With the holiday season in full swing, it’s time to celebrate all things festive and fun! We’ve come up with a 2020 Holiday Bucket List of activities the whole family will enjoy, with some traditional favorites and a couple of new ideas (you can download a pdf copy of our 2020 Holiday Bucket List here ). Below are just a few of our favorites.

Go ‘Camping’ by the Christmas Tree
Grab sleeping bags, pillows, and snacks and ‘camp’ by the twinkling lights of the tree. We love the idea of getting the entire family involved, and sipping hot cocoa while you read Christmas stories.

Take in the Christmas Festivities at the Scottsdale Princess
Every year the Fairmont Scottsdale Princess outdoes itself with holiday festivities that are as beautiful as they are fun. Practice your skating skills at the Desert Ice Skating Rink, visit S’mores Land, sip cocoa and cocktails in the heated Winterland Igloo’s, visit Santa, or make a whole night of it with a Jingle With Joy Overnight package. You can find out more about the festivities here.

Make New Traditions
There are so many fun activities to incorporate into the holiday season! A few of our new favorites include:

Interview each family member and ask what their favorite part of the holiday is. Year by year add to the videos and re-watch them. It will be fun to see how each family member – and their answers – change!

Go on a holiday light scavenger hunt! You can find tons of printable lists on Pinterest, and we especially like this one.

Have an indoor ‘snowball’ fight! We love this modern take on a holiday tradition! You can find plush, fluffy snowballs on Amazon (click here), and surprise the kids when they least expect it.

We hope our Holiday bucket list has inspired you to try something new this year, and would love to hear about your fun and unique holiday traditions – make sure to tag @thekimberlylowegroup in your holiday posts! All of us at The Kimberly Lowe Group wish you and your family a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

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I grew up in St Louis and although I no longer have a white Christmas, I still celebrate with the smells, tastes, and traditions from my childhood. All of that makes the holiday every bit as special as it was back then and even more so now because I’m passing these traditions down to the next generation – my children.

Our family comes over on Christmas Eve and we all go to Mass. I always make lasagna, which heats up while we are away. The house smells amazing when we get home! We enjoy dinner and then let the kids open gifts from their grandparents. Next, we leave sweet notes and cookies for Santa, and usually end the night with one of our favorite Christmas movies: Elf or Christmas Vacation. You really can’t go wrong with either of these modern classics!

The kids look forward to Christmas morning breakfast almost as much as their gifts. Almost, lol! We start the day with warm sausage and cream cheese biscuits, and of course, coffee. The kids love these biscuits because I only make them once a year and it is their absolute favorite. After we open presents, we turn on The Christmas Story and I prepare for our day. Both sets of Grandparents arrive early afternoon and we snack on appetizers while my Grandma Kucera’s famous brisket cooks. This is something I always make – it’s delicious and brings back such sweet memories of her. My husband, who hates mushrooms, even loves it. The day is filled with the smell of homemade cooking and that cozy feeling of home. We have our dinner around 4pm and end the evening with another favorite Christmas movie. Both days are truly wonderful!

Here are the recipes I talked about earlier. You don’t have to spend all day in the kitchen – both are super simple and really delicious!

My Grandma Kucera’s Famous Brisket

3-4lbs of brisket
½ onion sliced and placed at bottom of pan
3 cloves of garlic, chopped and placed with onion at bottom of pan
Add a little water in pan
Lay meat on top
Drizzle with soy sauce
Cover with lid or foil
Roast for 1 hr at 350*
Roast for 2 more hours at 325*
Cool
Slice
Add mushrooms if desired (I always do!)

You can make this the day ahead, and slice and warm up when you’re ready. Either way it tastes great!

Sausage Cream Cheese Biscuits

Crumble and brown 2lbs of sausage (I use 1lb of spicy Italian and 1lb of regular Italian sausage)
Drain grease
Add 2 packages of cream cheese to the sausage and combine
Lay out and roll crescent rolls
Spread sausage and cream cheese mixture on top
Bring the crescent sides up and pinch at the top to make a little ‘package’
Bake at 400* for 18 minutes

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