha Bain: So I finally found one that was tall enough.
[45:22] Samantha Bain: I wanted a big tree that didn't have lights and it costs less than one real tree.
[45:27] Samantha Bain: So I did the right thing.
[45:29] Samantha Bain: I could click, but so I just lit a bunch of candles that smelled like pine there.
[45:34] Samantha Bain: That's what I do.
[45:35] Samantha Bain: That's what I do.
[45:36] Allison Weeks: You can also get those little inserts.
[45:38] Allison Weeks: They make these little inserts that have.
[45:40] Allison Weeks: They're like a scented, it's like a stick, and they're green, it's like an air freshener sort of, but it's a little stick, and then you can just hang them on the inside of your tree, oh to like waft out the smell of the tree you know, when you walk by it.
[45:56] Samantha Bain: That's a good idea.
[45:57] Allison Weeks: Maybe you try that, but I do the same thing and I also don't want a prelit tree for different reasons.
[46:03] Allison Weeks: I'm particular about how many lights go on the tree and I just feel like no matter how good the technology gets, eventually those lights are going to go out, and they figure out how to deal with that, and so what that's why we transitioned to a real tree those 18 years ago was we had a prelit tree.
[46:18] Samantha Bain: We got it on the box Half the lights weren't working.
[46:21] Samantha Bain: Oh no, my husband said you want to get a real tree this year?
[46:24] Samantha Bain: I said yes, that'd be fun.
[46:26] Allison Weeks: And then we just never look back for a while, for a while, but now you're back to the fake tree.
[46:30] Allison Weeks: Well, it has its.
[46:31] Allison Weeks: It has its pluses too.
[46:33] Allison Weeks: Ok, bows or no bows on the gifts.
[46:38] Samantha Bain: Big, beautiful bows.
[46:39] Samantha Bain: Ok, I'm a big gift wrapper, I have a designated gift wrapping table and my husband made me this contraption that hangs all the ribbon on.
[46:48] Samantha Bain: Oh, have a nice little set up.
[46:51] Allison Weeks: That's cool.
[46:51] Allison Weeks: So is it a permanent set up or is one you set up just during the holidays?
[46:55] Samantha Bain: It's permanent.
[46:55] Samantha Bain: I have a storage room in our basement, just a walk in storage area, and so it's in there and he's built me a table so I can wrap birthday presents and baby gift presents.
[47:05] Samantha Bain: So it's just kind of nice.
[47:07] Alexis Molnar: It's really nice.
[47:08] Samantha Bain: It's surrounded by by attic contents, because it is our walk in storage room.
[47:13] Samantha Bain: Yeah, I have a little area?
[47:15] Allison Weeks: Yeah, I have, I do.
[47:17] Allison Weeks: I set one up during the holiday Actually, I talked about this on the first holiday homemaking episodes, I think and then I did a reel on Instagram showing me setting it up last year and it's in and out of the way area.
[47:29] Allison Weeks: But before I had an extra room to do that in, I just did a car table in my bedroom.
[47:33] Samantha Bain: That's what I did for a long time.
[47:36] Allison Weeks: It was.
[47:36] Allison Weeks: It was a lot easier than getting down on the floor.
[47:38] Allison Weeks: My back wasn't hurting after the whole you know gift wrap process.
[47:42] Allison Weeks: Plus, I could do it.
[47:43] Allison Weeks: I'd set it up at the beginning of December and then I could, just as I brought gifts into the home, I'd take them over there and go wrap them.
[47:49] Allison Weeks: So it didn't have a heat, I didn't have a huge pile to deal with on Christmas Eve.
[47:54] Allison Weeks: So I'm a big fan of that.
[47:57] Allison Weeks: Ok, final question on this area in this section Christmas music before Thanksgiving or after.
[48:07] Samantha Bain: OK, definitely before I made even start November 1st, and since I got the fake tree last year we went ahead with the tree up.
[48:15] Samantha Bain: That's another advantage.
[48:15] Samantha Bain: You didn't have to wait until after Thanksgiving.
[48:19] Samantha Bain: I normally decorate the house the Monday before Thanksgiving, just because when the kids come on from college they can go ahead and enjoy it.
[48:26] Samantha Bain: And yes, I mean it's only two months.
[48:29] Samantha Bain: My mother gave me her Christmas channel last year and so we started using it every Sunday.
[48:33] Samantha Bain: We did it all November and December, because I forgot to tell you that over a year ago I started using my China every Sunday for my son.
[48:43] Samantha Bain: You know I'd been married at that time 31 years.
[48:47] Samantha Bain: I'd used it like five times.
[48:48] Samantha Bain: So a lady encouraged me to start using it and so I did, and I just I just use it every Sunday.
[48:55] Samantha Bain: And then last year I used the Christmas China for two months.
[48:59] Samantha Bain: So I'm going to do that again this year.
[49:02] Allison Weeks: I wholeheartedly agree Use the China, use it as often as you can.
[49:06] Samantha Bain: It gets broken, I'll get another piece I had to order, so I didn't even have a full set, so I ordered what I was lacking and, yeah, I even let my grandchildren use it.
[49:17] Allison Weeks: That's so fun.
[49:17] Allison Weeks: I love that.
[49:18] Allison Weeks: Use the good dishes, ok, last question Holidays are hectic.
[49:24] Allison Weeks: We know this especially.
[49:26] Allison Weeks: You raised five kids, you're still raising one, you still got one at home.
[49:30] Allison Weeks: But what are some of the things you've done, practically speaking, to sort of keep it between the rails and then also to keep your heart focused where it needs to be during that season?
[49:44] Samantha Bain: Okay, um, actually have three things.
[49:48] Samantha Bain: The first one is I told, and I still tell my married children do not stress over family gatherings.
[49:59] Samantha Bain: You are always invited to any festivity I have, but you are never obligated.
[50:05] Samantha Bain: I don't want them to have any guilt.
[50:08] Samantha Bain: I've told them you have another family now to celebrate with and I am happy when you are here and I am happy when you are with your other family, and so I just wanted to get that out there from the beginning.
[50:20] Samantha Bain: I did not want them to have to.
