It sort of blows my mind that I’m sitting here in Newport Beach looking out on a 65-degree day as December winds to a close and starting to think about writing my year-in-review. It has been a year not like any other and a December not like any other as well. But even with all of its challenges December and the holidays still happened and although they were different this year we weren’t going to not celebrate them. And so with this let’s get into the last monthly recap of 2020.

RECAP OF THE MONTH

I’d be remiss to not mention that much as was predicted when COVID began in early 2020, the winter has been a tremendously tough time for our country and much of the world. As I am writing this almost all of California is on lockdown and several other states are as well. Although many here in Orange County are not at all abiding by the mask-wearing and stay-at-home orders, it’s not at all surprising that the COVID #’s continue to get worse. Most mornings I open the New York Times app to 200,000+ new cases and 3,000 deaths a day. If it’s below those numbers it almost feels like a small win.

That’s a bit of a preamble to say that I in particular started to get re-energized in my desire to not get COVID and wait for the vaccine. Speaking of the vaccine, amongst all the bad news of the pandemic and the current president pretending he won the election, two vaccines this month (Pfizer and Moderna) have been approved by the FDA and the first hundreds of thousands of people are getting them. So maybe a light at the end of the tunnel? So for much of December, we did not leave our apartment except to go for walks with Frasier or grab food. We spent a lot less time with family and other people in general.

So instead we threw ourselves at the holidays. For the first time ever we celebrated Hannukah in our own home. Jenn bought a menorah last year for me from Crate and Barrel but we were in California during it so weren’t able to use it. This year though we didn’t miss a night and said the prayer for eight consecutive nights. taking turns to light the candles each night. We sent out our Christmas cards for the second consecutive year and Jenn even taught me how to wrap gifts something I’ve never really been able to do but now am at about 5th-grade proficiency.

A big part of our lives in 2020 has been going for long walks. Almost every weekend since we’ve been back we take one morning to walk from our apartment to Balboa Island and walk the loop of the island before heading home. It’s a small respite out in the beautiful California winter that is good for our souls. We also went and did a nice walk with Jake in Corona Del Mar and Jenn and I did a 6+ mile hike in Crystal Cove. Any opportunity we can to be active with the lowest risk possible is good for both of us and Frasier.

We also continued our annual tradition of watching twelve Christmas movies this year (you can see a bit of them down below in the movie section) adding some new ones to the mix like we always do. Because we are always at home this year it made watching them a breeze. Most years we try and see a live performance of A Christmas Carol well we had two this year one at the Merchant’s House which sadly had technical difficulties and another that was recorded and streamed. Although not the same as the magic of seeing a live performance it was a nice respite.

A few days before Christmas we got tickets to go to Tanaka Farms in Irvine to drive through their Christmas Lights on the farm. It sounded like a fun COVID-friendly activity to get us out of the house. I have to say it felt so odd having a place to be at a certain time. Of course, I have meetings every day but those involve me walking to our office. But having a place to be where I had to get dressed and drive somewhere felt so foreign. The event itself was fun albeit a bit underwhelming. Had it been any other year it would have been a waste of time but in 2020 it was a great excuse to go out. As a bonus Frasier loved it.

Somehow December flew by and we were at Christmas Eve. Jenn and I ordered dinner from Playa Provisions for Christmas day in which we picked up early on Christmas Eve before spending the rest of the day with her Dad and Joan. And like that Christmas rolled in. We had a really tough time deciding whether we should go to my parent’s for Christmas this year. I’ll be honest I leaned towards not going for most of December but a few of my siblings had COVID tests prior to Christmas that came back negative which made us feel a bit better about going down although not completely confident. Luckily as I write this we are all OK and had a great Christmas morning made even more exciting by Gracie celebrating her first and my parents celebrating their last in my childhood home. Sort of a bittersweet sendoff to a house I have celebrated over 30 Christmas’s in.

