The Month Of Festive Cheer: December 2025 Recap

Happy New Year! 2025 is complete and time continues to hold no meaning 🙂 . I’m writing this while watching snow fall on my idyllic little town. It’s quiet and beautiful here, which is a nice contrast to the festive madness that encompassed December. So let’s see what I got up to! 

I Hung Out In NY State

Surprise, surprise 🙂 . I came back to my homebase after galavanting around the UK and Iceland for 3 months and since then, I’ve settled in ridiculously well. I expected to want to immediately pack my bags and head out to another adventure in a warm part of the world, but instead I’ve just been….content. Literally, what the fuck 😉 ? 

I have made a habit in the last few years of going to my Partner’s parents’ town to see his family for the winter holidays, but this time I will be here for three whole months. I expected to be over the cold that I’ve avoided like the plague so far in my retirement, but that wasn’t the case. 

Instead of freezing my balls off, I now have a homebase where I can collect random items of clothing that have made me actually feel quite warm despite the below 0F temperatures. In the beginning, my fingers were in physical pain because of how cold it was, but then I bought several different kinds of gloves to see which I liked best to both live in and also scrape ice off of my car during winter. 

In addition to my clothing changes, the amazing amount of festive activities we’ve been involved in as a result of his wonderful family has made this season truly magical. I’ve been both enjoying holiday activities, such as the following:

• Attending a Christmas Carol Gospel Choir
• Cutting Down the Family Christmas Tree
• Attending a Local Christmas Light Parade
• A Christmas Tree Decorating Party
• A Rudolph Nibling Viewing Party
• Nutcracker Party
• Christmas Eve Party
• Christmas Day Celebrations
• Salmon and Lox Bagel Party
• NYE party

I’ve also been enjoying small town activities like the below way more than I ever expected: 

• Buying art by local artists of local landscapes 
• Enjoying hot chocolate from a local farm with milk from another local farm
• Eating food from local bakeries
• Eating local meats
• Borrowing tools from my local community
• Venison dinner with my BIL
• Sous vide salmon dinner at SIL
• Lunch with a friend
• Dinner with a friend
• Local town exploration

In addition to all that, my Mom came to visit, which was wonderful. However, I did drive to get her in what turned out to be a snow storm, but now I feel a lot better about my ability to drive in winter. We did great, my car did great and everyone was safe. Wins all around 🙂 . 

On a less positive note, I got sick for the first time in a long time this month. However, that usually happens as soon as I see my niblings and one inevitably coughs in my mouth 😉 , but not this time. I had my flu shot and what I got this month seemed like a flu, but I got over it quickly and seemed to skip all of the monthly germs I usually get, which I will also take as a win.

My Partner Retired!!!

More importantly, my Partner Retired!!!! And he’s going to write a whole post about it soon, but basically this is what happened:

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And here are previous posts he’s written about his money and impending retirement:

• MY PARTNER IS RETIRING!!!
• My Partner Reached FI!!! A Q&A
• Purple’s Partner Spills All!: Answering Your Questions & Concerns
• The Psychology Of Giving: How I Tricked Myself Into Donating More

I Played Video Games

I’ve continued my goal to branch out my gaming and tried three new games this month! They were:

• Unpacking
• Town To City
• Terra Nil

Unpacking

I bought Unpacking for 60% off after seeing the YouTube gamer SpringSimsplay it . 

It looked like fun and I now can confirm that it is! It’s a cozy game about unpacking a person’s house during different moves as they go through life. And as you do so, you learn about who they are as a person. 

Originally when I heard there was a game about unpacking boxes I thought, “that’s one of my least favorite parts of moving IRL” and I assumed it wouldn’t be fun, but I was wrong!

When watching the GameTubers above play it and it seemed surprisingly relaxing, I wanted to give it a try and this sale gave me the chance to do so with low stakes. 

And I’ve been enjoying it! It’s calming in a strange way and also interesting to try and figure out someone’s life simply from the things in it. I’m excited to keep playing 🙂  and curious if it will make it onto my list of top games that I played this year. 

Town To City

After I watched City Planner Plays enjoy Town to City, I bought it for 15% off. It’s still in Early Release so only 2/3 of the towns in the game are available. However, I quickly became obsessed. Here’s the original trailer:

And here is the gameplay that convinced me to buy it:

After buying it, I was just going to just dip my toe in and play for 30 minutes. But somehow it was then 7 hours later and I had missed an important text and realized it was dark outside 🤣. 