[50:22] Samantha Bain: You know, feel that pull, um.
[50:26] Samantha Bain: The second thing is is I try to do as much as possible ahead of time so I can enjoy really the whole month, but especially, you know, the week.
[50:34] Samantha Bain: Um, so, um, my birthday is actually tomorrow, the day that after we're recording this, and that is 100 days to Christmas.
[50:43] Samantha Bain: Somebody told me that a long time ago.
[50:46] Samantha Bain: So usually the day after my birthday I get out my Christmas binder and I just kind of start, you know, looking at the three months ahead, putting things on the calendar, you know, ordering the Christmas cards.
[50:57] Samantha Bain: What day are we going to do our baking?
[50:59] Samantha Bain: What day are we going to, you know, be distributing the baking things?
[51:05] Samantha Bain: Um, the shopping.
[51:06] Samantha Bain: I have all my holiday menus in there, recipes, um Christmas card addresses, and then I keep a list of I do shopping, christmas shopping, throughout the year, and so I keep a list of you know what I've bought.
[51:18] Samantha Bain: But I also put a checklist when I wrap it, because I used to, would wrap things and I would have a tag on it.
[51:26] Samantha Bain: You know, you know to uncle whatever.
[51:29] Samantha Bain: But then I would think, okay, what was that I wrapped, you know was that a shirt or?
[51:34] Samantha Bain: was it a hat, and I've had to unwrap things before.
[51:36] Samantha Bain: So now I have three columns I have the persons, you know, the gift, and then, you know, check it when I bought it, and then I check it off when I wrap it.
[51:46] Samantha Bain: And also helps me, because my girls will help me wrap presents and I'll just put sticky notes.
[51:49] Samantha Bain: I said this is, and they'll check it off as they wrap it, so I don't have to anyway.
[51:53] Samantha Bain: So I just try to do a lot of stuff ahead of time, especially now that I've had, or when I started having college kids 10 years ago, when they came home, I wanted us just to be able to do all the things that may not be rushing around, you know, planning and them.
[52:07] Samantha Bain: And then the third thing I'd like to say to help me keep the balance is I just try to make sure that I, no matter how busy it is, I still, you know, try to begin my day with prayer and Bible study, and when all the children were at home and we were still doing our morning Bible study, we would try to keep that up as best we could, even with, you know, family in and out.
[52:28] Samantha Bain: You know, of course I try to love the Lord, with all my heart and soul and mind and strength all the time and I try to, you know, love neighbor, which is can be my family or true neighbors, you know, as myself, all throughout the year, but it does seem like there's extra opportunities, you know to do that during the month of December, and so I'm just, I'm just thankful, I'm thankful to have the opportunity to share that.
[53:01] Samantha Bain: I know that a lot of times school, here we see little signs.
[53:05] Samantha Bain: You know Jesus is the reason for the season, but you know Jesus is the reason for every season we have, and so I've tried to, you know, tell my children that this is a, this is a special time, and it seems like everybody in the world, thankfully, is focusing on Jesus during this time.
[53:22] Samantha Bain: But we need to remember that.
[53:23] Samantha Bain: You know, we need to carry this on, you know, all throughout the year, and so I just, I just try to make sure that the hustle and bustle, you know, doesn't crowd out my love and appreciation for my Lord and my family.
[53:38] Samantha Bain: You know, no matter how busy or stressful it may be, I'm just, I'm just thankful, I'm just thankful for my family and all of the blessings that God has given me.
[53:50] Samantha Bain: And merry Christmas.
[53:54] Allison Weeks: Merry Christmas.
[53:55] Allison Weeks: I want to hear more about your binder too.
[53:57] Allison Weeks: I'm going to have to ask you off, mike, if you can give me a little bit of point about that, and maybe we'll share that in the newsletter, because that sounds like some really good stuff right there.
[54:06] Allison Weeks: So thank you so much for sharing all your.
[54:09] Allison Weeks: Christmas tips and memories.
[54:10] Allison Weeks: Merry Christmas, merry Christmas.
[54:12] Allison Weeks: Okay.
[54:21] Allison Weeks: I'm back here with my friend Alexis Molnar, and she's in the trenches, homemaking, homeschooling.
[54:26] Allison Weeks: Mama, we're going to talk about Christmas, okay.
[54:29] Allison Weeks: So what does a typical Christmas day look like in your house?
[54:35] Tiffany Harris: It's pretty laid back.
[54:36] Tiffany Harris: Ever since having kids, we've made it really a priority to be home.
[54:39] Tiffany Harris: When Eric and I were kids, we always traveled to grandparents houses and we're on the go, and so we feel pretty strongly about being here on Christmas morning and so typically we go to my mom when she lives nearby her house for Christmas Eve and do something over there, but then Christmas morning it's breakfast and PJs and just hanging out here and I feel it's really important to like enjoy our presence and get that time to play and not just rip it open and run out the door.
[55:14] Allison Weeks: Yeah, we were the same way.
[55:16] Allison Weeks: I mean it was a little easier because we always lived so far from our families.
[55:20] Allison Weeks: To travel would be like a huge deal, but we made that commitment very early on in our marriage as well.
[55:27] Allison Weeks: So, okay, you're wearing PJs and you're having breakfast.
[55:31] Allison Weeks: So what are you?
[55:33] Allison Weeks: What are you eating for breakfast?
[55:34] Allison Weeks: Usually?
[55:36] Tiffany Harris: we do cinnamon buns.
[55:37] Allison Weeks: Okay, I was going to say, is it kind of a traditional?
[55:39] Tiffany Harris: thing.
[55:39] Tiffany Harris: Yeah, it's not anything healthier fancy.
[55:42] Tiffany Harris: It's Christmas.
[55:43] Tiffany Harris: My dad made some really good homemade ones, but ever since then we just pop them out of the can and they're fabulous and everybody's really focused on the present, the present and the excitement.
[55:53] Tiffany Harris: So, but we do cinnamon buns for breakfast.
[55:57] Tiffany Harris: It's easy and special treat.
[56:00] Allison Weeks: Yeah, and I love that you pop them out of the.
[56:02] Allison Weeks: Can we pop them out of the?
[56:02] Alexis Molnar: can?
