I hope everyone is having a great pre-holiday week! I have a few days of recaps to go through but I wanted to start with Friday. Since my sister and her fiancé are going to be gone for real Christmas, we celebrated “fake Christmas” last weekend. This began on Friday with dinner at Benihuanas as we usually do on Christmas Eve.

IMG_5156

Since I can’t eat a lot these days, for my meal I ordered a salad and fried rice. There were able to make it with gluten free soy sauce which was awesome!

IMG_5161 IMG_5162 IMG_5164

Then, we returned home to make Christmas cookies and watch the Polar Express. I had only seen it once before, but I was in the mood for a different movie this year and really enjoyed it! For cookies, I made my healthy polka dot cookies.Since my sister was eating them, I threw in some honey for extra sweetness, and made about 1/3 of the cookies with normal chocolate, not mint, chips.

IMG_5168 IMG_5169 IMG_5172 IMG_5173

I started “Christmas” (Saturday morning) with a Crossfit workout. I worked on power jerks, and the then WOD was an ascending ladder of double unders and a descending ladder of kb swings. My double unders were actually really good that day for some reason!

Then, it was time to put on our fake Christmas best and head over to see my grandma.

IMG_5186 IMG_5191 IMG_0134 IMG_0138

For lunch, I had soup (shockingly)—Manhatten clam chowder—and then some of my dad’s sweet potato fries. It was nice to see my family, but unfortunately we had to run out of there after dinner to take my puppy out of her crate.

At home, we ate homemade desserts (this is cranberry apple cobbler) and made mimosas—both with fresh squeezed orange juice and with crane-raspberry juice.

IMG_5209 IMG_5210 IMG_5211

Chloe enjoyed her first Christmas! She loved opening her presents from Grandma.

IMG_5215 IMG_5230 IMG_5236

Rain has been in the forecast all week, but we got a reprieve from it on Saturday night so we decided to take the opportunity to visit a nearby neighborhood that goes all out for the holidays. We decided to bring Chloe to enjoy the sights and sounds!

IMG_5240 IMG_5241 IMG_0156IMG_5243 IMG_5244 IMG_5248

Fake Christmas was fun, and it’s only drawing out the celebrating!