Christmas Celebrations

I have really been enjoying all the Christmas festivities around here! My family and friends sure know how to celebrate. On Thursday, Mandi, my mom, and I celebrated Christmas, as my mom had to work on Christmas. We started out with dinner at the Chart House, one of our favorite spots for steaks and seafood (and incredible molten lava cake). We had a table at the window, with a gorgeous view of the sunset.

We chatted and devoured our food, excited about the continuation of Christmas celebrations at home.

My mom is always generous with our gifts (always extremely generous), but this year she topped even herself. Mandi and I each had…oh, 20 gifts?…from our mom alone. Combined with gifts from me and Mandi and other family members and friends, the tree was EXPLODING with gifts.

The generosity from my mom and other family members and friends is really appreciated. Thank you all! I loved all of my gifts. Needless to say, it took awhile to open all of these gifts. We do one at a time, which I really like. It makes each gift extra special and lets us savor the evening. Since it took so long, we had a champagne intermission, which added to the fun and laughter! The night was really special (Logan got in on the action too, of course…he’s a pro at gift opening and tag removal).

Christmas Eve started out with Mandi and I going to Manhattan Beach for breakfast and then a little bit of very last-minute shopping. My mom and I then spent the day baking famous chocolate-dipped peanut butter cookies and molasses crinkles while listening to Christmas music. At night, I joined Nik (finally he’s here!) and his family at a Christmas party. His really close family friends host a party every year, and we try to attend as often as possible. It was nice to catch up with all of them and to finally see Nik again, and it was the first time many of them had seen us since the engagement. In addition to lots of holiday food and treats, there was a lot of wedding talk!

Here I am with my future brother-in-law, Mike:

And Nik and I:

Next up is Christmas day! This was a really special day, too, because it was the first year that Nik has joined me at my dad’s house for Christmas day. I appreciate how they integrated him so happily and easily into the holiday celebrations.

Here are Martha and I with the platters she got me–perfect for hosting parties! Yay!

We had a great day over there and then headed to Nik’s family’s house for Christmas dinner and celebrations over there. His brother Mike (and brother Foti, sister-in-law Sarah, and friend Jamie) made an elaborate and delicious dinner with a lot of Greek elements, such as Mike’s famous lemon potatoes, feta and olives, etc. We stuffed ourselves and then did gifts. I think it must have been Nik’s best Christmas ever–he got so many things he loved. JoJo also did Christmas. It was pretty frantic and she was excited and overwhelmed. Her tail kept knocking ornaments off the tree, and she couldn’t decide what new toy she should play with. I packed most of her things up to try to simplify this for her, but of course she unpacked… Uncle George seems to think she’s hilarious (she is), and he gave her tons of cookies. She’ll do anything for them.

So the Christmas celebrations are over, but the vacation and fun are not. Today Mandi and I had an “Appetizer Hop” in Pasadena, going to happy hour at the Melting Pot and then having snacks at a sushi restaurant. Tomorrow we head to San Diego for girly spa day…