Round about this time of year, I usually do a whole bunch of different Christmas and New Year’s type posts: a Christmas recap, one looking at favorite projects from the past year, another about how we did on our goal list for the year, another about a new goal list for the year to come….

But we went out of town the day after Christmas this year (maybe a misstep; a day to recover from Christmas would not have been a bad thing), and we just got back, and I have a lot of brand new projects and content that I want to dive right into in the next few days….so I’m going to try to consolidate some. Like many of us, I’d rather put 2016 behind me as quickly as possibly and not dwell on it.

I’m not going to do a post on how we did with our goal list, because it would look an awful like the mid-year check in post I did…this was the year of slow and not always steady progress, house wise. I will do a new post about goals or at least tentative plans for 2017 at some point in the next week or two. But today I’m doing a quick and casual look back at some favorite projects and posts from the past year. Right after I talk about Christmas a bit.

Our main Christmas tree, the one with all the presents under it, was in the den this year. While I loved the cozy feel of the room all decorated for Christmas, and while it’s really the best place in the house for everyone to gather together since there’s a big old sectional in there….it’s a fairly small, dark room (especially when there’s a big tree in front of the only window) and my photos didn’t like it. It also didn’t help that we were all up before dawn (we told the kids no earlier than seven for getting up. Gus and Milo decided this meant they should actually set their alarm for seven so they wouldn’t miss a second of potential Christmas excitement and they ended up being up before Abe. Not cool, kids!) So, anyway, my kids in front of tree photos capture the spirit of our Christmas, but in a rather blurry sort of way:

We had a nice morning opening presents and having breakfast and opening more presents with just us and then later with my brother and sister-in-law and my mom and stepdad:

And then later going to a friend’s house for more Christmas socializing. But maybe the most exciting part of the day was Abe riding around in the car that Santa brought him (affiliate link) (the older kids never had anything like this; Abe somehow managed to conjure “a van I can ride on” up in his head, never having seen one, and ask for it. So Santa found a good deal on Black Friday). Gus even fits in it, technically speaking:

So all in all a quiet Christmas with family and friends, which is how we like it.

And now for a look back at 2016 in all things house related!

My favorite project from 2016 was definitely Abe’s National Parks room. We worked on it for a looonnnggg time, but I couldn’t be happier with how it turned out. I feel a little lost without a kid room to work on right now; maybe I need to put Milo and Gus’s room on the 2017 list….

We also made a lot of progress in our den, and a full reveal of that will be coming up soon. Here it is in its nearly finished state, all gussied up for Christmas:

We also did a quick but much needed hallway makeover this year. I can’t believe we waited so long to take care of this space that’s one of the first things people see when they come in the house! (we’ve since updated those brass doorknobs, but I never went back to take another picture)

I posted a couple of fun tours of spaces in other people’s houses this year, too. My friend Kristi’s master bathroom, back before she up and moved away to Texas:

And my mom’s screen porch:

I had some holiday projects I was pretty pleased with this year, too. Like our decomposing composers themed Halloween decor:

And the idea I came up for turning out souvenir travel magnet collection into temporary Christmas ornaments:

I’m also pretty fond of my last minute holiday table; I brought it all back out for our Christmas breakfast:

And that’s all I’ve got! Onward to 2017!

If you’re interested in reading about the travel part of our year, I have a post up on the travel blog sharing our favorite memories from our first full year RVing.