[56:03] Alexis Molnar: They don't have to be homemade sourdough.
[56:06] Allison Weeks: You know, if you do that that's amazing and great, but you don't have to.
[56:09] Allison Weeks: So what about the rest of the day?
[56:11] Allison Weeks: Are you guys hanging out here still, or are you going to visit with family?
[56:13] Tiffany Harris: Yeah, we typically have everybody over here, oh, okay.
[56:16] Allison Weeks: Awesome.
[56:16] Allison Weeks: And then what do you have?
[56:18] Allison Weeks: A big dinner, or yes?
[56:20] Allison Weeks: Okay, is it Greek?
[56:22] Tiffany Harris: There's lots of Greek food involved, so there's usually Greek cookies for dessert, um spenicopita and Pestizo.
[56:32] Tiffany Harris: My mom makes that.
[56:33] Tiffany Harris: It's like a Greek mac and cheese.
[56:35] Tiffany Harris: What's it called, pestizo?
[56:37] Allison Weeks: Pestizo Okay Greek mac and cheese.
[56:41] Tiffany Harris: It's not my favorite, but it's always there.
[56:43] Allison Weeks: Okay.
[56:44] Tiffany Harris: And that's pretty much.
[56:46] Tiffany Harris: It Usually do ham for Christmas.
[56:48] Tiffany Harris: It's not lamb.
[56:51] Allison Weeks: No lamb.
[56:51] Tiffany Harris: People would expect Well.
[56:53] Allison Weeks: I guess, because you're Greek, people would think you'd do lamb.
[56:55] Allison Weeks: I don't.
[56:56] Allison Weeks: I've never actually cooked any lamb.
[56:58] Allison Weeks: I love lamb, I mean.
[56:59] Tiffany Harris: I'm kind of a freezer I'm afraid of it.
[57:01] Allison Weeks: Really, should I not be afraid?
[57:02] Tiffany Harris: of it.
[57:03] Tiffany Harris: No, if I can do it, anybody can do it.
[57:05] Allison Weeks: Okay, I might need some pointers on how to prepare lamb Okay, I have some in the cookbook.
[57:10] Tiffany Harris: Great.
[57:11] Allison Weeks: Well, okay, before we move away from food, is there any other recipe that must be made at some point during the Christmas season?
[57:21] Tiffany Harris: It's the cookies.
[57:22] Tiffany Harris: It's the cookies, the Greek cookies.
[57:23] Allison Weeks: Okay, so what are these?
[57:24] Allison Weeks: Can you tell me about these cookies?
[57:25] Tiffany Harris: So they're like really unhealthy fabulous butter cookies and they're braided and they sound really plain.
[57:31] Tiffany Harris: But they're really good If you drink your coffee or yummy just a snack and they have little sesame seeds on top and butter and lots of flour and butter.
[57:38] Tiffany Harris: That sounds delicious.
[57:39] Tiffany Harris: But they're delicious.
[57:40] Tiffany Harris: That sounds wonderful.
[57:42] Allison Weeks: Okay, can you share that with?
[57:43] Mandi Thompson: us.
[57:43] Allison Weeks: Absolutely Great, thank you.
[57:45] Allison Weeks: Okay, so what about, besides food, other traditions during the Christmas season?
[57:51] Allison Weeks: Do you guys have family traditions that maybe you're just starting with your family or that you did growing?
[57:56] Tiffany Harris: up?
[57:56] Tiffany Harris: Yeah, we are, we definitely do the Christmas lights where we get we started with Addison and do at least one night where you drive around and our PJs with hot chocolate and say I'm playing, go do that.
[58:09] Tiffany Harris: Yeah, I'm trying to think we decorate the trees and our kids each have their own little tree.
[58:21] Tiffany Harris: I'm big on.
[58:23] Tiffany Harris: I don't do a big, beautiful tree.
[58:25] Tiffany Harris: I like our funky individual ornaments over the years that have accumulated so many that we usually have.
[58:35] Tiffany Harris: They each have their own little tree, so they always really look forward to that, putting those up and then, and then they can rearrange them all they want.
[58:43] Tiffany Harris: It doesn't drive me crazy, I'm like go decorate that tree.
[58:46] Allison Weeks: That's perfect.
[58:47] Allison Weeks: That's perfect.
[58:48] Tiffany Harris: So we definitely do that.
[58:50] Tiffany Harris: They get an ornament every year.
[58:54] Allison Weeks: Is it like related to something that they've done that year or like something they're interested in?
[58:59] Tiffany Harris: Yeah, I usually keep it pretty typical.
[59:02] Allison Weeks: Yeah, okay, that's curious.
[59:05] Tiffany Harris: We used to go cut down trees when we lived in Washington.
[59:08] Allison Weeks: Yeah, I was just gonna say you lived in Washington, of course you would go cut a tree down.
[59:11] Tiffany Harris: We always did.
[59:11] Tiffany Harris: But we had one year where I had Addison and I had a really bad allergic reaction to the tree.
[59:17] Tiffany Harris: So we put it up.
[59:19] Tiffany Harris: We put it up, we decorated it and for like two days her and I were just a wreck with the sneezing and the eyes and everything.
[59:25] Tiffany Harris: So we undecorated it, took it down, went and bought an artificial tree and we've done one ever since.
[59:31] Tiffany Harris: It's so sad.
[59:32] Allison Weeks: Oh my gosh, that's terrible.
[59:35] Allison Weeks: We I don't know if I told you this, but we lived in Washington for a year before we came to.
[59:41] Allison Weeks: Well, we were in Florida again and then we came to San Antonio, but anyway, we lived over something.
[59:48] Allison Weeks: No, that's okay.
[59:50] Allison Weeks: Is she like having a bad dream?
[59:52] Allison Weeks: She had a sneeze or something?
[59:56] Allison Weeks: No, she's fine.
[59:58] Allison Weeks: So we were in Washington state, over on the like, on the West coast side, just right before you got to Canada, like the last one, the last town before Canada.
[1:00:10] Allison Weeks: And so we went to a Christmas tree farm that year and we cut down our tree.
[1:00:13] Allison Weeks: It was amazing, it was so fun and I don't know what we did wrong.
