Tag: nostalgia

As many of you know, my parents moved out to Colorado earlier this year. Chris and I visited them for the first time in November for Thanksgiving. This is actually my first Christmas ever that I’m spending without seeing my mom and dad, and it feels weird! My parents have always had a way of making Chrismas really happen whether you’re in the spirit for it yet or not. If I know them well enough, the house has been well-decorated all month long. The tree and decorations are up, lights are in the yard, and my dad probably gets a Christmas tune stuck in his head every day or so and hums or whistles it around the house. In contrast, my own house shows very few signs of the holidays. I just now put our little Charlie Brown tree up and that’s about it – I’ve just been too busy lately. But my mom still found her way of making sure the Christmas spirit is extended to us, even across all these miles. Yesterday we received a package in the mail with this adorable little ornament, so I’m feeling a little more Christmas-y now (I’m even inspired to get a real tree next year). And in honor of my dad, I’m humming some Christmas tunes around the house today. Love you both!

Fellow photographer, the fabulous Jessica Del Vecchio (who I will have the honor of working with next weekend!) did this on her blog and I thought it was such a fun post so I’m doing the same. Here are a few photos I scanned of me as a tot:

Yes, I do still have the same hairstyle now as I did in elementary school! (Edit: Okay now it’s your turn! Post your baby/childhood photos!)

In an attempt to recreate a family holiday tradition, last night I tried to bake and decorate sugar cookies. Chris and I are visiting his family all weekend, so I thought it would be nice to have something like that to take with us. Earlier in the week I bought all of the ingredients, some new Christmas-shaped cookie cutters, and fun tins to store the cookies. The baking part went alright I guess, despite the fact that I didn’t realize if you use a light cookie sheet, a dark cookie sheet, and a pizza stone each for a separate batch, all of the bake times are quite different. I ended up with a nice array of light golden brown, dark golden brown, and brown. After chucking the browns, I sat down with my acceptable golden browns and got ready to decorate. I set it up just like my mom used to – all of my bare cookies, frosting and decorations spread out on the dining table, my tasty canvas and artist’s tools. After frosting about five cookies, I realized that the fun of our family tradition was sitting around the table with my mom and brother and listening to my dad in the background watching football. The banter that we had, and the flow of artistic creativity (“Ooo, look at what I did!”) made the decorating go by much faster. At 11:30 pm with only 8 down and the rest of the 6 dozen sugar cookies to go, I decided that the sugar cookie decorating tradition is best left to fond memories. I was covered in flour, and getting whiney, and I might’ve even cursed at the cookies at some point. Thanks Mom, for always making it fun and easy!

Mixing the cookie dough: 10 minutes.
Rolling the dough and cutting cookie shapes: 20 minutes.
Memories of making holiday cookies with my family: a lifetime.

Happy Holidays, everyone!