Good Things List No.79: Christmas, Plastic-Free Bowl Covers, Book Reviews & More

A monthly list of good things to see, buy, read and watch. This month’s list includes our live Christmas tree (and planning help), beeswax bowl covers, my favorite warm long underwear, seven book reviews and the holiday movie we loved!

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And just like that we’re into the last month of 2024 – wow! Every year the end comes and every year I’m like, “how in the world?” Lol.

Of course lots of things are happening this month around the holidays, school breaks, vacations, and whatever you may have planned for the end of the year.

We’re looking forward to doing some of our favorite traditions (even though our holiday movie night was with my mom this year and not our kids – and what a great movie it was – see more on that below!), eating our favorite foods, and spending time with family, even while we mourn the loss of special people who aren’t with us anymore (like Brian’s sweet mom).

I hope and pray that you have a December that brings joy and a focus on all the things we do have in our lives as we turn the page of another year.

And maybe this little list of good things will be one of those!

Good Things

2024 Christmas Tree

Our family continued the new tradition of going to a Christmas tree farm the Saturday after Thanksgiving and this is our 7 foot noble fir we settled on. (We also spend a few hours afterwards eating a soup lunch and visiting – so fun!)

So even though a couple years ago I bought a fake tree and we used it the first time ever in 2022 (we do live in Oregon – land of the Christmas tree!), we’ll keep a live tree going as long as we have a fun family time to go along with it!

Our daughter and her fiancé (yes – we have a wedding to look forward to in 2025!) were down from Portland and decorated the tree, which was such a blessing to me as I did other things. Adding all our favorite ornaments through the years are one of the things we love best about the tree.

I do see from the photo, though that the tree is quite wide so I think it needs another strand of beads. So picture it with a silver strand next to the gold strand as well as a few bows I’ll add that were in a different decor bin.

Beeswax Replacement for “Shower Cap” Bowl Covers

My favorite plastic “shower cap” bowl covers have all gotten holes (after YEARS of use), so I needed to look for a substitute.

I settled on these beeswax bowl covers as a way to get away from more plastic. Hopefully they will work as well – I already like how easily they cover even my largest bowl and I know from the beeswax wraps I have that they are easy to clean. (They’ve been on sale recently, so check to see!)

Next up, I’m going to try my hand at making some pan covers out of linen and PLU plastic – I’ll let you know how that goes!

If you have plastic swaps you’re making in the kitchen, I’d love to hear about it!

My Favorite Silk Long Underwear

I’ve mentioned this before, but most of the cold days of winter you will find me wearing a silk long underwear top as my first layer. It’s really been amazing how much warmer they keep me vs. regular cotton or even those thermal polyester layers (though I try to only buy natural fabrics anymore).

Of all the tops I’ve tried, I like the Lands’ End silk tops the best. The regular price is crazy (!), so I always wait for a good sale and I found the black one above this black Friday for 60% off. If you’re in the market, you should take a look here, as the sales tend to keep going through the holidays!

November Books Read

It was a record month for DNF (did not finish) books for me! There were 5 books I either started and stopped or skipped the middle of (one I bought was so bad I returned it). I totally believe that just because you start a book doesn’t mean you have to finish it if you can see it’s just not for you. It’s like trying a TV show and watching just one episode. No big deal – move on to the many others that probably will be for you!

Book Swap, Tessa Bickers. While I sort of finished this, I did skip a lot of the middle as I found the characters kind of unlikeable and self absorbed. They were completely stuck in high school – wrongs, slights, loves, bullying – and they were 30! There were heavy themes of grief and forgiveness played out in both losing a friend to cancer and understanding a parent’s choices and while not happy subjects, these were the only part of the book that felt real to me. I did enjoy how classic books played into the story.

Run, Black Crouch (not pictured because I couldn’t fit 7 books in the collage and it was the worst…). This is the book that was so bad we stopped 1/4 of the way through and I returned it to Audible! Brian and I listened to this based on the recommendation from a blogger I follow who I’ve gotten a number of good recommendations from (just goes to show, nothing is 100% ha!). It’s a pretty relentless story – the whole plot is a family running from crazies who want to kill them and that’s it – the whole book. At the quarter mark we just couldn’t take the violence and random disturbing (like really disturbing) images anymore. Especially not for the rest of the book with no end in sight (and no real plot either)! Also, we are just not a fan of narrator Scott Brick – he is SO overdramatic in his reading and it gets old fast (he’s the same one that tried our patience with Eruption, which wasn’t a good book, but still). Sigh.

The Happy Life of Isadora Bently, Courtney Walsh. This was a welcomed relief after my previous reads – a sweet story of a woman who thinks she’s fine on her own and doesn’t need friends or a social life to be happy. Then she sets out to prove a magazine article she read wrong and guess what? Yep, friends, activities, and a surprise love happen to her and she realizes how sad her life was before. She may or may not be on the autism spectrum, but her feelings and ideas are relateable to anyone. Perfect (corny?) happy ending for me!

What in the World? Leanne Morgan. Brian and I love Leanne’s real-life, clean comedy and grabbed this new autobiography of hers as soon as we saw it to listen to together. It did not disappoint – it was funny, true-to-life, and even a little heartbreaking. The happenstance story of how she made her way into stand-up comedy is truly remarkable and her husband is a character who shows up in a lot of her stories and would make the perfect clueless, straight faced sitcom dad!

How to Read a Book, Monica Wood. This story surprised me with it’s depth – I think I was just expecting a light read. While it wasn’t heavy, it did have quite a few deep themes of grief, death, forgiveness, and other life-altering moments. There were light hearted moments, too, and a nice happy ending. This did make me think about a lot of things I hadn’t before (incarcerated women and their backgrounds and treatment).

Long Island, Colm Toibin. Ahh, remember a few months ago when I read the first installment of this 2-book series, Brooklyn, and wasn’t all that taken with it? I had put this on hold so when it came I did give it a shot, but I gave up at the quarter mark again when the depressing story seemed to be going places I didn’t want to travel. After reading the summary online I’m so glad I didn’t waste my time slogging through it (just like the first book, it doesn’t really end – you have no idea of the main character’s choices!).

Trust, Hernan Diaz. I got to the middle of this pulitzer prize winning book and I really didn’t know what to think about it. After the first section I couldn’t figure out what was going on and had to look up a summary on google!! (It was notes on an unfinished autobiography – so, just random notes were read for the audiobook…) After that I wasn’t interested in finishing it – it wasn’t really my cup of tea.

Watching

The Best Christmas Pageant Ever, theater. We just LOVED this sweet, heartwarming story of a town Christmas play that doesn’t go according to plan. It’s done really well at the box office and has a 91% “fresh” rating, so it’s not just Brian, me, and my mom who like it, lol. It’s a pretty perfect family holiday movie, I think. It should be available to rent online around December 10th, I think – it’s not playing at all theaters now and we had to see a matinee. But if you can get it – do!

That’s it for another addition of the Good Things List!

If you’d like to see more of what I’m enjoying, you can check out all the Good Things Lists here. I’d love to know what you think – if you’ve tried any of these or what you’d recommend. Leave a comment below with your thoughts!

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