[1:00:17] Allison Weeks: But that tree was only up for about maybe three or four days and it completely dried out like overnight.
[1:00:26] Allison Weeks: Oh my gosh, it was crazy, because I guess it was cold and we had the heat on and maybe we didn't do the right kind of cutting, I don't know.
[1:00:34] Allison Weeks: But we had to undecorate the tree.
[1:00:37] Allison Weeks: It was a fire hazard, like we couldn't leave it up.
[1:00:39] Allison Weeks: We had to undecorate it and then throw that out.
[1:00:41] Allison Weeks: And then I had three small little tabletop trees fake ones that I had used in other rooms and so we just gathered all the three small trees and we made a little cluster of them and just put our ornaments on those.
[1:00:54] Allison Weeks: There you go.
[1:00:54] Allison Weeks: Yeah, I mean it worked, but it was so sad because we had this wonderful experience of cutting the tree down and we're like wah wah yeah, that's pretty heartbreaking.
[1:01:03] Allison Weeks: It is.
[1:01:04] Tiffany Harris: So that's how we felt.
[1:01:05] Allison Weeks: We were like that was our last real tree.
[1:01:08] Allison Weeks: Like no more real trees for us, no, no, okay.
[1:01:11] Allison Weeks: Well, the holidays can be really hectic and can just get away from us very quickly as far as committing to too many things and all of that.
[1:01:19] Allison Weeks: So what are some of the things that you, you do to help keep the main thing, the main thing, and keep your focus where it needs to be during the busy season of Christmas?
[1:01:28] Tiffany Harris: Yeah, I think that teaching my kids about the real meaning of Christmas.
[1:01:34] Tiffany Harris: We try to spend a lot of time doing that where, like Santa's great presents are fun but we're really trying to raise them so that they understand the Jesus aspect.
[1:01:46] Tiffany Harris: And just talking about that, keeping our eyes on the priority and then really just taking it slow and staying home that's been our big thing is just kind of not digging in our heels.
[1:02:00] Tiffany Harris: But being like this is what we do and everybody's welcome here and if you'd like to join us here, more than welcome.
[1:02:04] Tiffany Harris: But we really want to give our kids a more low key experience that we had growing up.
[1:02:12] Tiffany Harris: I mean we would travel from Texas to Boston for Christmas and spend time up there and visit people.
[1:02:19] Tiffany Harris: I just don't want to be caught in the crazy.
[1:02:21] Tiffany Harris: So yeah it was fun.
[1:02:22] Tiffany Harris: We have great memories, but yeah just doing it different.
[1:02:27] Allison Weeks: Yeah, that's great and I love your open handedness about.
[1:02:30] Allison Weeks: The home is open to whoever wants to come here, you know, but we're going to like kind of stay put so that we're not out, you know, running around prepare our food Like.
[1:02:42] Tiffany Harris: I like to have a big meal, but I don't want to spend all day cooking, so I just try to prepare things ahead of time so we can enjoy the day and not spend all day.
[1:02:50] Tiffany Harris: And I'm really lucky that Eric is a good cook and he's really helpful because he's a big part of he's a big part of my homemaking.
[1:02:59] Tiffany Harris: He helps me a lot, so that's awesome.
[1:03:02] Allison Weeks: That's great I love that it's a team effort.
[1:03:04] Allison Weeks: It's a team effort, yes, as it should be.
[1:03:07] Allison Weeks: That's really good.
[1:03:08] Allison Weeks: Well, thank you for sharing all your Christmas memories and ideas, and Merry Christmas, yes, good to you.
[1:03:13] Allison Weeks: Joy, joy, joy.
[1:03:20] Allison Weeks: Down in my heart, a homemaker's advent reflection on joy.
[1:03:24] Allison Weeks: What brings you joy in your homemaking?
[1:03:27] Allison Weeks: Preparing nourishing meals for your family, creating an aesthetically pleasing environment with decor?
[1:03:33] Allison Weeks: Perhaps it's finding creative ways to save money and practice economic housekeeping, or setting up and maintaining systems of organization that make daily life run more smoothly for you and your household.
[1:03:46] Allison Weeks: Do you enjoy opening your home to friends, family and neighbors?
[1:03:50] Allison Weeks: These are all legitimate ways to enjoy the art of making a home.
[1:03:56] Allison Weeks: Joy and homemaking can be found in the daily duties as well as the big events, in the mundane and the momentous, but it cannot be found apart from the source of joy.
[1:04:07] Allison Weeks: In our simple Advent Guide this coming week we will be looking at characteristics of the joy of the Lord.
[1:04:14] Allison Weeks: We will see how it is eternal, unshakable and complete that His joy is a joy that cannot be taken from us.
[1:04:22] Allison Weeks: We will look at how we experience His joy on the mountaintop and in the valley.
[1:04:27] Allison Weeks: His joy does not depend on our circumstances.
[1:04:30] Allison Weeks: His unchanging nature is the bedrock on which our joy is found.
[1:04:34] Allison Weeks: That is the key difference between happiness and joy.
[1:04:39] Allison Weeks: Happiness depends on what happens.
[1:04:40] Allison Weeks: Joy depends on Emmanuel, god with us.
[1:04:44] Allison Weeks: God is with us as we face yet another sink full of dirty dishes.
[1:04:49] Allison Weeks: God is with us as we put away the last of ten loads of laundry, only to notice that the dirty pile is beginning to grow again.
[1:04:57] Allison Weeks: God is with us when we have the satisfaction of watching hungry mouths devour the food that we prepared with love.
[1:05:04] Allison Weeks: He can impart joy when we feel overworked and underappreciated, and he can draw our attention to the many, many reasons we have for rejoicing every single day.
[1:05:18] Allison Weeks: So rejoice as you do your work, homemaker.
[1:05:21] Allison Weeks: His joy is your strength.
[1:05:24] Allison Weeks: You have put more joy in my heart than they have when their grain and wine abound.
[1:05:31] Allison Weeks: But let all who take refuge in you rejoice.
[1:05:34] Allison Weeks: Let them ever sing for joy and spread your protection over them.
