Hello everyone! The holiday season has officially come to a close and though it was long and involved lots of travelling for Brett and I, it was a blast!
The first holiday we celebrated this season was Christmas! Pretty much as soon as I was done with classes, I headed out to spend time with Brett and his family. Removing myself from my on-campus apartment was a much needed change for the holidays, and allowed me to mentally unplug from all the stress. We spent the first couple days of break doing holiday themed activities, like going to the Millis Wonderland light display, watching Christmas movies, and drinking eggnog (our favorite). (P.S. Did you guys try the eggnog shakes from McDonald's? HEAVEN.)
The weekend before Christmas we headed to my parents' house in NH to spend some time with them and the pups. We played a lot of Wii Sports, ate lots of good food, and caught up on our lazy days and puppy cuddles (the rainy weather really made us feel pretty guilt-free about this!). In honor of our upcoming family trip to Mexico and the Western Caribbean, we indulged in a Mexican fiesta Christmas Eve complete with Margaritas and quesadillas! We ended the day full of shooting*, drinking, and eating, with a hilarious game of Heads Up with my parents before patiently waiting for Santa to arrive.
We woke up to a full tree and stockings for all! Santa was extremely generous to us this year, and I feel so lucky to have such caring people in my life. It's been hard for me around Christmas the past few years because I'm at a point in my life where I want to give so much more to my loved ones than I am currently financially able to, but I know in the years to come I'll be able to treat everyone else the same way they treat me around the holidays. I am truly, truly the luckiest girl in the world!
After presents and a Christmas lunch of steak tips, sweet potatoes, and green bean casserole (SO AMAZING), we packed up our gifts and headed to MA to spend the rest of Christmas Day with Brett's family. We gave some gifts, ate an awesome dinner, and I bonded with his 2 year-old niece by reading a book about colors and watching Go, Diego, Go! #precious We sleepily left this Christmas celebration for our third and final stop, our friend Kyle's house. I made my favorite buffalo chicken dip while the guys played the new Madden on the PS4 and I tried not to fall asleep on the couch. (Christmas is exhausting!)
After about week of recuperating from the Christmas hangover, Brett and I ventured down to New Jersey to spend time with my good friends Noble and Jeff! It had been about a year and half since I had last seen them, so New Year's was the perfect excuse to make the trip down! The drive is only about 3 and a half hours if traffic doesn't tangle you up, so it was definitely time for a road trip. We packed up Dory and headed down on the 30th so as to not get caught in the mad rush into NYC for their New Year's Eve festivities. We made it to their apartment right around dinner time!
Brett had never had a true New Jersey experience, so we made sure we got him a Taylor Ham sandwich (which he obviously loved, and we definitely got more than just one during the time we were there). Jeff and Noble threw two parties during our stay as well - one for New Year's Eve, and one for a group of Jeff's friends. We played lots of fun party games like Catchphrase, Heads Up, and Cards Against Humanity, had tons of yummy food and drinks like S'mores Pie (UNREAL), Cannoli Cookies (DOUBLE UNREAL), and chocolate wine (WHAT), and had an overall fantastic time.
It was a wonderful holiday season and I got to spend it with the best people in the world! Brett and I did a little bit of vlogging throughout the holidays, so make sure you check out the playlist below if you'd like to see more of what we got up to!:
*I'll be posting more about this later this week! ;)