It’s a fantastic game. It’s so cozy and chill compared to other city builders, which I enjoy, but also stress me out a lot of the time. Town to City is completely different.

I love the blocky art style, the calming music, and the fact that there’s always something new to do and learn. It’s a lovely small town simulator and I’m excited to keep playing. 

Also during my days spent playing only this game, there was a big update that added animals to the game, which added even more cuteness 🙂 . So I’m waiting for bated breath for the official release where I can play the final town that’s currently not available. 

However, one heads up: I played this on a gaming PC, but my friend bought it and tried to play on their gaming PC. It kept crashing on there so they returned it for a full refund (which is awesome – I didn’t know Steam offered that!). But that’s just a heads up in case it crashes your game for some reason while it’s still in early release – feel free to return it until it works for everyone.

Terra Nil

I heard from a few friends that I might like the game Terra Nil so I bought it. And after watching the trailer I understood why: 

One of the city builder gaming channels I enjoy also was enthused about it:

So I played it and I had fun…for a bit 🙂 . However, at the end of the level, everything ground to a halt when I had to make each animal in the ecosystem happy to advance – WTF?

And not like comfortable, I had to make them “Ideally happy.” After terraforming an entire landscape, I had to worry why a beaver was unhappy. 

And yes, I do want these animals to be happy, but this just seemed like a very strange way to end the first level of this game. I sadly asked my friends who had played the game more and EVERY level is like this. 

On this first level to make a few bears happy, I ruined my entire habitat to better suit their needs and…they were still unhappy. And that was after trying to make all these animals happy for over an hour.

So I rage quit after 🙂 . After calming down a bit, I went online to see if I was doing something wrong and NOPE! That’s literally how each level ends. 

It was strangely jarring after the rest of the game when I realized that I was being tricked into playing a dumb puzzle at the end of a strategy game that was actually interesting. So I put the game down and I don’t think I’ll pick it up again unfortunately.

I Made Improvements

I made some improvements to the stuff in my life. Was this a part of why my budget was blown out of the water in 2025 😉 ? Naw.

• How I Spent $35,950 In 2025

Collapsible Backpack

My amazing collapsible backpack served me well for 5 years, but after using it for everything from groceries to heavy gifts, it ripped recently. So I sewed it, but then it ripped a much bigger hole elsewhere and it was time to admit that its time had come.

Unfortunately the company who originally made that backpack didn’t seem to make that model anymore so I went searching for something else and chose G4, the company that made my $20 40L backpack that I traveled the world with for 5 years and never let me down despite being thrown around all over the place. So I bought G4’s collapsible dayback, which collapses to be a little bigger than my previous one and doesn’t have the exact pockets I’m used to, but it’s been a great bag so far. I’m excited to use it on my travels and give it a real college try.

Electronics

In a similar vein, I bought a refurbished MacBook Air a few years ago like I have for all my major electronics as an adult, but this year my laptop charger cable has started fraying on both sides. I was looking around for electric tape to fix it when I realized…I can just buy a new cord.

• How To Sell Old Or Broken Electronics To Subsidize Your Next Purchase

I don’t have to wrap something 5+ years old that I use daily in an endless amount of electric tape. Instead I can buy a $6 cable from my beloved Anker that’s braided and will last a lot longer. So I did – I bought these Anker cords and have been loving them. I’m so wild 😉 . 

I also bought my first Wireless Charger and I’m already obsessed 🙂 . It works with my Pixel and more importantly doesn’t have a bright light on the whole time it’s charging. 

It has a light around the base that lights up when it starts charging, but it goes off after a few seconds. Also I’m able to charge my Soundcore earbuds. It’s a whole new world and it’s so silly that something under $15 can change my life so drastically 🙂 . 

Bedding

I mentioned in my Annual Accomplishments post that I also updated my bedding situation to help with my old woman body 🙂 . I upgraded my pillows to this knee pillow and this head pillow and that combined with all my exercises have helped me feel way better.

• The Year Of Settling Down(ish): 2025 Goals & Accomplishments

I Knitted

I’m still obsessed with knitting despite approaching my 1 year anniversary of the hobby – I guess it’s here to stay 🙂 . I finished my first sleeve on my “Knives Out” Sweater, which you can see below. 