[1:05:38] Allison Weeks: That those who love your name may exalt in you, be glad in the Lord and rejoice, o righteous, and shout for joy all you, upright in heart.
[1:05:49] Allison Weeks: Psalm 4, psalm 5, and Psalm 32.
[1:05:54] Allison Weeks: If you would like to follow along with us as we study the advent theme of joy next week you can download your free copy of our Advent devotional guide at theartofhomepodcastcom.
[1:06:07] Allison Weeks: Slash Christmas.
[1:06:08] Allison Weeks: Okay, I'm back with my friend Samantha Bain.
[1:06:18] Allison Weeks: She is a newbie, but really she's in the trenches because she's got two little boys.
[1:06:25] Allison Weeks: She's been married five years and so we're going to hear what Christmas is like in the Bain household.
[1:06:30] Allison Weeks: So why don't you just give us a little preview of what a typical Christmas day is like in your house?
[1:06:40] Roan Johnson: Usually on Christmas Day itself, we're rotating which family we're going to be with.
[1:06:48] Roan Johnson: And that was a struggle during the first few years of marriage just trying to figure out okay, are we going?
[1:06:55] Roan Johnson: Our families are an hour and a half apart.
[1:06:57] Roan Johnson: So we were trying to decide are we going to try to do two in one day?
[1:07:00] Roan Johnson: Are we going to do Christmas Eve with one, christmas Day with the other?
[1:07:03] Roan Johnson: And just trying to find that balance was really hard and we kind of said well, we'll let a sibling get married, because we were the first siblings on our respective sides of the family to get married.
[1:07:14] Roan Johnson: So we said we'll let a sibling get married and see how that changes the dynamic and maybe we'll get into a permanent rhythm.
[1:07:21] Roan Johnson: Well, both of our sisters got married in 2021 and both of them said Thanksgiving will do with the in-laws, christmas we're going to do with the families.
[1:07:32] Roan Johnson: We're like, oh man, that didn't really help us out too much.
[1:07:34] Roan Johnson: So we have decided for now that I believe we will rotate Christmas Eve and Christmas Day with the families.
[1:07:43] Roan Johnson: But even doing that, I felt like Christmas was so rushed and I felt like I couldn't enjoy.
[1:07:50] Roan Johnson: There were so many presents the boys were getting in one day that I felt like I just didn't get to enjoy it as a mom.
[1:07:57] Roan Johnson: So we changed it up a little bit last year.
[1:07:59] Roan Johnson: So a few days before Christmas we did our own little family Christmas at home.
[1:08:04] Roan Johnson: So we did kind of a Christmas Eve thing the night before where we spent the night we unwrapped matching family pajamas, did that, took a picture.
[1:08:13] Roan Johnson: We ate some cookies and watched a classic Christmas movie.
[1:08:17] Roan Johnson: We don't do the Santa tradition but we do enjoy filling stockings for one another.
[1:08:24] Roan Johnson: So we woke up in the morning, did our stockings, we ate a breakfast together, Then we enjoyed the big presents and just enjoyed the day relaxing.
[1:08:36] Roan Johnson: We watched movies together, we had a snacky lunch where I did like charcuterie boards and like typical Christmas party foods.
[1:08:45] Roan Johnson: We just kind of snacked all day long and it was just such a relaxing day for our family.
[1:08:51] Roan Johnson: I felt like it was a big gift to us last year because we were in those final months of my husband's grad school program when things were just so busy and it gave him a day off just to spend with us and relax and I felt like it was exactly what I needed to see my boys unwrapping their presents from us slowly.
[1:09:12] Roan Johnson: I didn't feel like it was rushed and that all those months of anticipation were gone so quickly.
[1:09:18] Roan Johnson: It was a big gift to me.
[1:09:19] Allison Weeks: Yeah, and so you did that a few days before Christmas.
[1:09:22] Allison Weeks: Is that what you said?
[1:09:23] Roan Johnson: Yes, because we were going to be traveling to be with his family, so we did that a little bit in advance.
[1:09:32] Allison Weeks: Yeah, well, that's a great compromise.
[1:09:34] Allison Weeks: I love that, especially when they're little, like they don't know the difference between December 22nd and December 25th.
[1:09:40] Allison Weeks: Really Sure, it doesn't really matter to them.
[1:09:42] Allison Weeks: So that's a really good idea.
[1:09:44] Allison Weeks: I like that a lot.
[1:09:45] Allison Weeks: So you were mostly eating snacky foods and that sounds like that was super fun.
[1:09:49] Allison Weeks: Kids, I mean, I love to eat that way too, but little kids especially love all the little finger foods.
[1:09:54] Allison Weeks: Is there a particular thing that you make every year that, like, has to show up on the table at some point during the Christmas season?
[1:10:04] Roan Johnson: I think this is actually a pampered chef recipe, if I'm remembering correctly, but my mom always made this holiday cheese ball and that's typically what we take if there's a ladies Christmas cookie exchange at church or our little family get together that we had, we'll have items like that, so that cheese ball is a hit.
[1:10:29] Allison Weeks: Is it like a cream cheese mixture with shredded cheese in it?
[1:10:32] Allison Weeks: Cream cheese with chipped beef and green onions cheese.
[1:10:36] Roan Johnson: It's pretty simple, but it's really good.
[1:10:38] Allison Weeks: That sounds good and you serve it with crackers or bread or something like that.
[1:10:42] Allison Weeks: Okay, maybe we can.
[1:10:42] Allison Weeks: Maybe you can share that recipe with us.
[1:10:44] Tiffany Harris: Sure, it would be great.
[1:10:45] Allison Weeks: Cool, okay.
[1:10:47] Allison Weeks: Well, how about holiday traditions Now?
[1:10:50] Allison Weeks: I mean, you're five years in, so you still haven't had a lot of time to build traditions with your husband and your kids, but maybe is there something that from his family, or from your family, that you're carrying over into your family, or are you creating something new?
[1:11:07] Roan Johnson: We don't do anything particularly out of the box, since we have little children right now.
[1:11:14] Roan Johnson: We love the drive-thru light shows.
[1:11:16] Roan Johnson: The synchronized lights and music are fun.
