New Year's Day Traditions

Having a family does not require you to have traditions, but I find it very nice to have something fun to look forward to again and again, especially during the holidays.

Staying up until midnight is a tradition that I've given up in recent years. Being in Mountain Time Zone, it's very easy to watch the ball drop in New York at 10pm and call it a night. The kids will wake up like clockwork sometime before 6:30am.

That means New Year's Day is a very long day. There was one fun activity and two food items involved in making the day great. As I have mentioned, I've been baking bread from scratch since early September, it's a habit that I intend to continue and we haven't purchased any commercial loaves of bread since. Being successful at following the recipes and creating food that my family will happily eat, just makes me smile. Baking bread is not hard, but it's certainly more time consuming than the alternative. I tried a new recipe today-- Monkey Bread.

Monkey Bread

Side story: A long long time ago, when I was in Middle School Home Economics class, we learned how to make a simple version of Monkey Bread. It's all I knew until a few weeks ago and it wasn't that great then so not something that crossed my mind to recreate in adulthood. I remember cutting the refrigerator biscuits into quarters and rolling them in cinnamon sugar and baking in the microwave. Fine for pre-teens in the 1990s, but that's where it stayed, thankfully!

The grown-up version of Monkey Bread has a lot of steps. And a lot of sugar. A lot. Which makes this recipe perfect for an annual holiday tradition. The beautiful cake, because really that's what it is, was done in time for brunch. It would probably feed a dozen people, but the four of us did our best, and still have over half of it left. The New Year's diet can start on Monday!

The other recipe that I have perfected this season is Dragon Breath Chili. Italian sausage and a bottle of beer in chili has changed my whole outlook on the meal. It is very complimentary to the Monkey Bread, too. If you had given up on chili being great, I encourage you to seek out a new recipe, you might be surprised with the results.

So enough about food. The real highlight of the day was taking my almost 4 year old son to the ice skating rink. It had been years since I skated, but I truly believe it's like riding a bike. It takes a few minutes to get your skating legs back, and then you are off! The bulky plastic walkers are perfect for kids who are just starting out. He was holding on for dear life and kept telling me to go faster. He kept his skates straight and we buzzed around and around, passing almost everyone. I love skating fast, he gets it from me! We lasted about 90 minutes with only a couple of breaks. I was so impressed with how quickly he adapted to the different footwear and terrain. We had so much fun, I'm already looking forward to next year when his little brother and dad will be able to join in on the fun.

These three things added a lot of joy to my life. The total cost for the food and skating was probably around $50-60. Living life while adhering to the Baby Steps means making memories and knowing that it fits into the budget. Having been on Steps 4, 5, and 6 for a while now, it's important to remember to spend the money and make the memories. We worked hard and sacrificed during Baby Steps 1, 2, and 3. Taking the intensity down and focusing on other things has been challenging for me. I can get so caught up in watching the balances in the bank accounts and investment accounts, that I can forget about what is more important right in front of me. My son will never go ice skating for the first time ever again and I'm so happy that I was there living in the moment, soaking it all in. Kudos to my wonderful husband for keeping an eye on the 2 year old and taking some great pictures and videos.

I want to hear from you! What are some holiday traditions that you look forward to most?