christmas – And What I Ate

Ugh, I know, I’ve been the worst at writing for the last couple months. 2014 is going to better on every level. If it makes any difference, though, December has been a blast.

The last official party in the Piazza’s basement – great memories of this place!!

Beer pong table as notarized by Steppacher Law Offices

Dad’s birthday, and Mom’s birthday:

Trips into NYC, where I had an unbelievable dinner at Mario Batali’s Tarry Lodge and did not take one picture of anything but the amazing cheeses and local pears I bought from Bedford Cheese Shop

Hearts in the snow on the drive in to a 4am morning show taping at the hospital with the lovely Jasmine Brooks of WBRE:

Live nativity performance…this was way more elaborate than I was expecting:

Friends & Christmas cocktails. Book Club Christmas party. Walks home in the snow with friends.

I love this season.

MY FRIEND Klob <3

Christmas singalongs on the prettiest piano I ever saw in real life.

Our family’s Tree Lighting Party – haven’t had a tree go up in flames yet:

And, Christmas Eve. Christmas Day. Merry Christmas, everybody.

Dad making the Christmas ham with A Christmas Story playing in the background…perfect.

Christmas tree shopping at Helen and Ed’s Tree Farm, which we’ve been going to since we’ve been kids, and is one of the cutest places in America.

B and I exchanged presents on Christmas morning. We had a great snowfall the night before, so we turned on the Christmas tunes, the tree lights, made some coffee from Hillside, and got fully blissed out – I love Christmas morning.

For Christmas this year B got me these heels (!!!), yoga stuff, and an insane Cuisinart food processor that I’d been lusting after for months. Annnnd, that pretty much sums me up!

Colly and I made Christmas “dinner” at our parents’ house – Cornish game hens with cranberry walnut stuffing, the best broccoli ever, cauliflower mashed potatoes, roasted red grapes with thyme, and an awesome shredded kale salad. We were going to try to make a goose for more of a “Tiny Tim” Christmas, but everyone we talked to who had previously tried goose themselves kind of gave us a series of “that might be a bad idea” looks. So we scrapped it. Cornish game hens were much cuter, anyway! I’ll spare you the details of my last minute search for broccoli on Christmas morning, since for some reason it hadn’t occurred to me that everything would be closed on, you know, CHRISTMAS MORNING, but suffice to say that a fortunate run-in with the owner of Schiel’s Family Markets saved the day.