[1:11:20] Roan Johnson: We also just like driving around the neighborhoods and seeing lights.
[1:11:23] Roan Johnson: So now that we've moved I have to find new places to go and see what we have around here.
[1:11:28] Roan Johnson: But that's always been fun and it's a hit with the kids and if they're tired they can go to sleep in the backseat and it's not a big deal.
[1:11:36] Allison Weeks: Yeah, that's true.
[1:11:36] Allison Weeks: And then you.
[1:11:37] Allison Weeks: And then you have a date night.
[1:11:38] Allison Weeks: Yes, you just drive around and look at lights while they sleep in the backseat.
[1:11:42] Allison Weeks: That's good.
[1:11:42] Allison Weeks: Okay, I have added some new questions to the Christmas segment.
[1:11:46] Allison Weeks: Have a rapid fire section?
[1:11:48] Allison Weeks: Okay, you ready Favorite Christmas song, or Carol?
[1:11:53] Roan Johnson: I like the oldies, like rocking around the Christmas tree or jingle bell rock.
[1:11:58] Allison Weeks: That's fun, okay.
[1:11:59] Allison Weeks: Great Favorite Christmas movie.
[1:12:02] Roan Johnson: I don't necessarily know that I have one for myself, but probably the most memorable for our family now is Frosty the Snowman, because the first time we watched it with our now four year olds he was two.
[1:12:14] Roan Johnson: And you know, when Frosty just kind of melts into a puddle he cried his eyes out.
[1:12:21] Roan Johnson: He thought Frosty was gone.
[1:12:22] Roan Johnson: And then Frosty came back to life and everything was okay.
[1:12:26] Roan Johnson: But then Frosty gets in Santa's sleigh and flies away and he melted down again.
[1:12:31] Roan Johnson: We're like, uh, it's really sweet, but we were also worried it would be traumatizing.
[1:12:36] Roan Johnson: But last year he handled it very well.
[1:12:39] Allison Weeks: Oh good, okay, all right.
[1:12:41] Allison Weeks: How about um?
[1:12:43] Allison Weeks: Are you a gingerbread or a shortbread?
[1:12:46] Allison Weeks: All right, I'm sorry.
[1:12:46] Allison Weeks: A gingerbread or a sugar cookie?
[1:12:49] Roan Johnson: fan.
[1:12:49] Roan Johnson: I'm a sugar cookie fan and if you caught my homemaker portrait, I referenced the Hope's Table Cookbook.
[1:12:55] Roan Johnson: I use her sugar cookie recipe and I think it's one of the best out there.
[1:12:59] Allison Weeks: Okay, Good to know.
[1:13:00] Allison Weeks: Is it a um, is it a rollout or is it a cut out?
[1:13:03] Allison Weeks: Yes, I'd like, no wait.
[1:13:04] Allison Weeks: Is it a cut out?
[1:13:07] Roan Johnson: It's a cut out.
[1:13:08] Allison Weeks: Okay, got it.
[1:13:08] Allison Weeks: Okay, good, how about fake tree or real tree?
[1:13:13] Roan Johnson: I love the smell of the real trees, but I like the fake because there's no spiders in them.
[1:13:20] Roan Johnson: We had too many horror stories when I was growing up.
[1:13:23] Allison Weeks: Yeah, no, no wildlife in the fake trees.
[1:13:26] Allison Weeks: That's good, all right.
[1:13:28] Allison Weeks: Do you put bows on your gifts, or no bows?
[1:13:32] Roan Johnson: No bows.
[1:13:32] Roan Johnson: It's a little too fussy for me.
[1:13:34] Roan Johnson: I like finishing touches on some things, but gifts there's just too many people in our families.
[1:13:42] Allison Weeks: How about Christmas music?
[1:13:44] Allison Weeks: Christmas music before Thanksgiving or after Thanksgiving?
[1:13:48] Roan Johnson: I like it before.
[1:13:49] Roan Johnson: It kind of just depends on the year COVID years we were listening.
[1:13:54] Roan Johnson: Like way before Thanksgiving we needed all the holidays here we could get.
[1:13:58] Roan Johnson: Yeah, I think everybody was Usually a little bit before I try to pace myself.
[1:14:03] Roan Johnson: But um, usually we'll do our day decorating the week before Thanksgiving, so that kind of ushers in the Christmas music with that.
[1:14:12] Alexis Molnar: Yeah, that's fun.
[1:14:13] Roan Johnson: Just because we're traveling over the Thanksgiving holiday.
[1:14:15] Roan Johnson: So that makes it easier.
[1:14:17] Allison Weeks: Yeah, because then when you come home, it's already all decorated and done and ready to go.
[1:14:21] Allison Weeks: That's fun.
[1:14:21] Allison Weeks: Okay, so let's talk a little bit about how you keep the main thing, the main thing during the holiday season, because it's hectic and when you got kids, that's another layer.
[1:14:30] Allison Weeks: So what are some of the things that you do to keep your focus, and your family's focus, on Christ during the Christmas season?
[1:14:38] Roan Johnson: So although we're Christians, our family's actually chosen not to celebrate Christmas as a religious holiday.
[1:14:44] Roan Johnson: We choose to keep the emphasis on his death, burial and resurrection when we celebrate communion with our brethren every week, but at the same time we don't want to get carried away by the secular things either and the rush and the consumerism.
[1:15:00] Roan Johnson: It's just a lie.
[1:15:02] Roan Johnson: I found that having that family day has made that really helpful for us, avoiding some of the rush.
[1:15:11] Roan Johnson: I do keep a sinking fund generally throughout the year to save up for Christmas.
[1:15:15] Roan Johnson: So if you're unfamiliar with what a sinking fund is, it's where you take your budget for a certain amount and then each month you put in a portion of that throughout the year.
[1:15:27] Roan Johnson: So you can set your Christmas budget in January, divide it out over 12 months and put a little bit in at a time.
[1:15:34] Roan Johnson: So I found that's really helpful to save for Christmas and I can shop a little bit earlier in the year if I find something.
[1:15:40] Roan Johnson: That's helpful.
[1:15:40] Roan Johnson: So that helps us keep the focus where it needs to be in gift giving and not get carried away.
