So I thought today I’d talk to you about something I don’t really talk about a lot here, because it isn’t exactly on topic: cooking competition shows.

Sometimes it’s hard for our family to decide what we want to watch – personally I am very into classic movies, but that’s something my son doesn’t enjoy… likewise, I love true crime television… but my son doesn’t like that either. My husband doesn’t like comedies, and I’m not really interested in “action” type television or movies. My daughter is easy to please – she will watch lots of different types of shows. When we all get together, there is one thing we all tend to agree with: cooking competitions.

The show we probably watch the most (and enjoy the most) is Chopped. In Chopped, the theme is that contestants have to cook a dish using 4 secret ingredients – usually strange ingredients that generally wouldn’t be used together. The biggest draw here is the host and judges – they’ve been working together long enough now that they have an effortless interaction that makes watching the show very enjoyable. A lot of the time it seems like they are actually friends off-camera, in real life. However, even if they aren’t friends, they at least seem like very good “work friends”. I suppose it isn’t a surprise that we’ve come to know the hosts pretty well – according to Wikipedia, there have been over 300 episodes of Chopped released since its debut in 2009! Yikes, that’s a lot – and it wouldn’t surprise me to learn that my family has seen all of them except a few of the more recent still on our recording device!

We also like Food Network Star (formerly The Next Food Network Star) for almost entirely opposite reasons… this is a show where promising hopefuls audition to get a show on the Food Network. Here you get to know and learn about the people who might be the next up-and-coming “star” on the Food Network. While many of the careers of these “stars” haven’t really taken off, it serves as a really interesting launching off point for the winners.

Finally, while we’ve watched our share of MasterChef, I personally have a particular soft spot for MasterChef Junior… as you might guess from the name, a cooking competition for children between the ages of 8 and 13. I’m not a great cook, so it’s absolutely amazing to see the sort of complicated and demanding dishes that these children are able to put together, and the obvious delight that even hardened Gordon Ramsey has when interacting with them is fun to see.

So, does anyone else share my enjoyment of cooking shows? If so, which do you particularly enjoy?

This year I started a different type of reading – at least it is different to what I’ve done in the past. Since I enjoy reading holiday Cozies so much during their appropriate seasons, I have started re-reading some of my favorite holiday Cozies >>> out of sequence!

This year had me revisiting Jessica Fletcher in Cabott Cove, Lucy Stone on Red Top Road, Gloria Lamerino in Boston, and Hanna Swenson in Lake Eden. Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas felt particularly Cozy with all my favorite sleuths. (This is one time when my not-so-great memory comes in handy!)

I have to admit that it was a little disconcerting re-visiting Toby as a toddler a month after spending time with Toby as a father of a toddler! (Toby comes from Leslie Meier’s Lucy Stone Mystery Series.) But, I found that as long as I thought of each book as a total entity rather than part of a chronological series, I was able to submerge myself into the correct mindset.

Now if they would just convert all of my favorite holiday Cozies to Kindle format! I’d love to spend time with Henry Tibbett and Peggy Jean Turner next holiday season!

First off, Happy New Year! I hope 2017 is a terrific, wondrous year for ALL of you.

Do any of you have resolutions for 2017? I guess I should actually ask, did you make 2017 New Year’s resolutions – and if so, have you already broken them?

I know the above sounds pretty negative, so let me instead ask if you make New Year’s resolutions and, if you do make them, are you able to keep them?

Every year I resolve to stick to a healthy diet – but, depending on how many Christmas cookies we have in our house, I rarely make it through the first week in January before I veer off my healthy eating resolution. (Or sometimes, January 2 has me feeling guilty about breaking my resolution!)

What’s one to do? I guess in my case, I should simply make fewer Christmas goodies so there are less of them to tempt me during the beginning of the next year.

How do you stand on New Year’s resolutions? Please leave a comment – perhaps you’ll provide some of us with the necessary incentive to keep us on track! Or, perhaps you’ll make us feel better about not being so good about keeping them!

We are having a wonderful day here. Our son lives here in San Antonio and our daughter flew home, so it’s the four of us… oh, and Cocoa makes five!

I hope ALL of you are having a terrific holiday season.

Happy Holidays, Danna!