A Mini-Christmas in Columbia

The weekend before the weekend before Christmas (did you follow that?), Ian and I packed up the car with presents and headed down to Columbia to do a mini-Christmas with my family.  This was the first year in thirty years that I wouldn't be spending the holiday with my folks,and my mom's birthday is also on Christmas Day.  We were really happy to be able to celebrate early and we'll definitely be making this a standing tradition for every other year when we celebrate with Ian's family.

Mom and I decided before the mini-Christmas that Friday night cocktails were definitely in order.  After seeing so many delicious recipes on Pinterest, it had our gears turning.  Mom put together a great cocktail which I'll share the recipe for soon.

The guys are way too macho for girly cocktails, so thank goodness for Dad's homemade rum!  That's right ... he hung up his beer-brewin' boots to try his hand at the hard stuff.  The guys enjoyed a little rum & coke in some highly oversized vessels.

We had an amazing dinner together at our family's table (there's really nothing like going back home and letting Mom take care of you and feed you ... am I right?!) and later that evening, my sister Laura and her husband arrived in town.

We kicked off Saturday morning with presents and we decorated the tree together.

Sharing holidays between families isn't always the easiest, but this was a great solution for us.

It's great to be back to blogging and I can't wait to share more Christmas updates!