Celebrating The #WinterSolstice And #Christmas 2019,, Followed By #NewYearsEve's #Fireworks

Somehow we're already about a week in to 2020. How's it treating you so far? Good, I hope.

So, let's catch up with how I spent the holidays, shall we?

On December 18th, I decided I was going to have a go at making some shortbread, like I'd been considering doing. So, that's just what I did. The big one is a plain spiced shortbread, and the little ones are an attempt at giving shortbread a caramelized coating. The spiced shortbread worked really well, but I wasn't so happy with the caramalizing thing... Definitely need to work on that. See for yourself:


With the spiced shortbread, I could have done with adding a little more butter, to compensate for the fact I was using a vegan butter, which wasn't as creamy. Other than that though, it turned out pretty well. Kelly agreed, having been willing to help me taste-test it, despite it being vegan shortbread. Even Lilie - who's as picky as Kero used to be about shortbread quality, and usually won't eat anything but "proper" scottish shortbread; I'm starting to think it's a Westie thing - deemed it worthy, and decided it was an acceptable shortbread. It goes without saying that the food crazy Logan was happy to sample it, and would have been happy to have more had I allowed it. No point using Logan as a food tester, since I actually have yet to find a food we're willing to allow him some of that he doesn't like. Seriously, the dog will even eat lettuce. I kid you not!

Anyway, I need to work on my caramel making skills a lot though. Oh well, I tried, and will keep trying. I'll get it right one of these days, and don't worry, because I'll be telling you when I do for sure. *wink*

In the meantime, I also made some cranberry cookies that day, just because I could. So here's a photo of those too:


The official time and date of the Winter Solstice this year in the Northern Hemisphere was at 04:19am on Sunday December 22nd 2019. I didn't stay up for it, since I decided the main thing I needed this holiday season was some rest and recharge time. We tend to focus most of our celebrations on the 21st though, since that's most often when the Solstice occurs, and it's easier with so many others we know not sharing our beliefs to fix a solid date on the calender. Either way, since I wanted that recharge time, I spent most of the 21st and 22nd of December enjoying the company of my furkids while watching and reading things, which is my idea of a good way to spend the holidays if I'm honest. Thankfully, Kelly feels the same way.

As I mentioned in Joshua's post near the end of December, though I've gotten out of the habit of mentioning it on here for fear of offending people, so those who don't know me wouldn't know it, Kelly and I consider ourselves to be celebrating the Winter Solstice rather than Christmas. Because of that, and the fact most people we know celebrate Christmas, when we celebrate the holidays has varied over the years. Some years we've celebrated both on the Winter Solstice and on Christmas Day with nothing holiday related happening on the days between the Solstice and Christmas, other years we've spread the celebrations across the days from the Winter Solstice to Boxing Day so that we end up celebrating for a week. However, this was done mostly for the sake of others, so this year, we decided enough was enough, and that we would just celebrate over the weekend of the Winter Solstice, with our planned holiday meal out being the final part of our holiday celebrations, and the days when others were celebrating being perfect days to catch up on things we'd been neglecting while having a restful Yule.

Of course, "Santa" still visits our house, regardless of when we celebrate, whether he comes as the Yule Elf, or the more traditional Father Christmas role, and this year was no exception. We were obviously all good this year - unless he just wanted us to feel good this holiday season, and was being more generous than normal about avoiding putting people on the naughty list - since there were nice full stockings all around...


The first photo is the one for Lilie and Logan, and Kelly's stocking. The second is the one for Joshua and Mollie (or was... I guess it's just Mollie's now) and my stocking. Mine and Kelly's were filled with candy canes and chocolates (vegan friendly chocolates for me, of course). "Santa" was a bit excited by all the vegan friendly options available for me, so after providing me with enough vegan friendly orange chocolate Santas and reindeers, mint chocolate snowmen, chocolate coins, fudge, marshmallows, etc, that my stocking wouldn't hold them all, brought Kelly a few extra treats for his. Next year, Santa will try not to get so excited by the fact vegan holiday treats are starting to become as common as non-vegan ones. In the meantime, I think we're good for treats for a while. *wink*

Anyway, I'll let Lilie tell you what Santa Paws put in the furkids' stockings, since I'm planning on having her do a holiday themed Furkid Friday to share the photos and video we got of Mollie and the dogs - well, just photos of Mollie - over the holidays. That post will go live this coming Friday.

Yes, we opened all our gifts that day, including ones from family. Kelly had gaming stuff a few books, and some money. I had a new external hard drive, some DVDs, a couple of audio books, and some money. We also had some little bits my Dad had sent us, including some little figurines and such. He usually sends some little novelty type gifts. Officially they were for the stockings, but since we'd already arranged more than enough for the stockings ourselves, we opened them as actual gifts. Mine included some Mickey and Minnie mouse figurines, a little spinning top, a little purple car, a mini T-Rex, some air dry clay, and some chattering teeth. I don't remember everything Kelly had, but a figurine of Mr Incredible, a mini dinosaur of some kind, and some heavy-duty paper clips were involved. Anyhow, here are most of my gifts (the external hard drive and DVDs aren't in any of the photos):


Again, I'll let Lilie tell you in her upcoming post what the furkids got.

Part of what we do each year is to set our own personal intensions - or goals, if you will - for the year. Some people do goals, others do hopes and wishes. We go with goals. But I shared those in the posts I did last week - like I usually do - so I don't need to tell you about those. I only mention it, because I asked Lilie and Logan what theirs were, and Lilie fetched a toy and started tossing it about, while Logan started bouncing and rolling about being cute. I'm taking it to mean their intensions are to play as much as possible, and be as cute as they can be. In other words, keep doing what they've been doing in 2019 (or most of it, in Logan's case, since he was only born in April). So far, so good. *wink*

Other than that, I also brought a herbal tea labelled as "Christmas Tea" to try, along with a new holiday mug to try it out in, just because I could, I don't drink alcahol, and because I didn't want to be drinking too much hot chocolate, but wanted something holiday themed to enjoy during the Solstice. Here are a couple of photos, so you can see my "Let it snow" mug. The second one gives a close up of the image and writing on the mug.


