A Look Back - December 2025
As we come to the end of 2025, we had a few busy weeks to start December. Jenn had her last leadership team offsite in Napa in the first week of December, so I stayed home and watched Elle and Frasier. It was a great week, and Jenn arrived home on Thursday. The following week I was back in San Jose for a few days, while Jenn hosted her team for a year-end meeting. Jenn brought Frasier on the first morning of her meeting (something she’d done before). He had a #2 accident early in the morning (must have been something he ate), and she had to scramble to clean it up and get him home. Fortunately, things turned around from there, and the offsite was a success.
After I arrived home and Jenn’s offsite wrapped up, we had a beautiful date at South Coast Repertory to see A Christmas Carol. It's the first time we’ve seen it in close to a decade at SCR, but it was still as beautiful and poignant as ever. Before seeing the show, we had lunch at Water Grill, where we had drinks and enjoyed delicious fish.
The following week or two was all in anticipation of Christmas. Elle was saying “Santa” and “ho ho ho” as often as possible, and we were introducing her to some Christmas movies. And to honor my heritage, we purchased a new menorah (we might have lost our old one in the move) and celebrated every night of Hanukkah, even one night with Jake.
On the 21st, we headed down to Menifee to do a Szerlip Christmas celebration. That meant Elle got to be with her five (soon to be six) cousins and open tons of gifts. We arrived right after Elle’s nap at 11 AM, had brunch, and opened gifts. The kids all seemed to have a great time, alternating between playing with their new gifts and opening more. The highlight, though, might have been Santa visiting. Most of the kids were terrified, but Elle was good, at least from a distance. I’ll never forget her saying “Hi Santa” a few times. The kids are all a little young right now, but in a few years, the fun/chaos of these gatherings will be fun to watch.
We spent Christmas Eve at home on a stormy day. We watched most of It’s a Wonderful Life (we finished it on Christmas) and later went for a Christmas Eve dinner at Gulliver’s. There was something about having Prime Rib on Christmas Eve that sounded appealing. The restaurant was sold out and packed. We were fortunate to get a table right next to a massive Santa Claus, whom Elle was mesmerized by all evening. The food was fine, but going out for a nice dinner as the rain finally began to ease was the perfect way to bring in Christmas. Elle went to sleep, and Jenn and I spent the entirety of Christmas in Connecticut helping build Santa’s gift for her, a kitchen set.
Christmas morning was equal parts beautiful and exhausting. Elle woke up, and we came downstairs and opened her main gift from Santa (nicely placed in a giant red bag with her name on it), along with the stockings, before breakfast. After breakfast, it was mostly chaos between Elle and Frasier, ripping open gifts and not interested in any more once they got their respective toys. We soldiered through and promised to do fewer gifts next year (I hope we heed that advice). By the time they both opened gifts, it was time for Elle’s nap, so we put her down and opened up our gifts to each other. It was nice to have that quiet time and to enjoy exchanging gifts while Elle slept.
That evening, Jenn’s Dad and Joan came over, and we had dinner. I made Coq au Vin, mashed potatoes, and green beans. It’s one of my favorite dishes that I make, and I think it turned out quite well. For dessert, I made a molten cake that turned out good, though it might have needed one more minute in the oven. Elle had a blast all night, playing with Grandpa and Cookie and loving her new kitchen set.
Christmas came and went, and it was time to shift our focus to the last few days of the year. One of the highlights was going to the Irvine Great Park. Elle and I went with Amy and my Mom in October, and we’ve been wanting to go back ever since. We had a fantastic afternoon there. Elle rode the carousel, but really enjoyed playing in the toddler park. It was a stunning December day in Irvine, and we made the most of it.
And that brought us to New Year’s Eve. Jenn has always (since I’ve known her) put a lot of emphasis on making sure NYE is a good day, because she thinks it sets the tone for the year ahead. We had a beautiful day, starting with a quick trip to the park before the rain. Elle is becoming so much more independent, and the three of us just followed Elle around the park and the nearby field for an hour. We came back and had a quiet day until 4 PM, when we left with Uncle Jake to Marche Modernne for a NYE dinner. They had a four-course meal with a few selections along the way. We started the meal with a tuna tartare topped with a hearty portion of caviar (divine). From there, Jake and I both had the tagine while Jenn had the scallops. For our main, Jenn and Jake got the steak and lobster, and I had the duck. And to finish, both Jake and Jenn got the upside-down gateau, and I had the Vacherin Verveine et Grand Marnier. The highlight of the dinner, though, might have been the beautifully presented and delicious butter pasta for Elle. We all had a bite and can say it was divine. The dinner lasted nearly two and a half hours, and Elle was an angel the entire time. She didn’t make a peep, was happy to eat bread and pasta, read her books, and color. We all started with cocktails and moved on to a beautiful bottle of red wine. We left the restaurant just after 7 PM and couldn’t have been happier with the dinner or the evening.
