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Joyeux Noël

My Mom and Lance came out! Austin and I took it as an opportunity to cook the heck out of our kitchen for them!


We got a white Christmas which was amazing. For two reasons: Mom and Lance are from California and so it was magical for them, and it could be our last white Christmas for a while! (A lot of schools are in the South.) 

My mom's side of the family is very German so we celebrate Christmas Eve. We used to have minestrone soup, but everyone hated it. So... we turned to our California roots and make tortilla soup instead. As a kid, it always made sense that Christmas happened at night. All the pictures you saw of baby Jesus were at night with the star. My mom said when she was little, she just thought German kids were special haha!



I made my mom and Lance some hardcase books, a snowglobe, and got them a ceramic ornament. Santa also surprised them in the morning with a stocking ;) My grandma Hofmann used to make these egg ornaments (she passed away in 1998) so my mom became the tradition continue-r and made Austin and I our very first one!




We spent Christmas day with my Great-Grandma Gray who lives in Idaho Falls. She's the mother to my Grandma Hofmann, and of course we got to reminisce on the old days. The photo below is my Mom, Grandma, and Aunt Sherri. My great-uncles, second cousins (who are around my age anyway), and great aunts were all there which was awesome. I love my family!


Since Christmas is a bit more calm for us, we went sledding. We used to go sledding with our Jewish friends when we lived by them, because as Germans we had nothing to do Christmas day, and they didn't have anything to do..... so we'd share soup and go sledding haha! Mom and Lance got way into it --I was ready to go down the hill and I feel Mom jump on top of me.... then we see this round ball in front of us in which I thought was a giant ice chunk.... hence the terrified look on our faces. It was ridiculous fun. There's also these two houses that are hooked up to lights and music that we visited afterwards. 



And this of course is the funniest-@$$ photo I have ever seen of my mom. 
We thought about photoshopping it and putting bat wings on her lol.


We got Lance to go, all 6'4" of him.

Last but not least, I took some photos of our gifts so we could remember. Dad got Austin cooking magazines, and a fedora. I got my tech-fit tights and sweatshirt from Adidas! Susan and George got us some household goods (and a tortilla press for mee!) Also, George (a doc) has a favorite stethoscope brand so they surprised me with one (and my name engraved on it!) Mom and Lance got me that awesome bag on facebook, Austin a bag, cooking goods, and a sweet Mormon-Mobile. Aka. the crockpot buffet. Ultimate cooking machine! Lance got me a tree of life necklace :) I got Austin a pasta maker and cooking goods. Can you tell we like to cook? He surprised me with a few things, and a real pearl necklace and earrings. Santa was definitely good to everybody this year!








Hope you all had a great Christmas too! I love you all, family and friends!





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