I originally thought this project would be impossible for me, but now it’s starting to seem…easy 😉 . Uh oh – knitting and cockiness don’t seem to go together. 

After I finished the first sleeve, I started on my back chest piece and did have a mishap that humbled me. My cable broke and fucked up my cables so much that I thought I would have to start over.

And I cried 🙂 . I was on the first day of my period so I do think that had something to do with it, but I was pissed. I’m now looking to see what better cables I can buy so this doesn’t happen again, but in the moment it felt stupidly important. 

So I guess knitting is an important enough hobby to bring me to tears. Luckily I was able to salvage my work and here’s where I am on the chest piece: 

I Did My Nails

If you saw my Insta Stories you know that I did buy 10 different types of holiday nail stickers to nail this month. And yes, there are not even 10 weeks in December. But I couldn’t resist 😉 . 

I had a great time trying out a variety of Christmas nail stickers from Dashing Diva, but my favorite was Santa’s Helper:

In the same vein, I did my MIL’s nails with some extra Dashing Diva stickers I had and they look amazing – I guess I’m a nail sticker manicurist now 😉 . I had previously tried to put these on my own Mom’s nails and wasn’t good at it so I thought I could only successfully put on my own stickers, but that doesn’t seem to be the case. Maybe I’m learning 😉 . 

I Hung Out With People

This month involved some of my usual virtual meetups, such as that weekly call with my Mom and Weekly Movie Nights where we watched the below. If you’re curious about my ratings of movies, I have a Letterboxd account here.

1. A Real Pain
2. How The Grinch Stole Christmas
3. A Charlie Brown Christmas
4. Dr. Seuss’ How The Grinch Stole Christmas!
5. ‘Twas The Night Before Christmas
6. Frosty The Snowman
7. Pinball: The Man Who Saved The Game
8. Juror #2
9. Companion

As I mentioned in my Annual Accomplishments post, I watched 115 films this year, but most were shockingly as a result of my weekly movie club. I thought I would be watching films on my own all the time, but outside of me going to theaters alone (one of my favorite activities), I didn’t watch a lot of movies alone this year. 

• The Year Of Settling Down(ish): 2025 Goals & Accomplishments

I also had some fun experiences with friends and family, which included:

• Daily Morning Coffee Time with my MIL and SILs
• Weekly Family Dinner
• A Nibling Birthday Party
• A Crochet/Knitting Hangout with Niblings
• Lunch out with college friends
• Long walks on nature paths crunching the fall leaves and later snow

I Read 11 Books

Here were my favorite reads this month:

1. Knitting Bag Of Tricks: Over 70 Sanity Saving Hacks For Better Knitting by Patty Lyons
2. Top Shelf by E.M. Lindsey
3. Mighty The Fallen by Dianna Roman

To see the other books I read this month and my ratings of them, I have a Goodreads account here. I also started a book club with my Partner and Mom! We’re reading Gulp by Mary Roach. When I finish it we’ll see if it’s in my top 3 favorite books of January 😉 . 

I Wrote 9 Posts

In case you missed it, this month I published the below posts:

1. The Month Of Thanks: November 2025 Recap
2. How I Planned A Trip To Circumnavigate Iceland In 7 Days
3. How I Made $7,553 While Retired In 2025
4. Review: TIDAL – A Better Spotify Alternative
5. How I Spent $35,950 In 2025
6. Am I Burned Out From Travel Planning?
7. The Year Of Settling Down(ish): 2025 Goals & Accomplishments
8. Lessons Learned After 11 Years Of Blog Writing
9. 2025 Financial Review: Investment Withdrawals, Dividends And The Future

That is a higher number than usual because of PurpleMas!

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That was fun, but now I’m tired 🙂 . Somehow I forget how much work it is to publish double number of posts when my posts in retirement seem to get wordier and wordier. 

But I survived! And even had a nice time 🙂 , but I think I might take a break next year because that was a little bit much. TBD. 

In addition to all that writing, I also met up with a blogger I talked to online for years, Freddy Smidlap. I also had a call with the media and a call with a reader who I’ve been emailing for years that retired several years ago and that I tried to meet when I was in London, but the stars didn’t align. However, because of the power of the internet we got to connect, which was a fun time. 

