'Tis the Season

Christmas has turned into a wonderful season this year. It has been warm, festive, and relatively low stress. I think that in light of Papai's death on December 1st, I emotionally gave myself permission not to accomplish anything, so when we decorated, or made Christmas cards, or had a baking day for our neighbors, I felt well pleased with our work instead of driving myself crazy with to-do lists. Marcos and my mom have also pitched in this year, which has made everything so much more manageable.

This season we have enjoyed...

Co-hosting a Christmas Cookies and Milk baby shower for my friend Holly who is expecting her first little girl in January.


Having a few hand-made (in this case, hand-painted) gifts to work on.


Making cookies for our neighbors.


Attending the UNC School of Social Work holiday party at a local fave, Foster's Market. This photo is of our dean Jack Richman playing his guitar and leading the group to the song, "If I had a hammer". My best work-friend Lisa's daughter Ellie is in preschool, and knew all of the words to the song, so they put her on the chair to help lead the song. I work in the coolest place. Each year we also have cookies for the kiddos to decorate, and this year Fosters provided the sugar cookies and royal icing. Yum!


The first week of December we put up a few decorations around our little home so that we could enjoy them for a few weeks!


And last Saturday we took a sleigh ride on a real horse with our friends Kim and Jason and co. in Raleigh, and came back to their place for a Mary and Joseph dinner. I unfortunately didn't get any good photos of the sleigh ride, but the dinner was superb! So filling, but not in a heavy way. Grilled marinated chicken (traditionally we do fish, but we had some non-fish eaters), grapes, an impressive olive platter, pears, and my new-found home-made hummus recipe with fresh pita bread from the Mediterranean Deli in Chapel Hill. I wish we could eat this every day...


And if you add on a few dinners with friends, a present opening Family Home Evening, a Christmas sing-along at our friends, and a movie night out to see "A Christmas Story" in the Varsity Theater, that brings you to today. I wanted to post now because soon we will be in Portland for a few short days, and then off to Hawaii!

I can't believe it, I'm going home after three years away!