After a break from the Thursday Rundown due to the Thanksgiving holiday, I am back with five random topics! So while this month of December is still young, let’s get started…

Nativity Galore – Last night, we found ourselves at the LDS Church at 14111 E. 16th Ave. for its Nativity Nights event. More than 150 nativity sets from around the world were featured along with an actual live nativity. After we passed Mary and Joseph holding baby Jesus, we were given hot coco. Much in the same totally organic way that I found out about the magical Surfside Beach live nativity eight years ago, a small sign at an intersection alerted me to the one we attended yesterday evening. It truly was the perfect Advent activity.

Some photos from last evening’s Nativity Nights event.

Writing To Santa – Each year, I encourage my kids to write to Santa. Sloan is at an age where she can write her letter by herself and doesn’t even need her spellchecker dad by her side. Beau? Well, any disappointment from my daughter’s dismissal of my assistance is extinguished by my son’s reliance on me to pen his note. Although I jot down what he tells me to write, he handles all the illustrations. That is what you see him doing in the below photo.

Beau writing his letter to Santa.

Newest Cake Mix Cookie Flavor – I have written before about one of my favorite kinds of cookies to bake. Trust me, if you have never made cake mix cookies before you are truly missing out. In that blog post, I mentioned that I like to experiment with different flavors and I made good on that claim this past weekend. I whipped up white chocolate coconut cookies. It only took a box of Dolly Parton coconut cake mix and white chocolate chips to make these morsels of goodness. Although my wife and kids gave the treats an underwhelming review, I thought they were chef’s kiss.

The kids helped me make these coconut white chocolate cookies.

Thanksgiving Meal Time – I couldn’t help but entertain this question when it came across my feed on X. My opinion? I don’t think there is a bad time to eat the Thanksgiving meal. We ate at 4 p.m. this year which is custom for my side of the family. Last year, when we were with Sidney’s family, we ate at noon. The one advantage to eating late morning/noon is that you can bust out the leftovers that same day when you re-heat things for a late dinner.

This was a fair question.

Holiday Vibes – Downtown Spokane always does a fantastic job at diving headfirst into the holiday spirit and it is always especially evident at River Park Square. The mall is always decorated in such a classy way and its main centerpiece—the 50-foot-tall Christmas tree—will even bring the biggest Scrooge some Yuletide joy. I personally love bringing my kids downtown during the holidays.

Beau and Sloan in River Park Square. It is always so well-decorated.

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I believe that will wrap things up for tonight. Just a reminder, my top five songs of 2024 will drop next week so prepare yourself for that 😂. Have a terrific weekend! Don’t Blink.