The holidays, briefly

Christmas is always a whirlwind for us. We generally go to 5 different houses over the course of two days and the fact that everyone lives within 20 minutes of each other (but an hour away from us) is the only thing that makes it possible. We can't bear to cut it down because we love seeing everyone but I'll admit that I sometimes daydream about holing up in our apartment and doing absolutely nothing. This year I compromised and splurged on a hotel room for us on Christmas Eve. It was bittersweet, because it was the first year we didn't wake up at our parents' homes (yes, we've put that off for a looong time) but it felt right. And it was so much fun to grab a drink together in the hotel bar late on Christmas Eve and then get room service in the morning. A little bit of alone time was exactly what I needed in the midst of all the extended family togetherness.

{wrapping cookies}

{xmas baking}

{gingerbread, terrarium}

{christmas flowers}

{christmas circe}

{cookies + champagne}

{california christmas}

{christmas walk}

{NYE 2012 - at home}

I focused on keeping the holiday simple. I spent one day baking, which was amazing. I haven't had the luxury of that time the last few years and I made the most of it. I'd like to officially nominate Christmas to be on a Tuesday every year. We had holiday parties on Saturday and then Sunday was completely free for baking and wrapping and drinking egg nog. I still bought a few cookies to round out the selection but it was nice to have some of our family favorites in there.

We did very little shopping this year. D and I didn't exchange gifts and we only got a couple small things for family. It feels more peaceful this way and it lets us focus on spending time talking with people and just hanging out. And eating cookies, of course. Christmas is all about cookies.

We spent the in between week sleeping, hiking and getting a few meals out with friends. And we saw two movies, which is a crazy record for us. We have entire years where we haven't made it out to two movies together.

I feel like the new year always catches me by surprise. I don't like to make too many plans until the first day actually arrives, and then it takes me about a week of daydreaming before I'm ready to think about anything vaguely resembling a resolution. I'm hoping we can use this weekend to take stock of the year that just ended and talk about the year to come. And maybe I'll have that ready by next week.

In the meantime, I'm painfully aware of how I fell short on one of my resolutions last year, which was to post all my purchases. I have the items listed, but I need to pull posts together and then get up the courage to post them (it was a shopping heavy year) or admit defeat.