Eve

This was a great Christmas Eve. I spent the first two hours of December 24th baking cookies and making treats (pictured below) for my family's consumption and for my neighbors. Then I went to sleep. When I woke up, I finished the treats, had family over to see our house, then it suddenly started snowing which was unexpected and a was a perfect backdrop for the day, went to a Thai restaurant for a yummy lunch, distributed the treats to the neighbors and got to know them a little better, ate some cookies, watched Elf (quite possibly my favorite Christmas movie), went to a Christmas Eve service, ate more cookies, and now I'm gearing up to open some presents.

Speaking of getting to know the neighbors better, as I was finishing up packaging the treats for distribution, we had a knock on the door. It was our across-the-way neighbors inviting us to their open house party tomorrow, Christmas Day. We are definitely going to try to make it - such a nice offer. The neighbors are a couple that remind me of me and my husband - she's Caucasian, he's Latino. We found out that they are even more similar than we thought - he's actually Chilean, which is the exact same tiny, distant land that my husband originally hails from. It's a small world, indeed. Here's to finding excuses to get the know the neighbors in a typical Maryland community.

One of the greatest things about living in MD is the possibility of a White Christmas, or at least a lightly frosted Christmas, as was the case today. Even if it only lasted for a short while. Here's my ironic hipster photo to commemorate this great day.