It’s back to work and teaching for me today, but I’m happy I only have two days of “being back at it” before the weekend. I figured today would be a good day to recap all our Christmas adventures from this year. There’s a lot to catch up on!

Early Family Christmas Party

My dad’s side of the family celebrated Christmas early this year. We went to my uncle’s house on 12/14, and the day was full of festive food, a Secret Santa exchange, a delicious fish dinner, trivia, birthday cake, and a LOT of wine.

The food we ate included my festive cucumber appetizers, avgolemono soup, salad, ravioli, fish, Brussels sprouts, Greek green beans, and tons of dessert even though I only snapped a photo of the white chocolate cranberry bars that I baked.

Some other scenes from the day:

Wally World Christmas

If you’re wondering what the heck “Wally World” is, my roommates and I used to live on a street called Wallingford. Clearly that turned our apartment name into Wally World, and Wally World Christmas is when we all reunite for festive fun and a little Yankee swap with our men.

This year Katrina and Geoff hosted. Dinner consisted of homemade chicken parm with ziti, salad, and a green bean and mushroom casserole. Tim and I brought a white bean dip with bread and green peppers as an appetizer, and there were plenty of desserts too.

We also made a fun champagne sangria punch from this recipe.

The rest of the night can be summed up with one word: silly.

I love my friends.

And I may or may not have had a champagne headache at work the next day. Worth it.

Home Friends Christmas

Every year my friend Shannon hosts a party for all of our friends from home. She has been hosting since we were 14 years old, and it’s one of my favorite Christmas traditions. There’s always a ton of food, a signature cocktail, and a horrible Yankee swap where a chia pet recirculates every year. I say it’s horrible because while there ARE a few of us who try to bring a nice gift, the majority of the guys involved in the swap bring something, well, horrible.

Here are some other pics from the night:

For past Shannon party recaps, click here and here!

Christmas Eve

For the past couple of years, I’ve always worked a half day on Christmas Eve, attended our company’s holiday luncheon, and then gone to John Harvard’s for a couple of Christmas Eve beers. This year we continued this tradition with some of my co-workers. After John Harvard’s, Tim and I came home and quickly prepped all the food we still needed to prep. We also made a stop at the liquor store, where I paid for the couple in front of us as a “random act of kindness” for Jingle Well Time. This couple being so happy made me so happy that Tim and I decided we are going to do a random act of kindness every year on Christmas Eve. I also want to be better at “paying it forward” throughout the rest of the year too.

At night we headed to Tim’s cousin Kelly’s house for the night. Can you believe I didn’t snap any pictures? I’ll have to sum it up with another Yankee swap, the annual clam chowder, tons of other food (especially desserts), and a lot of laughs. Next year I’ll have to remember to be better about picture-taking there.

When we got home, Tim and I did our annual ornament exchange before heading to bed.

A pomegranate for me (how fun!), and an Irish flag shamrock for Tim.

Christmas Day

On Christmas morning, Tim and I woke up early to exchange our presents.

For me: Ugg slippers, a springform baking pan, a new set of resistance bands, and a 6 month subscription to Birchbox

For him: A Kitchen Aid mixer

We also exchanged stockings, which sometimes is my favorite part. I just love stocking stuffers. I feel like you can really tell a lot about a person based on what’s in their stocking. 🙂

After our present exchange, we cooked ourselves a fun Christmas breakfast.

We don’t have kids, but this would be a perfect breakfast for those of you who do. We just like to have fun. After breakfast we headed to my parents’ house, where we spent the rest of Christmas Day. My immediate family exchanged gifts first before company came over.

We also feasted on the festive muffins I brought over.

My mom’s side of the family came over later for dinner. Dinner included ham (the holiday gift from my company), pastitsio, soutzoukakia, and some festive Brussels sprouts. Lots of Greek dishes!

There were also lots of desserts:

Here are some other pics from the day:

All in all, a very Merry Christmas 2013.

How was your holiday season? How many Christmas events did you have this year? What was the best present you received and/or best present you gave? What are your favorite traditions? Have you ever done a random act of kindness?

See you tomorrow for another round of Friday Favorites!