When we arrived back home we opened each other’s gifts (some of which we bought for ourselves) and even Frasier got in on the action with a ton of new toys and treats. We had a nice Zoom call with Jenn’s Dad and Joan in which we exchanged gifts virtually and finished the night with a phenomenal four-course meal. We started with a creamy cauliflower soup, followed that up with a mustard prill, arugula, mizuna, and opal basil salad, moved on to a phenomenal duck confit over black lentils, and wrapped it all up with a Paris Brest. Although not the same as being at a nice restaurant it was great to have a full meal expertly crafted, all I had to do was reheat some of it and plate. It made for a beautiful evening and a nice capstone to our Christmas.

And like that the rest of the year flew by. Jenn continued to burn the midnight oil pushing out work while most of her colleagues were off. We had planned a really nice New Years’ Eve with another four-course meal, this time from Marche Moderne but sadly they had someone get COVID so canceled all orders. Instead, we did a 5+ mile walk down to Balboa and had a quiet day inside with a delicious charcuterie board, and played a game of Mysterium (Jenn’s favorite). It was one of the more subdued ends to a year but we loved it.

TV WE WATCHED

We didn’t watch a ton of TV in December (mostly movies) but we did get through a few shows. We finished up The Undoing which although a great series, the last episode really let us down. The Flight Attendant on HBO Max started out strong but really fell out of steam. We enjoyed the third season of Killing Eve but it was not nearly as strong as the first two.

On the positive side we finally started Schitt’s Creek after hearing glowing reviews from pretty much everyone and as expected so far so good, its really funny. We closed out the year finishing the first season of Industry which reminded me a bit too much of work and starting the new show Bridgerton on Netflix which is a cross between Gossip Girl and Pride and Prejudice, so far so good.

BOOKS I READ (OR LISTENED TO)

I’m proud to say as December came to a close I easily hit my 40 book goal for 2020. Although it got a little tough at the start of the pandemic I was able to catch up and hit my goal for the year. By far the stand out book from December was the prolific memoir by our 44th President, Barack Obama. I adored A Promised Land, it astounded me how we could go from such a brilliant thoughtful leader to what we have for the next 20+ days. It’s a book that not only taught me a lot about the inner-workings of his Presidency but also his views on leadership which I found fascinating.

MOVIES WE WATCHED

I got on a big movie kick in December. One of my favorite activities was after work popping some popcorn and trying a new movie. Outside of the 12 Christmas movies (written out below) I also watched Sound of Metal (the best movie of December), Wonder Woman 1984 (which released to HBO Max on Christmas), Soul (a beautiful movie), and Sylvie’s Love a romantic comedy that just felt good to watch. I loved sitting back and relaxing while watching a movie. It felt like the perfect December activity.

Our 12 Movies of Christmas 2020

Planes, Trains, and Automobiles (11/27)
Love Actually (11/28)
Happiest Season (*New) (11/29)
Miracle on 34th Street (12/4)
It’s a Wonderful Life (12/5)
You’ve Got Mail (12/6)
Last Christmas (*New)(12/12)
The Grinch (12/13)
Home Alone II (12/21)
Charlie Brown Christmas (12/24)
Christmas in Connecticut (12/24)
Christmas Vacation (12/25)

THEATER WE SAW

I’ll never forget December of last year going to see a new production of A Christmas Carol on Broadway to a sold out theater. It feels like a different life in some ways. It was a tremendous performance and one that I’ll never forget. Flash forward to this year and we felt so lucky to find a recorded one-man performance of A Christmas Carol. It was a beautifully shot and choreographed performance that we adored, albeit there’s nothing like seeing it in-person, we ate it up all the same.

GAMES I'VE BEEN PLAYING

Although it may look like I played a lot of games in December it really tapered off in the second half of December. Nothing though will top my experience with The Last of Us Part II not only the best game I played in 2020 (spoiler for our favorite things post) but one of the best games I’ve ever played. I love the characters and world built in this two game series and I cannot wait to see what HBO is able to do with the property in the coming years when they make a TV show for it. A tremendous experience that made me cry more then once.