After all of that, I was a happy kind of tired, but when I asked my Mom why in the world I was tired she said: 

Well, I finished editing your post and after reading it, I feel so inadequate 😂! You, 30 years my junior and retired half the time as me had:

1. Listened to over 34,249 minutes of music 
2. ⁠Read 185 books
3. Watched 118 movies
4. Traveled to 6 states and 6 countries
5. You did research and planned for all of those trips
6. You also knitted 10 things
7. You identified 120 birds
8. Wrote 56+ posts
9. You wrote accountability beast stuff, researched nail stuff, decorated your new home, learned how to do things to maintain and fix your car!!

Sweet Baby Jesus that’s a lot of stuff!!

That was very kind of her though I don’t think those kinds of comparisons are fair. However, I guess I have some reasons to be tired even if I didn’t realize it 😉 . 

Physical

Sleep

My sleep this month was good despite being sick for part of it. I’ve been really enjoying falling asleep when I’m sleepy, taking naps when I feel like it and awakening with the sun 🙂 . 

Food

This month I ate keto 94% of the time and took 2 days off keto. I also hit my goal of maintaining my 30lb weight loss from last year and had an added a surprise of an additional 5lb loss this year for a total of 35lbs down.

Not bad! And on my days off, I was able to sample all the festive treats I was excited for – apple cider donuts, marshmallow filled hot cocoa with milk from a local farm, hash browns and all kinds of other treats 🙂 . 

Exercise

Meanwhile, I’ve been heavy lifting like a motherfucker and loving it 🙂 . I really missed this.

Lifting barefoot also continues to be a life changer. I’ve been surprised with my progress while also trying very hard to not compare myself to my much stronger Partner. A month ago squatting or pressing a 45 lb bar felt like a lot, but now it feels like air and that’s so weird and wonderful. 

Mental

Learning

So it’s time for my favorite segment: Fun Facts Nobody Asked For! Here’s what I learned and explored this month:

Holiday Wrapping

After putting on a fireplace channel on YouTube for ambiance, I started wrapping my first large gifts in years. I turned the wrapping paper over to discover…it has a grid on the other side! That would have been very helpful to realize at the beginning of this process lol.

Wrapping my second gift, I didn’t want the contents inside to move around the box and lose their labels and then remembered…I’m a knitter now. I have a shitton of yarn I can use to tie this stuff together in a classy way lol. Christmas ingenuity!

Astronomy

Despite the cold I’m still trying to enjoy my astronomy hobby. I haven’t had luck with meteor showers lately, but I have been enjoying the fact that my tiny town is so in the middle of nowhere that I can see stars outside my apartment 🙂 . 

It is definitely different from any other place I’ve lived (all downtown in major cities). I also enjoyed looking at the Cold Full Moon this month. 

Birds

Birding this month wasn’t super exciting – I saw the usual winter suspects. However, something exciting that did happen was that we saw a Great Horned Owl! My Partner saw it fly past the window so we ran outside to try to find it and a Blue-Jay was freaking out in a nearby tree.

My MIL suggested maybe the Blue-Jay was being brave and alerting other birds that the owl was nearby and that was true! We saw the owl fly out of the tree we had been staring at despite never noticing him in it before. 

Creativity

My creativity was a bit rough this month 🙂 . My posts keep being way longer than I expected and I didn’t do enough pre -writing for PurpleMas, so December was a bit wild.

I think I’m going to take a break from it going forward as a result. Between being fully present at all family functions (which is a month long endeavor over here), having my Mom visiting and getting Christmas presents in order, I was wiped. How do people do all this WITH a job🤣 ?!?

Emotional

I’ve been really good emotionally this month, which was not what I expected. I’ve been avoiding northeastern winters for a long time with its cold and lack of sunlight hours, but for some reason – this year, that didn’t get me down 🙂 . I suspect it had to do with being surrounded by my loved ones every day, but it’s been absolutely wonderful. Tiring, but wonderful 🙂 .

Money

Money continues to not feel real 🙂 . This month I hit a new net worth high of $1,005,687. I also received thousands of dollars of dividends for doing literally no work . My dividend info for all of 2025 is detailed in the below blog post. 

