A Holiday Season to Remember

Laurie and I just experienced another epic holiday season in beautiful Sarasota FL! Each year our celebrations of the season just keep getting better and better. Here’s a quick recap of why Christmas 2024 was one for the record books!! 

It used to be the case that Laurie and I would spend the holiday season at home, enjoying the peace and quiet as well as the respite from long working hours. We’d venture out every once and a while to get together with friends and family, and to enjoy the sights and sounds of Christmas in our hometown of Alexandria or downtown DC. But generally, we were homebodies, content to relax and lounge while watching our favorite Christmas movies, cooking our favorite winter dishes, and enjoying classic holiday cocktails.

But now that we are retired, the holiday season is an extended time of parties, happy hours, impromptu get togethers with friends, evenings out on the town, and seemingly non-stop revelry as we celebrate the holiday season in style! I’m exhausted just thinking about the last 6 weeks or so, but in a good way! And of course, almost every holiday event we hosted or attended included great food, wine, and cocktails!

The festivities began with Thanksgiving in the Villages (about 1½ hours north of Sarasota) with Laurie’s mom and her brother Brad and his wife Marilyn. We had a great time kicking off the holiday season with a wonderful Thanksgiving meal, along with birthday celebrations for both Laurie and Brad.

My charcuterie board for pre-Thanksgiving noshing

Once we returned home, we began a seemingly non-stop stream of celebrations to mark the occasion of the holiday season! And while I was plenty busy, Laurie seemed to bounce from one party to the next every few days – she certainly wins the prize for hardest partier of the season! Laurie’s pickleball crew held a “Picklemas” Party at our clubhouse, and that was followed by a Christmas block party for the ladies in the neighborhood.

Holiday parties with the ladies of Lorraine Lakes!

Laurie and I also spent some time enjoying everything the Sarasota area has to offer during the holiday season. We ventured into downtown Sarasota to celebrate Laurie’s birthday at one of our favorite restaurants, Beso, which is a Spanish tapa’s restaurant. Sarasota was aglow with Christmas cheer, which was a comforting sight after all the destruction that Hurricane Milton brought down on the area just two months before.

Birthday cocktails at Beso, Christmas lights in downtown Sarasota

We also did our fair share of entertaining over the holiday season. In addition to impromptu get togethers with friends in our home, we also hosted a holiday cocktail party and a holiday wine tasting dinner, both of which were great fun!

 Cocktail party, holiday wine tasting dinner menu, arugula salad with pears, broccolini parmesan soup, glazed short ribs, and dark chocolate mousse with chocolate toffee crumble

We also squeezed in some time for ourselves, watching our favorite Christmas movies (Christmas Vacation, The Grinch, Home Alone, Planes Trains and Automobiles, Elf, A Christmas Story, and of course, Die Hard!) while eating Laurie’s famous Christmas sugar cookies, sipping cocktails on our lanai while watching the sun set, and drinking Laurie’s hot chocolate when the weather got cold (highs in the 60’s with lows in the 40’s – brrrrrrrr!!!)

 Laurie's famous hot chocolate, and a holiday season sunset out on our lanai

Laurie’s mom, Linda, joined us for Christmas which was great fun as well! We dined at Tsunami Restaurant on Christmas Eve, one of our favorite sushi and hibachi restaurants in town. Christmas dinner at home included a prime rib roast with red wine jus, scalloped potatoes, green beans with pancetta, blue cheese popovers with blue cheese butter, and Nothing Bundt Cakes for desert. A Turley single vineyard Zinfandel was my wine of choice for Christmas dinner and proved the perfect match for the prime rib roast! The day after Christmas we visited Bar Italia for a great Italian dinner before Linda left the next morning.

Prime rib roast for Christmas dinner, blue cheese popovers, and our Christmas tree

We ended the year with a great day with friends boating on Sarasota Bay and eating at Dry Dock restaurant, followed by cocktails at Mar Vista restaurant. And of course, no New Years Eve is right without attending our neighbors and friends, Matt and Cathy’s, New Years Eve bash! It was epic as always, and a great way to ring in the new year in style!

 Boat day on Sarasota Bay, New Years Eve bash to ring in the new year

Laurie and I hope you had a wonderful holiday season, and we send you best wishes for a healthy and happy 2025!