Not a creature was stirring, except my mom on Pinterest...

I feel like I've said this for the past two years, but has 2018 felt like three years jammed into one? It seems like it's never going to end. Maybe it's just me, but so much has happened in 2018 that I have trouble keeping it all in a timeline that makes sense. Thankfully, Dave Barry summarized the year perfectly in his annual Year in Review column in The Washington Post. I've been enjoying Barry's column since I was a teenager, and it never ceases to amaze me how spot on he is.

One important event Barry failed to mention in his column was, I think, an important milestone in social media usage: my mother began actively using Pinterest. This may not seem like a revolutionary moment to anyone else, but to me, this symbolizes the natural end point of my mother's technology/social media journey. Remember when she learned to use text messaging on her own? Now she uses emojis like a champ. And Facebook? Well, she's not really actively using her account anymore, but for a while there, she was good at posting articles and embarrassing birthday posts like every mom on Facebook. I've always been very proud of her use of social media since it's not something she likes or gets, but she tries, and that's the important part.

I'm not sure when my mom "discovered" Pinterest. It was before this year, but she didn't really do much with it until recently. If I had to guess, I'd say it was during the last two-ish years as she spent time in hospitals following a severe ankle break. There's only so much daytime television and political commentary a person can watch before they go crazy; my mom hit that point very early in her stay and had to divert her attention elsewhere. She, like everyone in my family, is an avid reader so she read a lot. Her Kindle is one of the newer ones that's basically a tablet so she was able to go online and add apps to it. I think this is when she found Pinterest. My mom discovering Pinterest could be the best or worst thing ever. There's really no middle ground here.

For my mom, Pinterest is really fun. She can find new recipes, something she loves to do, and ideas for holiday home decor that may or may not always work. Unlike me, my mom doesn't have the level of cynicism I have about Pinterest being a place where boring white women plan weddings in reclaimed barns using Mason jars. (I'm sure your wedding in a barn with Mason jars was beautiful, calm down.) Hopefully, we've past the point in time where this is a thing and we can go back to life as it was pre-reclaimed barn weddings. I've gotten a bit more into Pinterest since joining Stitch Fix and setting up a style board for my stylist. I'm sure she looks at this board before sending me my quarterly fix. Yes, I'm sure of it. I also enjoy looking at past Nyx purse designs for inspiration as I glitter everything in my life.

Anyway, a few weeks before Christmas, my mom texted me to start making holiday plans. She likes to start planning the menu for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day early in the month so we all have time to put in requests and change our minds a few times. In her text, she asked me if I had seen all the Grinch related food posts on Pinterest. I had no idea what she was talking about, so I quickly jumped over to Pinterest and searched for "Grinch recipes." There is an entire Pinterest world of Grinch themed food, crafts, and games to explore. We love the Grinch; he's my dad's favorite Christmas character. My mom thought it would be fun to have a Grinch themed meal during the holidays. We settled on Christmas Eve, our normal Christmas movie marathon day. Then, we had to decide what to make. We settled on the following:

• Grinch fruit kabobs
• Grinch punch
• Guacamole and homemade salsa (my mom used her own recipes for these)
• A Grinch shaped veggie tray
• A "roast beast" (we used a rub my dad makes and cooked it in the crockpot - it was easy and delicious) 
• Grinch popcorn (we didn't make this on Christmas Eve, but I believe it's in the works for New Year's Day)
• Brownies with Bailey's frosting (this has nothing to do with the Grinch, but was super delicious)

We exchanged a fair number of texts in the days leading up to Christmas Eve. Who knew there were so many options for making green popcorn and so many choices for punch (none of which included alcohol)? We had the fruit kabobs, punch, and guacamole for lunch and everything else for dinner/dessert (except the popcorn).

This one looks more like Napoleon, but is still pretty great.

Since most of these recipes are meant to be made by/with small children, nothing was particularly hard to do nor did any of it take very long. Between me, my mom, and my brother (drafted to help assemble kabobs and make punch), we had everything ready by lunchtime. We could start watching our favorite holiday movies and not have to worry much about dinner or snacks. That's a holiday win in my book. 

Hats off to my mom for bringing some whimsy and fun into our holiday celebrations! 

Happy New Year from the Island! If you're going out tomorrow, please remember to have an exit strategy like a DD, Uber/Lyft, or a place to stay if the party gets out of control. Make smart life choices!!

Coming in January: goals, goals, goals - what I plan to accomplish in 2019, the return of Answer Your Cat's Questions Day, including Keely's origin story, and an update on all things glitter purses! 2019 is going to be very sparkly.