Getting ready for holiday fun!

Last year at this time, we were unpacking after our move and were still recovering from Hurricane Milton. I couldn’t think about winter fun or hosting Christmas without bursting into tears. This year, I’m looking forward to it! I’m also looking forward to experiencing more fun in general…at least until the next home renovation project starts. 

But before I get to winter fun, here’s a quick review of my fall fun list. I was able to check off most of the items:

Put together a fall themed jigsaw puzzle like this one. Finished.

Enjoy watching Lightning hockey and Buccaneers football on TV. I like sports and use them to bond with family members. I’m excited that I can finally watch Lightning games after being unable to for a couple of years since the team changed the company that airs their games locally.  Yes! Go Bolts and Bucs!

I forgot all about the Hillsborough County Fair, and I still haven’t managed persimmon cookies. However, I did bake pumpkin bread and pumpkin scones.

After watching planner videos, I abandoned the one I was planning to buy because I fell in love with the cover of this planner. One of my past favorites came from Archer & Olive, so I expect to love using this one.

Enjoy the annual The Girl Next Door fall extravaganza podcast. These two are so much fun to listen to, and I love their annual look at all things fall. Done.

Ease back into visits to the barn. No horse can ever replace Tank, but I still love horses and am lucky enough to have access to them through my friend who owns the barn where Tank lived. I want to start going there now and then to get my horse fix. Resuming regular visits to the barn has been hard, but I’m sticking with it.

I’ve ordered the photos for my album of special Tank photos, but haven’t yet put it together.

Continue and expand my art education and practice through regular sketching, art journaling, and using the art instruction books I have. I want to do artsy things most days of the week. I am doing some art, just not as much as I want to do. A work in progress.

Participate in Positively Present’s annual Gratitude Challenge (link is to last year’s challenge). I participated as many days as I could. Not as many as I would have liked, but oh, well. 

I didn’t read much from my fall reading list, just The Thirteenth Tale, by Diana Setterfield, and I’ve started The Small and the Mighty, by Sharon McMahon. I’m still waiting for my turn with the new Thursday Murder Club mystery, The Impossible Fortune.

I didn’t get around to reading  The Accidental Alchemist by Gigi Pandan, Lauryn Harper Falls Apart, by Shauna Robinson, or September, by Rosamunde Pilcher. I also didn’t get around to Keys to Drawing, by Bert Dodson, or Carolly Erickson’s To the Scaffold: The Life of Marie Antoinette. They’re all still on the TBR list for someday!

On to holiday/winter fun

Host Christmas for our local family.

I’ve got another puzzle lined up to start after Christmas.

Brunch at Oxford Exchange with M. A holiday tradition.

Bake molasses sugar cookies to eat and give as gifts.

I want to take some field trips, maybe to The Book Rescuers and/or The Paperback Exchange, and this citrus U-Pick farm.

Continue making friends with new horses at my old barn, taking advantage of our nice winter weather.

Visit Bok Tower Gardens again, hopefully before the “Dream Weaver: Tales from the Trees” event finishes. 

Hopefully, this is just the start of winter fun. The future also holds some travel planning, working around another major home renovation we want to do in 2026.

What winter fun do you have planned?

My dog is on the nice list...usually

Fall Fun List update: I did nearly everything on my list!

• Decorate the house for fall
• Burn fall-scented candles and diffuse fall scents in my essential oil diffuser
• Bake sourdough bread using my “mother”
• Write a letter to someone (friend or relative)
• Play cozy ambience music videos on YouTube (like this one) 
• Enjoy a pumpkin spice latte and other fall foods and drinks
• Eat pomegranates 
• Watch Barbie with a friend 
• Choose and order a 2024 planner
• Celebrate Thanksgiving with the family
• Take a trip to a local nursery and decide what, if anything, I want to plant for our fall/winter garden
• Attend the first three musicals of my Broadway series at the Straz Center in Tampa (The Choir of Man, Beetlejuice, and Funny Girl) 
• Sit outside and enjoy cooler weather—if we get some by Dec. 21
• Change out fall house decorations for winter (I usually do this around the beginning of December)

I probably won’t manage to make the bread or see Barbie before the 21^st, but that’s OK. Both of those things can move on to a Winter Fun List, which I’m still in the process of making. (Fun Lists are slightly different from lists of goals, and are good reminders that life is about more than work and chores and various other responsibilities.) 

I realize “winter” in Florida is quite different from winter in most other locations, so my winter fun list will not look like the winter fun list of someone who lives in Ohio (Hi, Debbie!) That’s one of the beauties of fun lists—they reflect your unique situation and personality. As Gretchen Rubin has pointed out in one of her Secrets of Adulthood, “What’s fun for other people may not be fun for you, and vice versa.”  

Maybe take some time this weekend to think about what’s fun for you. Then make plans to work that fun into your life more often. I’d love it if you’d come back here to share some of what’s on your winter fun list in the comments. We can all use a little fun inspiration!