a very merry christmas.

i have three best friends from high school. i see two of them a lot (hi kayla and sara!) because they live in minnesota, but carissa lives in north carolina with her husband and we don’t get to see her that often. she and her husband were in town for the holidays to see carissa’s family so of course we jumped on the opportunity to see her. the only time we could find to all get together was brunch on christmas eve (we went to freehouse, which is pretty must the closest restaurant to our loft, and we go here all the time!) the husbands and boyfriends joined as well, and it’s great to catch up with all of them too! i think we’re going to make this an annual thing because we had so much fun.

we spent christmas eve with my mom and siblings in minnesota. my sister came to visit us all the way from san francisco. it was really fun to have her back for the holidays! my mom made our christmas favorites for dinner, beef tenderloin and “christmas” potatoes. these are cheesy potatoes with green and red peppers in them that make them look extra christmast-y. we also all slept over at my mom’s which i don’t think we have done in a long time.

tony and i went to mass on christmas morning at the basilica. during the holidays it is easy to get wrapped up in the craziness of christmas (the gifts, the parties, the travel) and forget what christmas is really about. it was nice for the two of us to go to mass and really celebrate the reason for the season (as cliché as that sounds).

after church we went to tony’s parents’ house. we usually do a big italian christmas with tony’s extended family in chicago. this is the first year that we stayed behind and tony’s parents hosted instead. it was getting too hard with 8 adults and 2 dogs to drive to chicago on christmas day and also too hard for tony’s extended family to host that many people. tony’s mom did a great job re-creating the italian christmas that we are used to, complete with italian beef (which is tony’s absolute favorite!)

tony’s parents invited my family, which was so so nice. my mom, sister, and brother were able to come and it was really fun for tony’s family to continue to get to know them better.

merry christmas everyone!