[1:15:49] Roan Johnson: We also try to find ways to show love to our friends and our church family.
[1:15:54] Roan Johnson: That time of year.
[1:15:55] Roan Johnson: It's a really good time to show appreciation.
[1:15:57] Allison Weeks: Yeah, that's interesting.
[1:15:58] Allison Weeks: So I'm just interested at your answer, because you said that you choose not to celebrate as a religious holiday.
[1:16:05] Allison Weeks: Yes, so it's just a celebratory holiday for your family.
[1:16:09] Roan Johnson: It is just a day for our family to get together with each other and to give gifts.
[1:16:15] Roan Johnson: We just feel like God had put the emphasis on communion and that's how he asked us to remember Christ, and that's how we choose to do that.
[1:16:26] Allison Weeks: That's a really interesting perspective and I'm going to have to think about that.
[1:16:29] Allison Weeks: So thanks for sharing how you guys approach it.
[1:16:32] Allison Weeks: I appreciate that.
[1:16:33] Allison Weeks: Is there anything else that you would like to share about Christmas or the Christmas season?
[1:16:39] Roan Johnson: I think that's all I had, thank you.
[1:16:41] Allison Weeks: Yeah, this has been fun.
[1:16:42] Allison Weeks: Thank you so much and Merry Christmas to you and your family.
[1:16:46] Roan Johnson: Merry Christmas to you.
[1:16:47] Allison Weeks: Thank you.
[1:16:47] Allison Weeks: Okay, I am back here with Tiffany Harris and we're going to talk about Christmas in the Harris household.
[1:17:01] Allison Weeks: So, tiffany, what does a typical Christmas day look like at your home?
[1:17:05] Allison Weeks: Who's there?
[1:17:06] Allison Weeks: What are you eating All of those things?
[1:17:10] Alexis Molnar: A typical Christmas day for the Harris family looks like all the gifts are out and ready for the kiddos.
[1:17:21] Alexis Molnar: We have a couple that are unwrapped and then the rest are wrapped under the tree Not excessive, just a few and we agree upon a time that we can all come downstairs.
[1:17:36] Alexis Molnar: The kids are upstairs, we have our room downstairs, so the kids all talk and decide on what time they would like to come downstairs and do gifts, because obviously, as they've gotten older they can sleep a little bit longer than when they were younger.
[1:17:49] Alexis Molnar: And then everyone comes down and it is fun, chaos while everyone's opening and chatting and looking at each other's gifts, and I make a brunch for us with homemade yeast rolls, cinnamon rolls and usually fruit, maybe eggs, sausage, bacon.
[1:18:12] Alexis Molnar: So we all sit down for a brunch.
[1:18:15] Alexis Molnar: With my husband being a pastor, we don't always typically celebrate on the actual 24 slash 25th.
[1:18:26] Alexis Molnar: We make adjustments as needed, we are flexible and we celebrate anyway.
[1:18:32] Alexis Molnar: So that's usually what our morning Christmas morning looks like, and then brunch and then we'll have a later lunch, early dinner.
[1:18:43] Alexis Molnar: It changes.
[1:18:44] Alexis Molnar: We are not necessarily super traditional when it comes to Christmas.
[1:18:49] Alexis Molnar: We'll change it up and what we're eating for our meal, okay.
[1:18:54] Allison Weeks: Okay, all right, so you're doing brunch.
[1:18:58] Allison Weeks: Is there a special recipe that always has to show up at Christmas time?
[1:19:04] Allison Weeks: It doesn't not necessarily on the day, but something you make every year, either during the season or for Christmas.
[1:19:09] Alexis Molnar: Yes, ginger snap cookies.
[1:19:11] Alexis Molnar: There's actually multiple checks.
[1:19:15] Alexis Molnar: We call them party mix growing up the homemade checks mix and the pumpkin pie sugar cookies, and I tried to start at the beginning of December so we can kind of, you know, not just make all this for one day, but kind of enjoy some recipes throughout the season.
[1:19:38] Alexis Molnar: Oh, that's good.
[1:19:40] Allison Weeks: Yeah, so not not making them at the beginning of December to like freeze, but you're sort of throughout the season.
[1:19:46] Allison Weeks: Oh, we're going to do pumpkin pie today, or we're going to do sugar cookies this week, or whatever, and enjoy them that week.
[1:19:51] Allison Weeks: Yes, that's probably a good idea.
[1:19:55] Allison Weeks: Yeah, so you don't go and do a sugar coma.
[1:19:58] Allison Weeks: Awesome, okay, very good.
[1:20:01] Allison Weeks: Well, maybe you can share one of your signature recipes with us.
[1:20:04] Allison Weeks: Maybe your ginger snap cookies.
[1:20:05] Alexis Molnar: I always love a good ginger snap cookie, that would be awesome, that would be awesome.
[1:20:09] Alexis Molnar: Yes, I can do that Okay.
[1:20:12] Allison Weeks: So do you have any other holiday traditions besides making special foods and then your actual you know Christmas day celebrations, anything else that you guys try to do on a regular basis each year?
[1:20:25] Alexis Molnar: Yes, we, years ago we started doing I don't even know what we call it, but we went into like Dollar Tree, all all of us as a family, and we had we started out back in the day each person would get $2, we would write our names on a little piece of paper, put them in, you know, whatever we had, and everybody drew a name Right, and then we would go into Dollar Tree and purchase someone for you know whoever's name.
[1:21:00] Alexis Molnar: We had a gift for someone Right.
[1:21:02] Alexis Molnar: Then we'd have our little bag and we'd sit in the car and we would exchange our gifts and laugh really hard.
[1:21:12] Roan Johnson: Oh, that's been fun.
[1:21:13] Alexis Molnar: That's something we've done since before we had Nate, since we've had Nate and since we've added Sunday Laws into the picture and we actually do a family date.
[1:21:23] Alexis Molnar: So we would.
[1:21:24] Alexis Molnar: That would be part of it.
[1:21:26] Alexis Molnar: Then we would pick it up.
[1:21:27] Alexis Molnar: You know, a couple of times we've gone to the movie as a family and had dinner.
