Monthly Musings: December 2025
ft. my new favourite plate, Bean's cute feeties, & our monthly dose of ramblings
Friends, hel-ho-ho-ho! Happy Saturday, and welcome to our Monthly Musings: December 2025 post! I hope it finds you basking in the glow from your Christmas tree lights, listening to some appropriately festive music, and wearing your most cheesiest Christmas jumper. If none of that is possible, I hope at the very least that it finds you caffeinated — which is arguably the most important way to be in the mornings. Now, how the heck are you? I can’t believe it’s December already! I absolutely loooove this time of year and will use any excuse to be as festive as possible — I will be that friend wearing the seasonal earrings, socks, bow in the hair, and/or jumper; you just gotta embrace it! The season is short, so I like to use every opportunity to be as festive as can be 🎄
Our musings for the month ahead are below! Along with the usual suspects — travel, recipes, movies, books, etc. — I’ve also included a few seasonal tidbits here and there. You read on, I’ll be here, trying to corral Husband into making us a couple of his famous homemade hot chocolates. Nothing makes a weekend more cozy!
Enjoy!
monthly musings: december 2025
Baby update: Bean has started smiling and it is the cutest thing ever! It started out as kind of a side smile, then it turned into a whole mouth one, and now it’s this huge cheeky beaming grin that literally melts my heart; I am obsessed. Other cute things she has started doing include staring at her hands, blowing bubbles, and coo-ing back conversationally to us. I was going to include a “not so cute things she has started doing” section, but she somehow makes even the most spectacular of bathroom explosions look cute, so I couldn’t think of anything to list. It’s hard to believe she’s over two months old already!
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Carrying on from the opening paragraph, I really want to try and make Bean’s first Christmas as magical as possible. Which, logically, I know is silly — she won’t even be 3-months old for the big day — but still! I love the fact that Husband and I are responsible for making the season extra special and cozy for her, so naturally I’ve made a detailed list of all the little traditions I want to hit! Nothing extravagant, just simple things like baking cookies, a new tree decoration every year, matching pjs, etc. What are some of your family Christmas traditions?
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Related: what are your plans for Christmas? Surprisingly, Husband and I have actually never spent the entirety of the holiday together before, but there’s a first time for everything! To keep things fair, we’re spending Christmas Eve night & Christmas Day morning with his family, and Christmas Day day/night + Stephen’s Day morning with my family. Logistically it might be a little difficult at times with Bean, but I’m sure it’ll be worth it ❤️
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Do you have any lovely outings planned for the next couple weekends? I went out out with my best gal-palz for festive drinkies last week and it was the best thing ever! It was my first time going out properly since Bean was born and it felt sooo nice not worrying about feeding times and nappy changes etc.! I still have my work Christmas do tonight and Husband has his Christmas drinks coming up too, but that’s about it this year! Cozy, intentional outings to make us feel like more than just new parents. I love having an extra excuse to meet up with loved ones over Christmas!
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Over the course of the last month, a handful more Notes from the Archive posts hit the blog: An Afternoon in Bratislava, Slovakia, Three Days in Kraków, Poland, 72 Hours in Prague, Czech Republic, Two Days in Berlin, Germany, and Unwinding in Munich, Germany. Each post details what I got up to during my inter-railing trip around Europe back in 2012, and I have just two more to share before moving on to other travels. I hope you’ve been enjoying them, friends!
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I mentioned in my last MM post that we’re itching to travel again soon, and, although we still haven’t booked anything, we’ve definitely made steps in the right direction! We applied for, and received, Bean’s first ever passport(!), we’ve started getting her used to going out in the BabyBjörn, and we’ve been altering our destination plans slightly. I don’t want to say too much more about it now, but I’m so excited about the idea of our first trip as a family of three ❤️ Do you have any fun trips planned? I need to live vicariously through you!
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What have you been watching lately? TV-wise, we recently devoured both seasons of Platonic and we completely loved it!! I lol-ed during every single episode, and once or twice I even cried with laughter! If you haven’t seen it, I would definitely recommend! Movie-wise, we’re already working our way down the Christmas list. We’ve largely kept it to the classics thus far — Die Hard, The Santa Clause, Elf, LA Confidential, and The Holdovers —, but! we also managed to squeeze in Netflix’s A Merry Little Ex-Mas, which was so cheesy and terrible that it was almost enjoyable. As always, if you’d like to follow along with our viewing in real-time, here’s a link to our Letterboxd.
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Have you read anything wonderful lately? I decided to continue down the Stephen King route and read Finders Keepers, another book involving the Holly Gibney character — it was so good, I barely put it down! I know I am beyond late to the SK party, but oof, I’m definitely a fan! Husband has since secured me two more SK novels from the library for Christmas reading, and I can barely wait to get started! In the interim, I’ve been reading Jo Nesbo’s latest, Wolf Hour, which was shockingly disappointing, and am currently finishing up Lou Berney’s Whiplash River, which isn’t a patch on his other book I read in October. If you’d like to follow along with my reading in real-time, here’s my StoryGraph page.
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As an ode to our cookbook club of yore — sidenote:💔, should we try to revive it?? — I thought it might be nice to share what recipes/books I’ve been reaching for lately! Savoury-wise: we made the Creamy Beans on Toast with Chorizo from Recipes for a Nervous Breakdown and the Sloppy Joes from Byron: The Cookbook, both of which were as comforting as they sound. Sweet-wise: I made the LPC (Lazy Person’s Cake) from Sugar, I Love You and the Salted Double Chocolate Shortbread from SIFT — an accidental Rav vs. Nicola head-to-head! Team Nicola all the way! —, both of which were divine. I also whipped up the Christmas Morning Muffins from How to be a Domestic Goddess, which were such a hit; we will definitely be making more for the big day! What cookbooks have you been reaching for lately?
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If you’re rooting around the archives looking for a good Christmas bake or two, allow me to point you in the right direction! I’ll be whipping up my annual Kladdkaka for our Christmas Eve dessert this year; I make it every year in December and it feels so festive to us now. These Cinnamon Sugared Almonds make for the easiest and most delicious hosting gift, while this Orange & Almond Cake with Cranberry Glaze adds a fresh & zingy pop of flavour to any Christmas table. If you’re looking to truly wow people, you could go all out by assembling a Christmas Cookie Box, but, fair warning: it’s a lot of work. Lastly, while not out-and-out Christmassy, these Nutella Stuffed Triple Chocolate Cookies are so decadent that they somehow suit the season just perfectly! Anything pique your fancy?
And there we have it, our Monthly Musings: December 2025. I can’t believe the year is almost over — what a beautifully crazy and life-changing one it was! I’ll be back next week with my long overdue Bristol-inspired shortbread recipe, but other than that we’ll catch up again in the new year with another MM.
I hope you have the best Christmas and New Year’s ever!
My love to you,
Vicki xo
PS, don’t you just love my new cookie plate? I am unabashedly obsessed with it and bought a whole handful to gift this year! It’s just so adorable! ✨ Obsessed ✨
related posts
December 2024 // December 2023 // December 2022
December 2021 // December 2020
December 2019 // December 2018