On the last day of 2025 my last grandparent passed away. Grandpa was nearly 96 and in his last year he was still writing limericks for my kids and sending them birthday money. I will miss his emails.

December was predictably busy with lots of holiday cheer. I hope you’ll check out some of the books and recipes that I recommend.

Read

After cutting back on reading for a few months I was pleased to finish four books in December. I did not manage to complete my Book of Centuries challenge, but I still plan to finish the remaining categories this year. What I did complete was my list of ten fiction and ten nonfiction titles from the beginning of the year, and I have been having a grand old time compiling a list for 2026 after keeping notes in my phone for months (again, four of them are set in Ireland!).

The four books I finished in December were all on the list I wrote in January: Under the Greenwood Tree, Time of the Child, The Liberal Arts Tradition, and Give Them Grace. Time of the Child was my favourite: introspective, heart-wrenching, hopeful — and I love how the turns of phrase are different than you expect from an American or British writer.

I also want to recommend three picture books that we got from the library: A Christmas Like Helen’s, B Is for Bethlehem, and A Hat for Minerva Louise.

Do

• We helped a friend move.
• Malcolm had a birthday sleepover.
• Andrew’s parents returned from Scotland! We had fun making them food and putting up a welcome home banner and balloons.
• I got new glasses and cut my own bangs!
• The kids had two visits to the North Country Children’s Museum.
• We attended the children’s Christmas concert at Lisbon Town Hall.
• We had friends over for Christmas crafts and treats (chaotic but worthwhile).
• Lots of cousins descended on us; the festivities included bowling, cross-country skiing, pass the present, and Christmas Jeopardy!

Eat

• We made some delicious flavoured nuts (spiced, granola-crusted, mocha, and orange) and also Oreo truffles.
• For his fifth birthday Malcolm had a brownie pie topped with blueberries in a star-shaped pan.
• One weekend I made stromboli instead of pizza.
• A friend made Pioneer Woman’s sheet pan salad for a potluck and I’ve made it twice since, though with different dressing: think roasted chickpeas, cauliflower, and squash, with pepitas, cheese, and dried cranberries, and either arugula or romaine for greens.
• It took a bit of doing, but I found a recipe for pigs in blankets that didn’t use refrigerated biscuit dough; Eleanor made them and they were devoured.
• Andrew took me to the lunch buffet at the Royal India Grill on Christmas Day; the food was amazing as always, and the dancing Bollywood Santas on the TV were amusing (at least for a few minutes).
• We continued our tradition of going to the Asian Buffet on Boxing Day; the servers seemed surprised to have 22 people appear, but there was plenty of seating and I don’t think we wasted any food.
• We had a pie fest with tourtiere, turkey mushroom phyllo pie, Tollhouse pie, chocolate coconut cream pie, chocolate pecan slab pie, cranberry curd tart, and mango curd tart!!

Meditate

“And Jesus came and said to them, ‘All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.'” – Matthew 28:18-20

What are your December favourites?