Favorite Things: January 2026 (& December 2025)
Ree Drummond (AKA The Pioneer Woman) saved my sanity this past holiday season. This post wasn’t sponsored. And it’ll be a tad long.
But first: HAPPY NEW YEAR!
Holiday cooking and baking
Judging by the stories you’ve likely been hearing for years, Thanksgiving Day must entail a painful marathon of cooking, baking, and waiting, all nonstop for maybe eight to 12 hours.
But that wasn’t the case for us this year and it’ll never again be the case now thanks to a lifesaving schedule from a new video that the YouTube algorithm somehow thankfully decided to serve us (puns intended) the Saturday before Thanksgiving.
In it, Ree, whom I’ve been a fan of perhaps since I’ve been living in the US, showed viewers how to prep for Thanksgiving several DAYS in advance. She carefully details when to cut, portion, and cook whatever one needs to make each day before Thanksgiving:
The entire time I was watching that video I couldn’t wait to get up and execute my own Gameplan: I was THAT ready to conquer the task.
We don’t eat turkey on Thanksgiving (and haven’t for years!) so I didn’t have to worry about that headache, but I tasked myself with making the following:
- Broccoli Cheese Casserole
- Sweet Potato Casserole
- Mashed Potatoes (probably THE best ones I’ve ever made but it was so much food, that I won’t make them if there are other casseroles in attendance.)
- Pecan Pie
The first two were staples that my husband would make all by himself before I started taking over. He’d prepare them when he’d visit us at my parents’ home for holiday dinners before we got married. Then as the years went by I began helping, but only little by little because I didn’t want to ruin any of the steps. At some point they became “my” recipes, where I made them from scratch with the occasional change here and there.
We vary the main dish every year, and this year we decided it was time for some Tri-Tip, considering our oldest’s newfound love for it. (Our boy now can’t get enough of steaks, try-tip, tenderloin–all of which my husband smokes–and burger patties [but they have to be the ones I make because of my special secret seasonings].) My husband couldn’t wait to smoke the trip-tip!
(As a side note, I really, REALLY, like cooking, but I tell my husband often that one of these days I’m going to -figuratively- shoot myself in the foot because I never write down what I do or how much of something I use.. and yet it always turns out -modesty aside- kinda great. Like if I’m following a recipe, I rarely use the EXACT amounts of the spices it calls for because Anglos don’t add much sazón to their cooking. And if I’ve completely tailored a recipe and made it 100% mine, then I don’t always use the exact amounts every time I make it either. I should probably get better at that! Moving on!
Ree’s schedule makes it so that hopefully one won’t have to take several hours THE DAY OF to prepare fresh, delicious food with relatively little effort. (You don’t have to be a housewife or stay-at-home to accomplish it all, but speaking from experience, that CERTAINLY helps–especially if the whole family gets involved.)
In the past, we’d do most of the prep either on Wednesday or ON Thanksgiving, and when we did, it’d seemingly take forever. It wasn’t pleasant, it was tedious, and afterwards we’d be so tired that we didn’t want to have to cook anything else.
Because Ree makes two recipes that we also make, it was nice to be able to follow her schedule for them (with some variation). I’ll include the days of the week to do something in AND a countdown for how many days ahead you should do a particular step. That way, if you want to prepare a similar dish for another special day that may not fall on a Thursday, you can count back the days and determine when to do each thing.
My New Holiday Meal Planning Schedule
-Mainly for Thanksgiving. If for another special occasion, take into account the number of days in parenthesis instead.-
| DAY | TO-DOS |
| SUNDAY (Four days prior) | Chop pecans (3-4 cups): Save |
| MONDAY (Three days prior) | Cook rice: Refrigerate (3-4 cups) Chop fresh/frozen broccoli: Freeze (2+ cups) |
| TUESDAY (Two days prior) | Cook sweet potatoes: Refrigerate (8-9) Make Pepper Jack Cheese Sauce: Refrigerate (4 cups) |
| WEDNESDAY (Day before) | Make Sweet Potato Casserole + Topping: Refrigerate Make Broccoli Rice Casserole (w/Cheese Sauce): Refrigerate Make Pecan Pie: Bake! |
| THURSDAY (Day of!) | Both Casseroles Out of the fridge (30 mins) Preheat oven: 375º Bake: 30-35 mins! |
That made it all so dang easy. But enough about food! Let’s get right to other things that also made our December wonderful.
Husband’s Vacation
I may be borrowing a little from my November post, but how could I not when this was such a highlight?!
