December 2025 - Newsletter
- Stacy Fernandez
- Dec 31, 2025
- 9 min read
Can you believe it has actually been 1 whole year of this Newsletter!?!
Here is what is on today's docket:
🔦 Local Spotlight - Christmas Tree Recycling
🍪 Recipe
This post contains affiliate links. If you click the link, I may earn a small commission—at no extra cost to you.
📸 Lincoln NE Area Market Snapshot
These stats are pretty typical for this time of year. Number of listings is way down (Holidays, snow and general Nebraska winter slow down). Leading to the number of solds, under contracts and homes for sale being down too. The days on market is increasing but surprisingly our months of inventory is down. Nothing really exciting to report to be honest.
👫 Realtor Matchmaking
For 2026 I'm really going to try and expand my Realtor Matchmaking side of the business , and I need your help!
I'll be hosting live online events educating First Time Home Buyers on how to buy homes! If you know anyone thinking about buying in the next year or so or wanting to learn the steps send them my way.
You can invite them to the Facebook Page here:
or reach out to me directly at 402-413-9558
The plan is to have weekly lives going over a variety of topics like:
Goal Planning
Where your money really goes
Understanding Credit Scores
Process & Timelines
Inspections, Title and Appraisals
We will have guests from different facets of the industry to help give us an in-depth look at certain topics.
This isn't exclusive to the Lincoln market so invite friends, family and anyone you know thinking about buying in the future - from anywhere!
To stay up-to-date be sure to continue to subscribe to this Newsletter, follow Eliezer and I on our Facebook Page and Instagram. We look forward to seeing you there!
As always if you or anyone you know is needing some real estate resources you can always reach out or fill out this link here:
Click to be Matched or Refer Someone Else!
📝 A Note from Your Favorite Realtor
I can't believe it has been 1 whole year of this Newsletter! Not going to lie l wasn't sure it was going to make it. However I set a goal to try it out for a year and see if I like it, so far i'd say I do! I will plan to continue doing it mostly because it is a nice way for me to update people on our lives and gives me an outlet to inform people of new and exciting information I come across.
Well let's do a quick recap of the last month and then we will touch on the whole year of 2025!
December was a busy month of celebrating the holiday season! We decided to make our own Christmas Advent calendar and hand picked some activities that we thought would be fun and would bring out the Christmas spirit in our home. It was meant to be easy to incorporate in our daily lives and for the most part it was. A couple of our favorites were:
Make cookies
Deliver said cookies to the Firestation (Ezrael got to sit in the fire truck and learned more about firemen/women)
Volunteered
Met Santa (a few times - not a fan of sitting with him)
Dinner by Candlelight (we have done this one a few times since and really like the ambiance so will continue that)
Not all of the tasks were easy for us. Specifically taking cute Christmas photos, sleeping in front of the tree (air mattress had holes so we didn't make it the whole night haha), and the Christmas meal from around the world took a little more prep than intended (visited at least 3 plus stores and cooked nearly all day and still didn't get all the dishes I had planned in).
In addition to all the Christmas festivities I was able to host a Souper Pregnant Party where a few of my pregnant gal pals came over, we had a soup potluck, we made custom mugs and enjoyed each others company and solidarity in pregnancy! I am terrible and didn't take any pictures of the party (just one group photo in front of the tree) It was a fun time but so many instagramable moments missed because i'm really bad at recording events. I'll describe it to you so it feels like I did a better job documenting. Imagine a kitchen filled with crockpots full of soup, a pretty drink dispenser with Cranberry Mocktails adorned with Rosemary sprigs/cranberry stirrers, fresh baked loaves of sourdough bread to go home with the guests, mug coloring station with your custom mug design, and the camaraderie of good friends in cozy clothes enjoying each others company!
It's something I would like to do more of this coming year, not soup every time but a little gathering of friends doing a project, eating some food and just socializing a little bit outside of a bar or party scene. Low key, laid back but an excuse to do something a little different. If you have any ideas or requests send them my way! I love planning little gatherings.
