Monthly Musings: December 2024
our monthly dose of ramblings!
Hello lovely people! Happy December! How are you keeping? Apologies for my lack of posting last week but there was literally no time! How is it December already?! I am not ready! I mean, yes, on one hand, I am 100% ready because as soon as the calendar hit December 1st we put on the ‘50s Christmas classics playlist and begun the Christmasification of the house. However, on the other hand, I am woefully behind on my shopping — as in, I literally have not thought of or purchased a single gift — but am planning to remedy this asap! Today though, I am procrastinating further by dropping in to share our Monthly Musings: December 2024 post. Let’s!
Our musings for the month ahead are listed below, filled with all the usual suspects and a little extra here and there. I hope you find something joyous to take away with you, whether it’s a smutty movie, a new cookbook, or a hankering to book a flight.
Enjoy!
monthly musings: december 2024
I mentioned this briefly in November’s MM post, but Husband and I were in Sweden last month! We spent four glorious days wandering around the breathtakingly beautiful city of Stockholm and wooooow it is so! pretty! We both loved it! We spent our four days exploring as many of the various districts as we could manage, marveling at the prettiness of the people, listening to ABBA, eating more kanelbullar than I care to admit, and partaking in some light The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo tourist-ing; it was so lovely!
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Related: we celebrated our one year wedding anniversary while we were in Sweden! We marked the special day by eating many a glorious pastry, taking a daytrip to the nearby city of Uppsala, and rounded out the day with happy hour beers and dinner + cocktails in a delightfully fancy restaurant back in Stockholm. A success, by all accounts! Maybe a fun city-break should be how we celebrate all future anniversaries? I’m into it 😉
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Also related: we finally framed some of our wedding photos and we made a wedding album! We’ve had 10 of our faves from the day printed out since literally this time last year but for one reason or another we never bothered to buy frames or order an album — until I snapped recently & insisted on both! We ended up ordering a huge photo-book from Photobox and were very pleasantly surprised with the quality of it! We made a conscious effort to ensure every single guest is featured in at least one photo, and flicking through the pages brings me so much joy! Also, not to brag, but my mom cried when looking through it for the first time - that’s gotta mean it’s pretty great, right?
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Following on from the opening paragraph - don’t you just love this time of year? Twinkling fairy lights, mince pies, cheesy movies, scented candles, mulled wine, hot chocolate; it’s so delightfully cozy! I also love that everyone uses Christmas as an excuse to do stuff together! We’ve already had a couple of festive dinner parties, we’re heading to a horror-Christmas movie night tomorrow with friends, my work party is coming up next week, I have a festive date-night scheduled with my besties, and also Husband’s birthday on NYE(!) — there’s so much happening! What are you most looking forward to over the Christmas break?
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In case you missed it: two more Vietnamese guides went up last month: A Food & Drink Guide to Hanoi, and 5 Things to See in Huế! I have just two more to share before the month is out - a Huế foodie guide & a more generalized Hội An guide - and then we’ll be finished with Vietnam for the foreseeable future! Sad — but I’m definitely not closing the Vietnam chapter of my travels forever, so not to panic! How are you finding the guides so far? I’m really enjoying reliving our travels through the posts!
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Oof, I finally dipped my toe back into the world of baking recently - and it felt nice to stretch those muscles again! Naturally, I turned to the queen of baking, Nicola Lamb, and made the Salted Double Chocolate Shortbread Cookies from her book and holy heck they were good! I also recently saw her posting on Insta about frankenstein-ing some of the recipes in her book, so I frankenstein-ed some recipes in her book to make the most delicious chocolate cremeux pie of my dreams! Honestly, her book, Sift, is one of the best on my overladen cookbook shelves - would highly recommend!
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The festive movie watching has begun! We’ve only hit three so far, Nutcrackers, The Merry Gentlemen, and Our Little Secret. Obvz we only watched TMG because I wanted to watch a dancing shirtless Chad Michael Murray, sorry/not sorry, but the other two weren’t half bad! We plan on sticking to the more mainstream classics - Elf, National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation, It’s a Wonderful Life, The Holiday, etc. - for the rest of the month, but it’s hard to resist the new cheesetastic films every year. What’s on your Christmas movie hitlist?
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My reading of late has been abysmal. I am just so exhausted by the time I finally get into bed at night that I literally only have 2-3 pages in me — it’s so sad! The stack on my bedside growing taller instead of smaller, and honestly I’m disappointed in myself. I’m going to try make a conscious effort to get back into carrying my book around with me, but until then - what are you reading?? I need a good juicy book to get excited about! Suggestions welcome, as always.
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Now for a few baking faves from the archives, ready? I whip up a Kladdkaka every year around Christmas and it always goes down a treat! I’m especially excited to make it this year after actually having tasted it in Sweden! This Cranberry Apple & Pear Pie, with a Cinnamon Hazelnut Crumble is a mouthful, perhaps, but so festively spiced and perfect for these cold winter nights! Lastly, it wouldn’t be December if I didn’t reshare my Christmas Cookie Box from 2020. Not gonna lie, baking and assembling a number of boxes filled with different cookies is a definite labour of love, but so worth it! Who wouldn’t love a box of homemade treats?
And there we have it friends, our Monthly Musings: December 2024 post! I hope you have the best festive season yet, and that it’s filled with friends, family, fun & frolicking aplenty. Catch you in the new year — eek!
My love to you,
Vicki xo
PS, please enjoy this old unshared photo from 2017. I wish I was prepared enough to have beautifully wrapped presents ready to photograph today, but alas. Sigh!
related posts
December 2023 // December 2022 // December 2021 // December 2020 // December 2019 // December 2018