The holidays came up so quickly this year. My mom caught me off guard wondering what we were doing for Christmas Eve. We don’t usually do anything with her since we spend Christmas Day together, but since it was just her and her husband this year I could tell she wanted to do something. So I invited them over for dinner. I was inspired to make something new, but light and with simple ingredients. I prepared a tomato and vegetable white bean stew from Minimalist Baker, this Oh She Glows salad with butternut squash instead of delicata, and apple cider sangria from the Kitchn. The sangria was a fun way to start the evening. The soup and salad were delicious. Dessert was a lemon loaf my mom brought and pineapple.

We ended the evening at Christmas Eve party with Carlos’ best friend’s family. We might have stayed longer if I hadn’t worked the night before at the hospital and still had presents to wrap for the morning.

Carlos doesn’t believe in Santa Claus, but he was still up at 4:45am! We convinced him to climb into bed with us and wait until 6. He lasted until 5:30 before he began puttering around in his room making just enough noise to remind us he was waiting.

I always try to make the gift opening last a little longer than 5 minutes. Carlos was really excited about each gift. There were nerf guns, Xbox games, books about soccer and the Illuminati (he’s fascinated!), and a Spy School book, a portable speaker, a Messi soccer ball, and the almighty Adidas cleats.

My 10 year old is wearing men’s shoes because boys sizes end at 6.5 and he’s now a 7.5. I bought the cleats in a size 8 because they won’t be worn until spring. This child is growing way too quickly!

There were huge smiles, lots of thank yous and hugs too. His birthday was a week ago and he got an Xbox. That was the big gift. He is obsessed with soccer and Xbox FIFA is amazing according to Carlos.

The morning was lazy. It involved lounging around under my new super soft blanket from Costco and coffee. Around 10ish I went out for a run. It was unseasonably warm for December. I ran and ran. It was glorious. The sun felt so great against the slight bite of cold in the air. The roads were quiet and the air seemed so fresh. I saw two horses riding down the street!

I wrapped up my 10 mile run with a family Nerf battle in our front yard.

We spent the rest of the day at my mom’s. Her husband made lasagna, one was vegan and the other vegetarian. My cheese-less lasagna was incredible. He does it a little better each time. It was chock full of mushrooms, squash, peppers, sweet potato, tomatoes and carrots. It was enormous! I have about 10 portioned out packages in my freezer now. We ate, drank wine, watched movies/football, and relaxed.

After a crazy 8 weeks of Nursing Theory and the most unbelievable work issues for my team culminating in our wonderful boss being let go for a horrible reason the week before Christmas, I desperately needed a stress free holiday.

Merry Christmas!!