Topping off our December adventures we got to see two people we don't see often because they live very far away! My brother, Shane who lives in Alaska and my best friend, Megan who lives in London, UK. They both got to come home for the holidays and we got to spend some time with them just catching up. Ezrael was surprisingly very warm to both of them, he can still sometimes be a little stranger danger towards people he doesn't see often, but with them it was like they were besties. Uncle Shane was helping him fly his RC planes he got for Christmas, helping grind up deer meat, and got him this super soft moose stuffed animal that is "mine" according to Ezrael. Megan got lots of hugs and even a few kisses - don't tell her boyfriend in the UK, Ezrael is bound to be a little stud. Mommy, Meg and Kana Leia all were able to get together and get a little pampered at the nail salon and catch up as well!
2025 was a very fulfilling year! We hit a lot of goals on the personal side of things and really feel like we enjoyed life as a growing family. Our real estate sales business was quite slow and we definitely did not hit those goals but our investing side did well and though we didn't buy more investments we did increase our investments across the board.
Overall the big things that stick out for me when looking back on 2025 are our trip to Panama and getting to meet Eliezer's grandma before she passed later in the year, getting our camper and enjoying many trips out with family & friends, upgrading to the mini van life with the anticipation of adding another Fernandez to the mix and just the everyday enjoyment of watching Ezrael grow and learn! Plus a few culinary creations we tried throughout the year, we are really enjoying cooking and making new recipes - plan to keep that going in 2026.
We are looking forward to a laid back 2026 with only one big trip planned to Alaska to visit my brother, do some salmon fishing and explore the great Alaskan outdoors. Beyond that we plan to do lots of camping and hope to ramp up real estate sales business this year with extra emphasis on Realtor Matchmaking and Spanish speaking clientele. We haven't had a chance to actually write down our goals or do our vision boards for 2026 but i'm sure we will work on those soon!
I'd like to make 2026 a year of organization and really get an actionable plan for financial freedom in place. We have been doing things to move us towards it but haven't quite honed in on an actual task list. There are a few areas that I think a little attention to would go a long way for getting us there in a reasonable time with an inspiring goal to strive for. Don't worry i'll be sure to share what we learn along the way!
Hope you can look back on 2025 and find all of the wonderful and exciting things that transpired, changed or transformed for you! Looking forward to what 2026 brings and wishing you peace and prosperity!
🔦 Local Spotlight - Christmas Tree Recycling
Do you get a real Christmas tree and aren't sure what to do with it at the end of the Holiday season?
As someone who grew up with an artificial tree the whole real tree thing was a whole new world for me! When Eliezer insisted we buy a real tree I did a lot of research on what to do with the dang thing when the season was over. Well here is your research all bundled up in a shiny bow!
Have the Scouts pick it up, and your Holiday Lights too!
You can reserve your time online at scoutingfortrees.com
There are still a few dates available for pick up, check out the flyer for more info:
Are you a real tree or artificial tree family?!
🍪 Recipe
We are going to break down our Venison Tamales Recipe because when we posted it to our story there was a lot of interest!
This year Eliezer was lucky enough to bring home a deer to fill our freezer. Which means we get to be creative in how to cook it and try some new recipes.
We had planned to do some tamales for our Christmas dinner around the world but that didn't work out time wise. Thus we had all the ingredients but no time so we waited. During Christmas with my family we planned to grind our deer meat (with some pork to add fat content) and we thought what a great chance to make some venison tamales.
Finding a recipe was a little difficult because we were going for a Panamanian style tamale using banana leaves vs a Mexican version using corn husks. I wasn't totally sure what spices go best and we really wanted to incorporate the plums and olives we were so used to in our Panamanian versions. So how did we craft the recipe? With ChatGPT of course!