Jenn bathed Elle, and we put her down for bed at her usual 8:15 PM before coming downstairs, making some popcorn, and watching When Harry Met Sally with Jake (second year in a row). We couldn’t have asked for a better end to the year. And that’s it for December and 2025. I’ll have more to say in my Year-in-Review, but for now I’ll say au revior until 2026.
TV WE WATCHED
It was another light TV month to wrap up 2025. The show that captured us this month was Pluribus on Apple TV. It comes from Vince Gilligan (Breaking Bad / Better Call Saul) and shares a lot of stylistic DNA, but it is such an interesting science fiction show that captivated us from the start. Spoiler, but it's one of the top shows on our TV rankings this year.
Outside of that, we wrapped up Only Murders in the Building, which had by far its worst season. I watched a few more episodes of The Paper, a show Jenn doesn’t like, but I still find very enjoyable. We started the second season of Man on the Inside on Netflix, and it's still a very easy show, but maybe it's losing some of the charm of the first season. And finally, we started the first season of The Four Seasons (also on Netflix), and it has a stacked cast, and the first handful of episodes have been very enjoyable.
BOOKS I READ (OR LISTENED TO)
I slowed down reading in December. From the new job, to travel, and the holidays, I finished 2025 reading 57 books. December started phenomenally with Pat Conroy’s The Prince of Tides. I want to say I saw someone on TikTok recommend this 1986 book (later adapted into a movie with Barbra Streisand), and I can see why. You wouldn’t know this is nearly a 40-year-old book. A brilliant, albeit sad book, about family, loss, mental illness, and finding a path through it.
I’ve been a big fan of Scott Galloway on the podcast Pivot for years, but haven’t always loved his books. His latest, Notes on Being a Man, is far and away his best book I’ve read. It's the topic that drew me to him many years ago, and I think he did a great job dissecting the issue in 2025. As someone who listens to him weekly, I found much of this a retread of what he talks about all the time, but I still found a lot of value in the book.
And finally, the last book of 2025 was Lev Grossman's The Bright Sword. It’s a new take on King Arthur, and it sort of works. I found the book's structure, which bounces between the main storyline and the backgrounds of many roundtable members, a bit tedious and confusing at times. Overall though a very enjoyable albeit flawed finale for the year.
MOVIES WE WATCHED
December is always a big movie month in the Szerlip household. We used to do the “12 movies of Christmas,” but we knew there was no way we'd be able to make it this year. We still caught some of our favorites like The Grinch, Charlie Brown Christmas, It’s a Wonderful Life, Christmas in Connecticut, and Christmas Vacation. We managed to have three “movie nights” this month, which were:
La La Land - Jenn’s Pick
The Roses - Joel’s Pick
Downton Abbey: The Grand Finale - Jenn’s Pick
La La Land remains one of our favorite movies of all time. Jake was over for this one, and there’s just something magical about this movie, even if we disagree on the ending. My pick, The Roses, was not good. I think the movie was miscast, and the humor was just not hitting for either Jenn or me. Downton Abbey: The Grand Finale was perfectly fine, albeit unnecessary. It wrapped things up but felt pointless and rushed.
I watched a few movies on my own this month. Oh, Hi! was a fun little thriller that goes off the rails in the third act, but I still enjoyed it. Roofman was similar in that I thought it started incredibly strong, but by the end, you sort of just want him to get caught and the movie to wrap up.
We ended 2026 with Kumail Nanjiani’s very good stand-up special Night Thoughts. It was a solid hour, with one part about his time on the movie The Eternals as the most memorable portion of the routine. And to close out the year for the second year in a row, we watched When Harry Met Sally, and it remains a perfect romantic comedy and a way to ring in the new year.
GAMES I'VE BEEN PLAYING
Almost a copy and paste from October and November. I’ve really gotten into a groove with Madden, I think I’m on my third or fourth season of my franchise, and Brock Purdy is almost a 99 Overall. The game I played sparingly but want to finish up in January is Ghost of Yotei.
2025 GOAL TRACKING
Goal #1: Read 50 Books: I’ve read 57 books and exceeded my goal of 50 books this yearl!!!
Goal #2: 12 Monthly Recaps: 12 for 12!