[1:21:31] Alexis Molnar: Most of the time recently it's we get together for a dinner, just a fun dinner, and our cheap gift exchange.
[1:21:41] Alexis Molnar: So we bumped it up to $3.25 that we each get.
[1:21:46] Alexis Molnar: So that's really fun, though it's so much fun and we just do it right there on the spot.
[1:21:52] Allison Weeks: That's so great.
[1:21:53] Allison Weeks: Okay, so you guys are in the store all at the same time.
[1:21:56] Alexis Molnar: All at the same time.
[1:21:58] Allison Weeks: So you're trying to hide from one another.
[1:21:59] Alexis Molnar: Yes.
[1:22:00] Allison Weeks: Nobody sees what you're buying.
[1:22:01] Allison Weeks: Yes, and then you go into the car and you exchange, you exchange them right away.
[1:22:06] Samantha Bain: Which?
[1:22:06] Allison Weeks: is really fun, because then you don't have to wait and it's like part of the whole celebration of the evening.
[1:22:11] Allison Weeks: That's really a good idea.
[1:22:13] Allison Weeks: I like that a lot.
[1:22:14] Allison Weeks: Yeah, that's really good.
[1:22:14] Allison Weeks: Yeah.
[1:22:16] Alexis Molnar: Okay, that's been fun.
[1:22:20] Allison Weeks: I have a rapid fire Q and A section that I've created.
[1:22:23] Allison Weeks: Okay, oh For the Christmas, for the Christmas segments, all right.
[1:22:26] Allison Weeks: So I'm going to ask you.
[1:22:28] Allison Weeks: If you don't have an answer, just say skip, okay, okay, favorite.
[1:22:31] Allison Weeks: Christmas song or Carol Silent night.
[1:22:35] Allison Weeks: Okay, favorite Christmas movie.
[1:22:42] Alexis Molnar: The bells of St Mary's.
[1:22:43] Alexis Molnar: I think that's the name of it.
[1:22:45] Alexis Molnar: Oh, I haven't heard of that.
[1:22:47] Allison Weeks: Is it an old movie, old black and white?
[1:22:48] Allison Weeks: Oh, who's in it?
[1:22:50] Allison Weeks: Do you remember?
[1:22:52] Alexis Molnar: If I said being cross me, I'd probably be wrong.
[1:22:54] Alexis Molnar: But it's someone like that.
[1:22:56] Allison Weeks: Oh, is it a musical?
[1:22:57] Allison Weeks: No, no.
[1:23:00] Allison Weeks: Okay, the bells of St Mary.
[1:23:02] Allison Weeks: I'm going to have to look that up.
[1:23:02] Allison Weeks: I love old Christmas movies, something like that.
[1:23:06] Allison Weeks: Okay, I'll, I will check it out.
[1:23:09] Allison Weeks: I will check it out.
[1:23:09] Allison Weeks: Okay, gingerbread or sugar cookie, sugar cookie Okay, with icing or without icing on it.
[1:23:18] Alexis Molnar: Oh, with lots of icing.
[1:23:23] Allison Weeks: Fake tree or real tree?
[1:23:25] Alexis Molnar: Fake tree Okay, bows or no bows on your gifts.
[1:23:30] Alexis Molnar: Bows, yes, bows, the bigger the better.
[1:23:36] Allison Weeks: Yes, okay, christmas music before or after Thanksgiving After.
[1:23:43] Alexis Molnar: Okay.
[1:23:43] Alexis Molnar: You're a purist.
[1:23:48] Allison Weeks: I am too.
[1:23:49] Allison Weeks: Only I mean, I'm talking literally.
[1:23:51] Allison Weeks: We turn them on.
[1:23:52] Allison Weeks: We turn on the Christmas music while we're washing the dishes after Thanksgiving meal.
[1:23:56] Alexis Molnar: But not before, then Not before.
[1:24:01] Allison Weeks: Okay, so finally, holidays can be crazy and hectic the whole season, so how do you maintain balance during that season and how do you keep your focus on Christ, on what really matters?
[1:24:16] Alexis Molnar: I do something.
[1:24:17] Alexis Molnar: I do an advent devotional, and it's different every year, but I have always done one and I've always maintained my quiet time because it just, you know, every season, every Christmas in all of our 27 years have been different, but the reason for Christmas stays the same, and just making that time to get quiet and still, even for just a few minutes every day and really reflect on what the season is about, really keeps the real purpose at the heart and the focus of the month of December.
[1:25:01] Allison Weeks: Yeah, yeah, definitely.
[1:25:02] Allison Weeks: Well, thank you for sharing your Christmas memories and thoughts and ideas.
[1:25:08] Allison Weeks: It was fun.
[1:25:09] Allison Weeks: Thank you, merry Christmas, merry.
[1:25:12] Alexis Molnar: Christmas.
[1:25:16] Allison Weeks: Thank you so much for listening to this third episode of Holiday Homemaking 20th.
[1:25:20] Allison Weeks: I hope you have found some inspiration and some encouragement to practice your art of holiday homemaking with joy this week.
[1:25:29] Allison Weeks: Don't forget to sign up for our newsletter.
[1:25:32] Allison Weeks: It's going to go out first thing Friday morning and it will have some of the recipes that we have mentioned in these interviews today.
[1:25:39] Allison Weeks: It is free and you can get on our mailing list by going to theartofhomepodcastcom.
[1:25:46] Allison Weeks: If you have found value in today's episode and you'd like to say thank you, you can do so in a couple of different ways.
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[1:26:17] Allison Weeks: Just go to buymeacoffeecom slash theartofhome.
[1:26:24] Allison Weeks: Well, that's it for this week's episode.
[1:26:26] Allison Weeks: I will be back next Wednesday with our fourth and final episode of Holiday Homemaking 2023 and our final episode of the year for 2023.
[1:26:37] Allison Weeks: I will have more homemakers to share their tips and holiday recipes and holiday memories with you, as well as some closing thoughts on the year of what I have learned throughout this podcasting journey of 2023 and some ideas and dreams that I have for the Art of Home podcast in 2024.
[1:26:56] Allison Weeks: Until then, keep practicing your art of making a home for the holidays.

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