Holiday Highlights, Part One

Holiday Highlights

Part One: Family

I'm currently enjoying my holiday vacation in snowy Colorado. I was lucky enough to get time off work to spend over 10 days here! My favorite part of coming home is seeing family and friends. While the holidays always go fast and feel frenzied, it's so nice to reconnect with loved ones.

I don't come from a large family and we are all spread across the country. My "Colorado family" consists of my mom, brother and myself. Like most families, over the years we've had quite a few Christmas traditions. As of late, the tradition is: dinner on Christmas Eve, then open presents and on Christmas day head to the ski slopes!

In keeping with tradition, on Christmas Eve we had a nice dinner, which was followed by the opening of presents! The next morning we woke up, packed the car and headed to Keystone.

Since there was little to no traffic, we made it to Keystone in no time. The closer we got, the more wind gusts we encountered. As we were pulling into the parking lot my mom and I exchanged the exact same look...BRRRRRRRRR!!!!!!

Since my brother has a ski pass (and is a TFBA) he was determined to take a few runs. My mom and I would have paid for a full day lift ticket so we opted not to waste money and hit Starbucks instead! It was warm, cozy and still really nice to be IN the mountains watching the snow fall.

It only took 6 very quick runs for my brothers toes and cheeks to freeze. After he downed a hot beverage and thawed out, we snapped a "we were here" photo and were on our way back to Denver!

While the day didn't turn out quite like we'd planned, we all had a great time just being together...even if it was in the car! The beauty of being part of a small family is having flexibility to do whatever we want on holidays. Most of the time we follow traditions and other times, we make up new ones...like skiing at Starbucks!

Our Christmas day concluded with a long standing tradition, dinner at the Armbruster family house. Since the last time I've been to their Christmas dinner a new baby (now 16 months old) has joined the group. The food is always delicious (turkey and ranch mashed potatoes) and it's fun to catch up with family friends we've known forever.

Last, but not least, it's been nice to see this furry face, Romy.

I am grateful for my wonderful little family, the traditions we continue and new ones we create every year! I hope you and yours had a very Merry Christmas as well!!