Last Hodgepodge of 2025. . .and It Is Sooo Late!

 

1. Did you make resolutions or set goals for the year we're waving goodbye? How did that work out for you? Will you set any goals for this new year, new season, or new month? Share one or two if you'd like to share. If I made any resolutions, I have forgotten them. I should look back at my blog – I might have shared them!! That sentence should tell you how it worked out for me. I’ve been trying to think of a word for 2026, but don’t have one yet. I would like to finally reach my goal weight at Weight Watchers.

2. When did you have the most fun this year? I had a lot of fun at various times this year. We love hanging out with the young adults each week – they are a lot of fun. We are truly blessed with good friends and we spent lots of time together and that is almost always fun. We had fun on our trip – meeting new people, seeing and experiencing new things, trying new foods.

3. What's a song or song lyric you'll associate with 2025? Tell us why. Golden - KPop Demon Hunters . . . Here is a link to the video.

why? Our staff video was based on that tune - you can see it here (if you have facebook).

4. Best (or a favorite) bite of something delicious you tasted this year? Gingerbread in France. Oh my goodness! It was delicious.

5. What do you want to do more of in the new year? Less of? I want to spend more time on relationships. I'm not sure when I think this will happen, but I would definitely like to do so. I want to do less negative self-talk.

6. Insert your own random thought here. I'm three days late posting this -- Wednesday Hodgepodge on Saturday. Oh well . . .it is what it is.

The Real Christmas at the Elliott's House

We were finally able to celebrate our family Christmas on the Saturday following Christmas Day. Our daughter, son-in-law, and two of the three grands arrived on Friday in time for lunch. I had planned easy kid-approved meals for Friday -- hot dogs for lunch and burgers for dinner.

There is a park in front of our house so there was some playing going on!

There was some playing happening inside, too.

Just FYI - there was NO sleeping going on. haha! That is not exactly true. This one did take a good nap on Friday -- perhaps too long. Mark and I had moved upstairs and had set up the little bed in our bedroom. Laura and one girl slept in our bed on Friday night and the other slept in the little bed -- or that is how the night began. To be honest, there was not a lot of sleeping going on. Scott ended up with the sweet six year old in the bed with him upstairs and Laura and the baby were downstairs. Mark and I were in the other guest room.

Mark met Glenn at the gas station on Saturday morning so that our oldest grand could come for the whole day. Everyone left me at one point for several hours with all three. Whew! The youngest is VERY BUSY. At this point, the older girls were making marshmallow designs with toothpicks and miniature marshmallows. The little wanted to make her own - which included trying to eat a few . . .which I found "glued" to the side of the bar stools later that day haha!

Pops brought in the little table and the bigger girls worked on Gingerbread houses . . .the little one wanted her own chair and her own house!!

When everyone came back, there was more park time. I may have been day drinking at this point - which I never do hahahaha!

That is our son in the swing - just a big kid.

Our oldest is 3 years older than our middle and she is so sweet with her.

I went in to work on our dinner and everyone went to one of the other parks - we have several in the neighborhood.

Before dinner, we gave our gifts to the girls.

The little one wanted jewelry like her sister's so this Gran found safe jewelry. NOPE - she wouldn't have anything to do with it!! Not the same - NO! NO!

The middle daughter received a DJ Furby Interactive toy from Santa - everyone was wearing it like a boa!

Our daughter-in-law had sent the name of some special markers. I was able to get a box for each of the older girls . . .this Gran would like some, too, please. They are in this huge case and there are so many colors!!

She received a scooter and decided to sit on it - immediately!

We grabbed a quick selfie before dinner - you can see all of the wonderful mess around us. Our son-in-law and daughter are on the left. I'm in the middle (horrible picture but who cares, right?). Mark is behind me. Our son is over my right shoulder. Our "son by choice" is in the back right. Our dauther-in-law is on the far right.

The sofa -- our little on the left; middle in the middle; oldest on the right.

After dinner, S'mores were dessert.

Since no one had slept the night before, our daughter and son-in-law and their two loaded their car and headed home after dinner. It is about an hour and a half or a little more to drive to their house. They all went to bed in their own beds that night. It was a short time together, but it was good!

 

Christmas Day 2025

We received a text from our daughter on Christmas morning asking if we wanted to FaceTime while the girls discovered Santa gifts We quickly hopped on so we could "participate."

The girls were so cute as they opened and examined their new toys.

This was our view at home. It was quiet, but it was ok!! We opened our gifts to each other -- I bought a new Nerf Gun for Mark. He loved it haha! I also bought a clock for the garage. It has fish with each number and you can hear the fish splash each hour. I thought it was large . . .it is small, but it is fine for the garage. I also bought a silly slap card game for him.

He bought a Jenga game for me and a gift certificate for a pedicure. A few years ago we decided not to go nuts for each other at Christmas. We would rather spend the money on trips or other things. We both bought some new clothes a few weeks ago so we didn't need anything.

FaceTime rang again and it was our son and our older granddaughter. She showed us what Santa brought her.

Mark and I opened the gift I showed y'all in the previous post and made mimosas!!

I jumped into making cheese grits and a big fruit salad because we were headed to Mark's sister's house for brunch. Everyone who was in town was able to attend.

Susie purchased enough Dirty Santa gifts for everyone. We are still trying to figure out new traditions now that there are three no longer with us. Dirty Santa was a hit!

We also went with a less traditional menu. It was delicious.

I loved how she hung the ornaments from her chandalier.

The following are pictures from the Dirty Santa swap.

The temperature warmed into the mid seventies . . .so one group played Bocce Ball outside and some of us sat on the deck.

We headed home and grabbed a quick nap (I think!) and then got dressed again and headed to Nathan's for the extended family (Mark's cousins) Christmas party. We are actually headed back to Nathan's on January 4 for a friend party.

Nathan LOVES decorating and had beautiful decorations throughout the house. His tree was gorgeous.

It was a good day!!

 

Christmas Eve 2025

My commute on Christmas Eve morning was short due to NO TRAFFIC. It was wonderful.

I had ordered the cutest dress from Dillard's. It is red plaid with a ruffle around the neck and it ties with a huge bow in the back. I was the first one into the office that day.

I set up the snacks for the pastors and maintenance staff - I actually moved them to a different location right after I took this photo!!

My co-worker's daughter had on a skirt to match my dress so she let me snap a photo of the two of us.

And then her son came cruising up and said he matched, too, so we grabbed one more shot. They live within walking distance of the church and ride bikes and scooters to church often. It was VERY warm on Christmas Eve so I had on my Birkenstocksk but also had boots for later.

See . . .it was 76 degrees!

I helped serve communion at the 1:00 p.m. service so I got to hear sermon and music again . . .plus take communion again and light another candle!

As soon as that service was over, I donned my parking lot attendant vest and headed outside to direct traffic for the 3:00 p.m. service. We are land-locked and once the parking lot fills us, we direct people to neighborhood areas where they can park on the street.

I got off work at 5:15 and headed home. We had received a really nice gift while I was at work. The bag contained supplies for Christmas morning for two!

Here are a couple of photos from the worship services. Below is our Senior Pastor, Brian Erickson who also happens to be my boss.

This was the 3:00 service (I think) because it isn't quite dark outside (light coming through stained glass windows). We were packed out at all of the services and offered "identical additional" services down the hall where 150 people worshipped at 3:00 and another 150 at 5:00 - in addition to a full sanctuary (which holds about 900). We broke all attendance records this year.

Our church looks so beautiful. We have volunteers who arrange flowers and decorate. It was lovely. You can see that baby Jesus arrived on Christmas Eve.

It was a good day - tiring, but good!