Having my husband off for all or most of December is nothing but a treasure. It’s like he lights up the room when he walks in: The kids feel it, I feel it, and that’s why we never get enough of the guy. So imagine our delight for having this feeling for that many consecutive weeks.
Those of you who are also your husband’s girlfriends know what I’m talking about. He’s to blame for my flirty-and-inappropriate remarks to him and should-stay-private public displays of affection.
Even though he’s just a few feet away from our main living areas now that he’s gone back to work (from home), we still miss having him around so much. Fortunately, we eat dinner together daily, we see him for breakfast and lunch, and his “office hours” are pretty liberal. He makes himself accessible for whenever we need/want to see him. I know, I know: we’re spoiled.
If your husband works from home, find little but meaningful ways throughout the day to remind him how grateful you are for his hard work and sacrifice. It’s a gift to be a housewife and stay-at-home mom, and the best part has to be getting to serve your loved ones, which is also how you serve and glorify God.
Christmas School + a Break from Our Homeschool Routine
A relative recently asked me how homeschool was going, and I couldn’t wait to tell him (like I share with everyone else, including you!) about how much our son looks forward to it every.single.day. He’ll ask often whether today’s a homeschool day or a Break Week day, which I’m impressed by because it shows that he must be enjoying what we do and the different things we go over enough to want to keep doing them.
On days when we’re not “ON,” he’ll take out a book with activities and stay busy, or we’ll assemble a LEGO kit (set?), or we’ll bake, play outside, run errands, etc.
Like this past month, for example, we took part in Read Aloud Revival’s Christmas School*, which was a collection of new books, activities, and routines for us to do to take a mental break from the hustle and bustle of our regular to-dos while savoring the season of Advent.
With my husband on vacation last month, it was an EXTRA relaxing season. So much so, that I used some of my time “off” to prep the new term with all kinds of new to-dos and to research some neat plans for the next school years. Because that’s one of my hobbies now–doing homeschool research, haha.
*Will we do Christmas School again, though?
As nice as the break from our homeschool routine was, I actually don’t think we’ll do RAR Premium’s Christmas School again.
Don’t get me wrong: It IS a neat program that I think some should do at least once. And I appreciated the Christian themes and books we got to enjoy as part of it. But to me it didn’t feel reverent enough while being full of unrelated activities and busywork that felt either too advanced or too irrelevant for us. (The videos were my least favorite part because I avoid screens in our homeschool and the topics explored in the only one I felt like watching were light years ahead of our oldest’s interests and understanding.)
The more I think about it, RAR Premium (while founded by a Catholic convert), has to appeal to a LOT of different families–be they Protestant, Orthodox, Catholic, Atheist, with one child, with ten children, with mostly little kids, with mostly bigger kids–and so it has to try to cover a LOT of ground. And this is where I think it can fail for some families: It does so much, that it can feel like it doesn’t do much at all, or like it doesn’t do it all well. And I’d certainly want more breadth and reverence each Advent season.
Christmas as Parents
This past October marked the first Halloween that I felt the kids really got into the groove of the whole Trick-or-Treating thing and it was such a spectacle! They looked forward to their costumes, the candy, and all that jazz. Even though we don’t eat most sweets as a family, they still really enjoyed collecting it and interacting with our sweet neighbors.
Our oldest loves to teach our youngest so many things, incl. the magic of Christmas and our Advent Calendar. So naturally she (our youngest) learned to expect a new treat every day in the little calendar pocket as part of her morning routine. This was very endearing to see considering she’s still so little!
(She also started referring to each and every Santa she sees as “Ho Ho!” courtesy of a little board book she and her brother have had for years that has those buttons you can press that make noise.. Well, the Santa button proclaims, “Ho, ho, ho! Merry Christmas” so she naturally now calls Santa/Papá Noel, “Ho Ho, Merry!”)
Besides the magic of the Advent Calendar, St. Nicholas Day, and all the new traditions, they also know some Chrismas songs really well, incl. Little Drummer Boy, Mele Kalikimaka, and Rudolph, The Red-Nosed Reindeer, among others. They’ll sing along in the car, to themselves at home and in the car, ask that we play them wherever we are, sing them at bedtime, the works.
Advent and Christmas as a child undoubtedly mark some of sweetest times but the season can lose its luster as an adult. Once you’re married it regains some of it back, culminating with the anticipation your kids feel as the calendars count down to “the big day,” and then the 12 days afterwards, and Epiphany. Advent and Christmas as parents is the cherry on top.
I hope, dear Reader, that your December was joyful and I wish you a blessed 2026.
