First dinner planning post of the new year!
That exclamation point is sure doing a lot of work back there. I do not feel nearly as excited about meal planning as it implies.
My family is home with me today – one last hurrah before we all get back to normal – and we are finally, finally going to dismantle Christmas and I am giddy! My family, for some odd reason, is not nearly so enthusiastic.
Two things will stay up: my beautiful wreath, which is still fragrant and lovely and outside, and my collection of holiday cards. We sent out 93 cards. Two were returned for wrong addresses but I am assuming the rest made it to their destinations. We received 43 cards (not counting the card from the insurance agent). This number is lower than last year (45) but I am fairly confident we will get at least two more; I can think of at least two families who typically send their cards out sometime in January. As it is, that’s about a 46% response rate which isn’t too shabby. Getting cards is one of my favorite aspects of the holidays, so I am not ready to say goodbye just yet. Especially if we might get a couple more (I hope, I hope).
You see how I am delaying the inevitable? Despite it being a brand-new fresh and airy year, we still must adhere to the daily ritual of preparing food and consuming it.
Dinners for the Week of January 2-8
- Sheet Pan Salmon with Sweet Potatoes and Broccoli: This sounds good and simple, and I already have broccoli and salmon on hand.
- Lemongrass BBQ Chicken: My husband got me this fun sampler of Asian sauces and recipes to try, so we are going to start with the Lemongrass BBQ (I already have scallions and cilantro in the house).
- Southwest Salad: I am linking to this recipe mainly for the dressing, which I love. I always think it is chipotle lime dressing, though, instead of chili lime. So I am going to replace the chili powder with chipotle powder this go ’round and see how it turns out. I think my husband will have chicken breast with his salad and I will have shrimp or just stick with beans as my protein.
- Lentil Soup: I am really craving a big bowl of lentil soup. While I trust Nagi completely, I am nonetheless a little wary of adding tomatoes (in my case, tomato puree) to a lentil soup.
- Oven Roasted Chicken Shawarma: Nicole mentioned that she made this recently, and I love it, so on the meal plan it goes!
What are you eating this week?
We’re actually having another “Christmas dinner” today. We have family visiting from out of town, so we’re doing veggies, cranberry sauce (yuck), rotisserie chickens (cooking one turkey was enough for the season), and pecan pie. We’ve been living off leftovers for the last week and I’m loving it.
I haven’t counted how many cards we’ve received; I’m thinking 30-40, but definitely fewer than last year. That’s okay. I love the little collection I have <3
The tree will come down tomorrow or Wednesday and then I think I'll slowly pick away at the other decorations. Though I say that every year and then in a fit of decluttering always do it all at once. I'm legit curious to see what I end up doing this year – haha!
Afterschool activities ramp back up starting tomorrow, so we are prepping cheesy chicken meatballs and slow cooker Greek chicken to have some grab and go options until I get up the gumption to better plan next week, haha!
Oooh I might just have to treat myself to that Asian sauce sampler!
Our “meal plan” is that my SIL gave us about a meal’s worth of pork from our big family NY dinner and we have a ton of salad fixings. I just need to go out and buy potatoes and we have a meal. Having a plan for one dinner is a lot more than we usually have so in that sense the year is getting off to a strong start.
I did indeed make that on NYE for the boys (I just make falafel for myself). I hope you felt the love from up here!
I have to confess that I will only send cards to people who reciprocate. It’s maybe not in the Christmas spirit but after years of sending to people who never sent back, I just…stopped. I make my list from the cards that came the previous year. Otherwise, I start to feel very sad!
There are definitely a few people we plan to cull for next year. But some of these people are (distant) family and we feel like we need to communicate with them this way at least. Plus, I went to an event one year with some former colleagues and one person begged me not to take her off the card list (which I had, the year prior, because she never sends one), but I put her back and she sent a card this year! This is NOT in any way to influence your very smart — especially mentally/emotionally — strategy. I think that’s a great way to do it.
I’m wondering if I should rethink who I all send mine to now. I get so few back in exchange… I wonder if it’s really worth all the effort!!
We took all the holiday decor down yesterday. It didn’t take too long and now the house seems so much bigger. I don’t even realize just how much space the tree takes up until it’s gone! Now the cards are just sitting in a pile on my desk and I don’t know what to do with them! I sent just over 80 and got just over 40 back, so I’m roughly with you on our response rate. I’m still a bit befuddled as to what to do with these cards, but I guess some people keep them and use them as a guide for who to send cards to next year, so maybe I’ll just put a rubber band around them and store them in our Christmas tote to look at next year.
I make gift tags with them and/or create post cards to send holiday post cards. (I participate in a group card exchange for a knitting group. So all the non-family-photo cards received for that this year will become post cards to be sent out to those who sign up for the card exchange next year. It is fun to revisit the cards the next year and it is a good way of limiting how many cards I send.)
We keep our tree and decorations up until Epiphany, which is Friday. So far I am not tired of my little ceramic Christmas tree or the lights strung around the living room.
Dinners this week are simple, like us. Tonight is tuna burgers and chips (we have SO many chips from stocking up before NYE!).
Tomorrow is chicken and rice casserole. It is just that: chicken. Rice. Baked in the oven. Over the years I have pared this down from a multi-step, annoying, mushroom and onion cooking process to something that takes me maybe 40 minutes to put together and 45 minutes in the oven. It would be less than 40 minutes but I make three large pans because we have four boys who all love it. Even my pickier-than-picky youngest, who lived on hot dogs and mac and cheese for three years, loves it.
