Hi and happy Friday. It’s the first Friday of the month – which Louisa’s school cleverly calls First Friday, by the way. Other than the name, it’s a cool concept: the parents stay for a bit after drop off to get a feel for what’s happening in the classroom. Today we had an information session on kindergarten as well, and that’s crazy because it’s almost time to apply! It feels like we just got into pre-K!

Anyway, it’s December. And that’s crazy, because it feels like we just did this whole Christmas thing, amirite? But December is a fun time, and we are looking forward to lots of fun time with friends and family. Our calendar doesn’t even reflect all of it.

Today marks an inaugural feature, 10 Things to Do this Month, which yeah, would make sense to start in January, but why wait? Especially when December offers so many activities to get us into the spirit and enjoy the lead up to the bleak months ahead. So, here’re December’s 10 Things. A lot are food based.

To Eat

1.       Make cookies! Every year, we make homemade confections to send to our friends and family. This year, we made it a Thing by joining with friends during a day off from school. Remember when I was so grumpy about the cookies last year? Sorry about that. It’s fun and I love sending them out. It’s a way for us to let our friends and fam we’re thinking of them. This year, our theme was melted snowmen.

You can see that Louisa and her friend took some creative license with the theme, and employ a liberal policy when it comes to candy distribution. Enjoy, everybody!

2.       Make a fancy Christmas cocktail. Might I recommend mulled wine, hot buttered rum or this surprising, slightly caloric twist on eggnog?

3.       Latkes. They’re delicious. Find a latke party or host your own.

To Do

4.       Go to a tree lighting or Santa welcoming. Check your local listings; these might be happening this weekend, if not already. We actually saw Santa come to the town of Conshohocken, Pennsylvania, while we were visiting my sister law week. It appears that you should not have an emergency while Santa is visiting by the way, because every single emergency vehicle was there to escort him down the road, sirens blaring.

5.       Go ice skating. A classic, but a goodie. I think we’ll try Central Park early on and and Le Frak center at Prospect Park this year. There are a bunch of places in New York to do it, but there are places everywhere! A hotel in Miami opened up a rink, so go forth and don't break your ankles.

6.       Find a Gingerbread House or Christmas train scene to visit. In NY, the trains are set up at the transportation museum in Central Park; we’re also heading to the New York Hall of Science in Queens this month, where they’ve set up a huge Gingerbread Village. Louisa is really into Gingerbread. She finds the tale of the Gingerbread Man to be charming, not creepy, which is weird.

7.       Pictures with Santa. I guess that one’s super obvious, though I tend to forget about it, myself. No matter your religious tradition, I think the part of Christmas where Santa flies around and gives gifts is secular and open to all. And what’s less strange than sitting on an old man’s lap and asking for stuff?

To Watch

8.       This month it’s a bunch of easy ones! There’s the obvious Charlie Brown Christmas (can you believe it’s been airing for 50 years now?), and now -

9.       The Peanuts Movie is still out. Lou and Bret went, and they really enjoyed it. It catalyzed the purchase of two Charlie Brown books that Lou is crazy about, and which have been really cool to look at, because they still resonate.

10.   Elf. It’s actually pretty family friendly (and Common Sense Media agrees with me), and Lou thinks it’s hysterical. That traumatic scene where Buddy eats the gum off the bottom of the subway stair railing? It’s just hilarious to a four-year-old. We’re also going to see Elf the Musical this month! It's in a few places in a addition to New York; you can see a list here.

Runners up: White Christmas, The Grinch.

What are your favorite things to do this month to get into the holiday season? Stay tuned for the January list - it gets a little more challenging, eh? Have a great weekend, and we'll see you next week.