• 2025 Financial Review: Investment Withdrawals, Dividends And The Future

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And here’s where I ended the month monetarily:

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Conclusion

And that’s my last monthly recap of 2025! It’s been a fun year and I’m excited to see what 2026 brings. Until next time 😉 . 

If you’re interested in the other weekly and monthly retirement updates I’ve written, they’re all here:

Weekly (2020)

1. Early Retirement Week 1: The Freak Out
2. Early Retirement Week 2: The Vacation
3. Early Retirement Week 3: The Whiplash
4. Early Retirement Week 4: The Heartbeat
5. Early Retirement Week 5: The Election
6. Early Retirement Week 6: The Trophy
7. Early Retirement Week 7: The Train
8. Early Retirement Week 8: The Challenge
9. Early Retirement Week 9: The Question
10. Early Retirement Week 10: The Game
11. Early Retirement Week 11: The Recharge
12. Early Retirement Week 12: The Holiday

Monthly (2021)

1. The Month Of Rest: Early Retirement Month 4 (January 2021)
2. The Month Of Birds: Early Retirement Month 5 (February 2021)
3. The Month of Change: Early Retirement Month 6 (March 2021)
4. The Month of Atlanta: Early Retirement Month 7 (April 2021)
5. The Month of Portland, Maine: Early Retirement Month 8 (May 2021)
6. The Month Of New Hampshire: Early Retirement Month 9 (June 2021)
7. The Month Of The Northeast: Early Retirement Month 10 (July 2021)
8. The Month Of New York State: Early Retirement Month 11 (August 2021)
9. The Month Of City Hopping: Early Retirement Month 12 (September 2021)
10. The Month Of The Southwest USA: October 2021 Recap
11. The Month Of Santa Fe: November 2021 Recap
12. The Month Of Family: December 2021 Recap

Monthly (2022)

1. The Month Of Freezing My Balls Off: January 2022 Recap
2. The Month Of Thailand: February 2022 Recap
3. The Month Of Spring(?): March 2022 Recap
4. The Month Of México: April 2022 Recap
5. The Month of Mérida: May 2022 Recap
6. The Month of Seattle: June 2022 Recap
7. The Month of Washington State: July 2022 Recap
8. The Month Of New Hampshire: August 2022 Recap
9. The Month Of Maine: September 2022 Recap
10. The Month Of Acadia: October 2022 Recap
11. The Month Of Argentina: November 2022 Recap
12. The Month Of Holiday Cheer: December 2022 Recap

Monthly (2023)

1. The Month Of Snow: January 2023
2. The Month Of New Hampshire: February 2023
3. The Month Of Sea: March 2023
4. The Month Of California: April 2023
5. The Month Of Seattle: May 2023
6. The Month Of Chicago: June 2023
7. The Month Of Montréal: July 2023
8. The Month Of Troy, NY: August 2023
9. The Month Of Australia: September 2023
10. The Month Of New Zealand: October 2023
11. The Month Of Puerto Vallarta: November 2023
12. The Month Of Warmth: December 2023

Monthly (2024)

1. The Month Of Family: January 2024 Recap
2. The Month Of Costa Rica: February 2024 Recap
3. The Month Of San José: March 2024 Recap
4. The Month Of The Solar Eclipse: April 2024 Recap
5. The Month Of Arizona: May 2024 Recap
6. The Month Of Upstate NY: June 2024 Recap
7. The Month Of Montréal: July 2024 Recap
8. The Month Of Canada: August 2024 Recap
9. The Month Of Iceland: September 2024 Recap
10. The Month Of Switzerland & Italy: October 2024 Recap
11. The Month Of Amsterdam: November 2024 Recap
12. The Month Of Holiday Cheer: December 2024 Recap

Monthly (2025)

1. The Month Of Yuki Matsuri: January 2025 Recap
2. The Month Of Auckland: February 2025 Recap
3. The Month Of Sakura: March 2025 Recap
4. The Month Of Seattle: April 2025 Recap
5. The Month Of Settling Down(ish): May 2025 Recap
6. The Month Of Machu Picchu: June 2025 Recap
7. The Month Of The UK: July 2025 Recap
8. The Month Of Bath: August 2025 Recap
9. The Month Of Iceland: September 2025 Recap
10. The Month I Became A Millionaire: October 2025 Recap
11. The Month Of Thanks: November 2025 Recap

What’s a fun fact you learned this month?