Introducing:
Venison Tamales - Panamanian Style
Mild filling with achiote (annatto) • 2lb batch • Freezer friendly Ingredients
Filling
2 lb ground venison/pork mix
1½ Tbsp achiote (annatto) oil
½ large onion finely diced
1 ají dulce pepper (or ½ roasted red bell pepper) diced
3–4 garlic cloves, minced
¾ tsp salt (adjust to taste)
¾ tsp ground cumin
½ tsp dried oregano
1 bay leaf
1 Tbsp tomato paste (optional)
¾–1 cup broth (chicken or beef)
1 Tbsp chopped culantro or cilantro (optional)
Add-ins for Each Tamal
1–2 prunes
1–2 green olives
Roasted bell pepper strips (optional)
Ingredients – Masa
3 cups masa harina
2¼–3 cups warm broth
¾–1 cup lard or shortening
1¼ tsp salt
½ tsp baking powder (optional)
1–1½ Tbsp achiote (annatto) oil
Achiote Oil (Using Powdered Annatto)
Warm ¼ cup neutral oil over low heat. Whisk in ¼ tsp annatto powder and gently heat 2–3 minutes without bubbling. Remove from heat and let sediment settle. Use only the clear red/orange oil.
Step-by-Step Instructions
1. Prep banana leaves: thaw, rinse, dry, and pass briefly over heat until flexible. Cut into rectangles.
2. Cook filling: sauté onion and pepper in achiote oil, add garlic, then meat. Season, add broth, and simmer
15–20 minutes until saucy.
3. Prepare masa: whip fat with salt, mix masa harina with broth, combine, and stir in achiote oil.
4. Assemble: spread masa on banana leaf, add filling and add-ins, fold and tie.
5. Steam: line steamer with leaf scraps and steam tamales 60–70 minutes.
6. Rest 10–15 minutes before serving.
Freezing & Reheating
Cool completely. Wrap individually and freeze up to 3 months. Reheat frozen tamales by steaming 25–30 minutes or microwaving 2–3 minutes wrapped in a damp paper towel.
Panamanian Habanero (Ají Chombo) Sauce
Hot, vinegary, and bold — served on the side for tamales, meats, and rice dishes.
Ingredients
4–6 habanero peppers (ají chombo if available)
½ cup white vinegar ½ cup water
3–4 garlic cloves
½–1 tsp salt (to taste)
½–1 tsp sugar
Optional: ½ small onion OR 1 small carrot (rounds heat)
Instructions
1. Wear gloves when handling peppers.
2. Combine all ingredients in a saucepan.
3. Bring to a gentle simmer over medium-low heat.
4. Simmer 10–15 minutes until peppers are soft.
5. Blend until smooth (or slightly chunky if preferred).
6. Cool and refrigerate overnight for best flavor.
Heat Control Tips
• Milder: remove seeds before cooking or add carrot/onion.
• Hotter: include seeds or add an extra pepper.
• Tangier: increase vinegar slightly.
• Thicker: simmer uncovered 5 more minutes before blending.
Storage
Store refrigerated in a sealed container for up to 1 month. Flavor improves after 24 hours.
Do you have any favorite venison recipes we should be trying?!
💸 Free Resources
All of these Free Resources can also be found on our Realtor Matchmaking Site:
You can also find Lincoln Nebraska Local Resources here:
Wanting something else specific? Let me know, i'd love to offer more value!
🎯 Goal Tracking
Accountability 101 - Goal tracking update.
Well this whole public accountability thing is a little embarrassing considering we failed epically on our goals. Here's the thing though it was a stretch goal, so i'm not terribly upset, disappointed in my general performance yes, but we learn and grow. What i'm not embarrassed of is how much time I got to spend with my family, the people I did get to help along the way and 9+ lives touched through real estate & home ownership.
We are looking forward to a more thought out 2026, more focus on our goals and the actions that will get us there to achieve said goals. We will have to update the number of transactions we are shooting for in the year 2026 and will likely keep this same tracking format.
We didn't hit our goals to be able to celebrate with a party but maybe next year we can do a little better and have a big end of year party to celebrate success, friends, family and clients!
🥂 Cheers
Thank you for following along this year, hope you have gotten some useful information and continue to look forward to these updates! Adios 2025 and Cheers to a prosperous 2026!
-The Fernandez Family
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