Wednesday: one of my sons offered to make burgers and tater tots. Accepted.
Thursday: Another son will make tacos. By that I mean he cooks the meat, rice, and sets all the fixings up for a taco bar.
Friday: Epiphany, and the boys voted for ham, with a minority wishing wistfully for lasagna, so I’m going to surprise them with a pan of lasagna for a side dish. I have no idea what veggie or salad to serve with this. Usually with ham I make cooked buttered apples in the crockpot, but not with lasagna, eew. Any ideas?
I really like your card wall. It looks like an art installation. I feel like that would make a very cool permanent fixture that could change yearly.
I also crave lentil soup. All year long. It’s one of my favorite soups.
More frequent meal planning is definitely on my goals list for 2023. I am so envious of what a good job you do of this!!! It’s a hard thing for me, but it makes such a difference in my life when I do it.
I literally get like 1/10 of the Christmas cards I send out. Every year I wonder why I even bother, but I think at the end of the day I enjoy having the card for ME to keep after I make it… and it feels nice, like an old fashioned tradition I guess, to send cards out by snail mail. 🙂
I sent out exactly zero cards this year and only received a handful. I have reached a point in my life where if there is the time available and I feel like doing it, then I will send cards and if I don’t, I don’t. But I do think that people feel obligated to send a card if they receive one and they really shouldn’t. Because God only knows what is happening in that person’s (the sender or receiver’s) life at that given moment. They may just not have the energy or time to deal with Christmas cards.
Most of our décor came down today. The naked tree is still standing; but that’s The Husband’s job whether he knows it or not. But, all the tubs are just piled randomly in the garage. At some point, I need to pull the car out and move his work bench and this other random bench that he put in there to get everything put away properly.
I too have left my wreath up and will until it gets yellow. My cards are put away though. I do New Year cards (long story why but lost my husband in early December 2012 and lost the heart to do them) and have about 27 to send out, mostly to those who send me a holiday card.
We weren’t home this year for the holidays so the cards and battery operated candles in the windows are the only decorating that we did. Easy enough to leave those up for a while, as January tends to be the start of a long, hard slog to spring. Plus, the cards are fun and will probably continue to slowly trickle in as well.
Dinners this week are beef and barley soup, crispy cauliflower with burrata, and home-made pizza. A friend may or may not drop off pea soup as well. So plenty of meal options to get us to Friday, which is generally delivery, with leftovers for lunch during the work day, as I am back to work after maternity leave tomorrow.
I’m also in the process of dismantling Christmas, and I took your advice and am leaving the cards up indefinitely! I actually took down the old card display and arranged the cards on our shelves. I love it, and it makes ending the holidays a little less depressing.
Ugh… dinners. Tonight was veggie burgers, tomorrow is bean burritos. i can’t think any further than that.
My son heads back to NY tomorrow, although only briefly before coming back for a couple of weeks (absurdly long break). My daughter is here for another week. We went for a family spa day today so have not cleared up Christmas yet. I love your card wall! I have a giant stocking card holder which I also love, but seeing all of each card is really nice. I hadn’t thought of doing a response rate calculation.
I made instant pot chicken shawarma before Christmas and lemongrass chicken – can you grill right now? The sheet pan salmon looks amazing, and I also love the sound of chipotle lime dressing.
Beth pulled the candy cane lights out of the front yard yesterday, but we leave the white ones and the snowflake ones in our yard until March most years. As for the living room decorations, I will probably leave them up until next weekend. And the wreath will stay up until it gets too dry.
I made a mushroom and kale frittata tonight instead of the meal I’d planned because I realized it was almost identical to what Beth made on Sunday (beans, albeit different kinds, in a tomato sauce with veggie kielbasa).
I don’t think tomatoes are out of place in lentil soup.
We also leave the cards up for … awhile? We sent 100 and got like 60-something back. I love them so much— fave part of the season. Also, the only meal on my planner this week is tacos and we ate them tonight- so hard to ease back into normal.
I did not count how many Christmas cards we got, but it felt like a lot! I think we sent out about 120. My memory of it is very foggy as it was in late November and that feels like a lifetime ago.
I took Christmas down yesterday while the kids were at school and my husband was at work and it was lovely. I love getting the house back in order. I kept the lights up on our mantel, though, as we need a bit of extra glow during this dark, snowy season!
I made a big batch of soup on Sunday using the ham bone from our Christmas ham. Tonight I am making Asian noodle bowls. The kids will not eat this. And then we will get take-and-bake pizza.
So funny story I have to share since we both have “selective eaters.” I took the boys to the dentist this morning and the dentist commented that our older son has some black on his teeth from the secretion of iron in his blood (I guess this is common for young kids, not concerning and eventually goes away). She said ‘he must be very healthy!’ I said he drinks a lot of milk, could that be it? She then asked – does he take a multi-vitamin? No. Eat a lot of red meat? Not a bite. Eat a lot of broccoli? No – trust me dr when I say he is not a great eater… So it turns out your kid can eat an incredibly limited diet and still have excess iron and appear to be a healthy child in the eyes of a dentist.
I’m so over preparing meals daily. I wish I could snap my fingers and it just happens magically!
You send out a LOT of cards!! I’m surprised you only got 46% back; people should be ashamed.
Cards are also my favorite for the holidays and I usually keep them up throughout the year (and take them down before the new Christmas season begins).