We got a whole load of cards too. One from my Dad and Nan, one from the people who live in the flat downstairs, one from my Grandma, and some from various online friends (Kati, AliceKay, Deanna, and Heather). Here are photos of them for anyone who wants to see:


We didn't end up sending out cards. I'd planned to right before the Solstice. Then it was the 23rd, and I realized we hadn't, so was going to when we got home from our dinner, since at least they'd then be on their way before Christmas Day (in theory). But what happened with Joshua made me forget, and then Christmas was over, so there didn't seem much point. Sorry to anyone disappointed by that. I was going to say this is the last year I'm doing it anyhow. But I guess last year was the last year I'm doing it instead. Again, sorry to those who might be disappointed.

Anyway, since we didn't want to be eating a three course meal out on the weekend, especially not a weekend right around the holidays, because it would potentially be too crowded for Lilie and Logan, the 23rd of December was our holiday dinner at Oscars - as you might have guessed from the previous paragraph, and I might have mentioned on here before. We'd arranged a turkey dinner for Kelly, a vegan alternative for me, and even some turkey for Lilie and Logan, since we couldn't leave them out, could we? Our furkids are always included when possible.

Our meals were three course meals. We both had soup as our starter. It was tomato and pepper, and delicious. Served with sourdough bread. Kelly's main was turkey and vegetables with the trimmings, while mine was a nut roast. It was when we had our main dish that Lilie and Logan had their turkey, though they ate very little of it at the time, since there was too much going on and they were too busy being nosy. So we brought most of their turkey home.

As for dessert: I can't remember what Kelly's dessert was called, but it was some kind of tart thing, and he enjoyed it. Mine was officially meant to have been a vegan Christmas pudding, but they hadn't been able to arrange that, so had provided a vegan friendly rhubarb thing that was somewhere between a crumble and a chilled fruit compot, and very tasty, though I can't remember what it was actually called either. I enjoyed it though, and they even let me take the extra one they had home, so I had some to enjoy the next day as well. I think they were worried I'd be upset by the lack of Christmas pudding. But I appreciated the effort they went to ensuring I had a vegan friendly meal, so how could I be? Plus, I love rhubarb! Rhubarb crumble is my favourite dessert ever, and this was essentially a cold rhubarb crumble. I had no problem with that at all.

The weather was pretty bad over that weekend, but thankfully nice - though cold - on the Monday, which meant we had a pleasant walk too and from Oscars. At least, the walk there was pleasant. The sun was getting quite low by the time we were heading home, and the temperature seemed to be dropping with it, so it wasn't quite so pleasant out by that time. But at least it wasn't raining. Plus, my cut toe had healed well by this point, so it wasn't too uncomfortable or painful walking on it either, which I was quite relieved about.

Anyway, that's how we celebrated this year.

The only other holiday related thing we did was to call various family members to wish them Merry Christmas - and in some cases talk to them while they opened gifts from us, since they wanted that - on Christmas Day, which was how we decided to celebrate Christmas itself this year. To be honest, that's just fine with me. I really enjoyed doing things the way we did this year, more than how I've enjoyed the way we've done things in the past. It felt much more relaxed, was far less stressful, and I really felt like I was making time for family properly on Christmas Day, since the whole day was set aside for them, with time to just do whatever we felt like at a relaxed pace in between phone calls.

We don't bother doing anything to see in the new year. In fact, many years I haven't even bothered to be up for it. But we did end up staying up, because of the fireworks. No. Not that I wanted to hear the fireworks. OK, maybe I kind of did. Though I might have been more enthusiastic if my head hadn't been hurting a lot, which it was because I hit it the Saturday before, hard enough to cut it, give myself a lump, and possibly give myself a mild concussion (though we're not sure about that last part). If you're wondering: I still have a slight headache, but it's only a very mild one now. Also, the lump has gone (it had almost gone by New Year's Eve) and the cut is mostly healed now.

Anyway, back to the New Year's Eve fireworks, and the fact I was mostly only up for them because there had been a few fireworks throughout the evening, and we knew from a combination of past experience and neighbours gathering on the seafront that there were going to be a lot of fireworks going off around midnight, which meant we - OK, I - needed to be awake to comfort Logan, who really hates fireworks.

Mollie and Lilie didn't need comforting. The girls are fine with them. Lilie gets excited and wants to watch them, and Mollie ignores them. I guess it's because they're so used to them by now. Logan is finding it harder to move past that, "Fireworks are terrifying noises," stage though. So he needs cuddles and reassurance, and even then is crying and trembling the whole time. It was not a fun evening for him, and meant I saw in the new year in the middle of our bed, attempting to comfort one very scared eight and a half month old puppy.

Meanwhile, Kelly and the girls were in the living room, and Kelly got some videos of the fireworks for me - since we were up, and then I could get to enjoy them with headphones afterwards, as well as sharing them with you guys - while Lilie bounced about excitedly trying to watch the fireworks with him, and Mollie played on her wheel. You can hear the sounds of Lilie's bell and Mollie's wheel in the clips. Especially Lilie's bell. Here they are:





































So, that's how we celebrated the holidays.

What about you? How did your holidays go? If you did anything, did you enjoy your holiday celebrations? If you didn't do anything to celebrate, did you get in some rest and relaxation time while everyone else was celebrating? Or maybe you did a bit of both? Either way, I'd love to hear about it, and how it all went, so tell me about it in the comments.