New Years Eve Weekend Recap

New Year’s Eve Weekend Recap

Hi, friends welcome to the blog in 2023! Today it’s all about our New Year’s Eve weekend. And I have to tell you that I am so excited that it’s a brand new year. I don’t think that I have ever felt so happy to welcome in a new year before. Normally I feel a bit melancholy and wish that we were still in the holiday season. But like I shared with you guys on Thursday my word for 2023 is Mindfulness! So I am staying in the moment. And feeling delighted to be back here with you guys for the first ‘Hello Monday’ linkup of the year with Holly and Sarah.

New Years Eve

I hope that you all had a lovely New Year’s Eve. Up until Thursday, I had no plans and I was quite happy just to stay home and go to bed early. Steve was working New Year’s Eve and Sam was heading into the city with his girlfriend to see the fireworks.

In the end, a friend of ours invited a small group of us over to his place for a very long lunch. Steve was able to join us until he had to go in to work and we all ended up having a really lovely time.

We had some delicious roast chicken, potatoes and salad. For dessert, my friend brought the most amazing tiramisu. She added some crunchy toasted almonds and it was just perfection!

Fun Movies

We usually get together before Christmas to have dinner and watch a Christmas movie. But we ended up running out of available weekends and so we missed our traditional catch-up. We made up for it by watching ‘Love Actually’ together on New Year’s Eve.

I really love this movie but I have to admit that when I first watched it I was horrified by the nude scenes. Now they don’t bother me as much because I guess I’m used to them. That night my friend had me in stitches when she told me a funny story about a friend of hers who watched the very censored version on an aeroplane many years ago when the movie was first released. So he had no idea that there was even an uncensored version and recommended it to all his church friends including the pastor and youth leaders.

Before we watched Love Actually. We watched Shaun The Sheep -‘The Flight Before Christmas’. I love Shaun The Sheep!

After the movies, we had some refreshing gelatos and then we called it an early night.

I got home around 10 pm and Steve texted me to say that he would be home at 12.30 because his workplace wasn’t as busy as they had expected. Great news for me!! And I decided not to go to bed and I waited up instead.

I probably wouldn’t have been able to sleep anyway. Because people have been letting off fireworks near where we live almost every night since before Christmas. This is surprising since backyard fireworks are illegal here so I don’t even know how they had so many.

I watched the spectacular Sydney fireworks on TV.

And then I heard even more fireworks happening right near my house so I ran out and saw this.

A backyard fireworks display!

New Years Day

We don’t typically do anything special on New Year’s Day. We thought about going out for brunch but in the end, we couldn’t be bothered so we just had a very lazy morning after we woke up late. I had a real craving for an iced coffee so I made my own whipped coffee and it was so good! It’s super easy to make and it satisfied my iced coffee craving instantly. You can find the easy recipe right here.

I also made some ham and eggs. As you can see I didn’t have much luck keeping the yolk from breaking but it still tasted good!

Packing Away Christmas

In the afternoon I got down to packing away the Christmas tree and the few decorations I had put out this year. Normally I keep the tree up until the 6th or 7th of January. But this year I did it early because I just wanted everything packed away and back to normal. Plus nobody was home to stop me hehe. Usually, Steve and Sam are the ones who ask me to leave it up longer. But Steve was at work and Sam was out so it was bye-bye to the Christmas tree.

This year I managed to get my tree back in the box without the box bulging at the sides. I was proud of myself!

I took my time putting it all back and then I also rearranged the cupboard where I keep some of my Christmas stuff, toys and games. While I was rearranging things I pulled out one of Luke’s favourite old toys that were handed down to Sam. I like to clear and declutter but toys like this one I won’t get rid of. Too many sweet memories!

I also took the opportunity to declutter my linen cupboard. Here I sprawled everything onto the lounge because I wanted to watch ‘The Deep End Of The Ocean’ with Michelle Pfieffer while I set to work.

I have seen this movie many times before. But I like watching something familiar while I do chores.

Sunday Evening

The last time I made lasagna I froze some so I was glad that I didn’t have to cook. Especially after I had spent the afternoon busy getting things organised and put back.

After dinner, I sat down to watch ‘Notting Hill’. I had seen it years ago but I couldn’t really remember it much. It’s such a lovely movie with the best ending! Ahhhhh……I love happy movies. I also opened a box of Cadbury favourites and had a couple of picnic bars. Yummy.

It was a perfect way to end the weekend except that I spent the whole day thinking that it was Monday instead of Sunday. I’m still confused!

I thought I had put everything away and then this morning I found this guy! Haha, I didn’t notice him there last night.

And that’s what we got up to this New Year’s Eve weekend. I saw this on my Facebook feed which pretty much sums up how I feel 😂

Anyway thanks so much for being here today. I hope that you have a wonderful week.

Happy Monday!