Am I the only one who is seriously crashing from the nonstop sugar high that is the holidays? Yesterday I didn’t get out of my pajamas and today I almost died during barre class. My body is in need of a serious holiday detox!
We had a wonderful time with our parents this week and it was so special to host them for our first Christmas as a married couple. I planned the menus and prepped food ahead of time so we could spend as much time relaxing and visiting with each other as possible.
Christmas Eve has always been a bigger event for my family than Christmas day. When I was growing up and our extended family would come together for the holidays we had several relatives who left Christmas morning to go spend the day with their kids, so our big traditions always took place on Christmas Eve. We spend the day getting dishes ready for a big appetizer buffet. Everyone contributes a couple of dishes and it’s so much fun to try out new recipes. This year I put together a pretty epic cheese plate and made Southwestern egg rolls — they were a hit and I highly recommend the recipe!
Christmas Day was unseasonably warm, so rather than going to see a movie like we’ve done most years, we took advantage of the sunshine and headed out to McCormick’s Creek State Park. My dad visited the park with his family when he was a kid and it was fun to hear him talk about all of the fun they had there. We took a short hike to the waterfalls and back before heading home and getting some food ready for Christmas dinner.
The rest of our time together was spent huddled together in the living room talking or watching Christmas movies. We’ve been so busy the entire month of December that Christmas felt like more of a whirlwind than normal this year. While it was wonderful having family here, I’ve really enjoyed having the weekend after Christmas with no plans but to relax.
My goal for 2016 is to do that a lot more often.
[…] I like to use the brand new year as a time for reflection and goal setting. Last year I kept my goal for the new year pretty simple: relax more. I started off strong, but quickly fell into my normal […]