Holiday... Celebrate!

T-4 hours until I hop on a plane and head home for holidays, and I couldn't be more excited! My lucky duck of a husband has 6 weeks off from school for his winter break, and my company is closed the week between Christmas and New Year's, so I'll get a little winter break too. He finished his finals about a week ago, so he's already back home in Seattle visiting family and friends. I'll meet him there tonight, go out to catch up with some girlfriends, and then we're headed down to Portland tomorrow morning to celebrate Christmas with my family.

My mom (the world's best cook... no seriously, she is) has planned out 4 nights of special meals, including: fresh picked Dungeoness crab (my favorite!), Swiss fondue (we lived in Switzerland for a few years when I was very young, and making a big fondue dinner around Christmas has been a tradition ever since), and her delicious roasted beef tenderloin with all the fixings for Christmas dinner. Aside from amazing food, I have about 15 cousins to catch up with, a sister to go wedding dress shopping with (insert girly squeal here: eeeeeeee!!), and lots of time planned to spend catching up with my parents in front of the fire or while gazing at my mom's glittery confection of a Christmas tree.

And if that's not enough, we're off to New York right after that for New Year's! Kristin and Dan will most likely be moving out of the city next spring, so we figured we'd better cash in on our opportunity to jaunt around Manhattan with free lodging while we can! They've scored us reservations at Babbo (Mario Batali's restaurant... mmmmm...), and we plan to catch a show, do some post-Christmas shopping, and just generally enjoy the city. Now I just need to figure out how I'm going to lift my overstuffed suitcase into the overhead bin on the plane... I refuse to pay those baggage check fees!

Here's hoping you all have a fabulous and safe holiday!