Ho! Ho! Ho!

Our holiday plans were a bit less tropical than last year's Christmas in Senegal. Instead, we hopped a red-eye to Newark, New Jersey. The December holidays are allocated (so far) to my side of the family, and with Nicolas's job not giving him Thanksgiving or New Year's off, we found ourselves having to struggle through the season without a single dish of foie gras or a fresh Parisian baguette. Okay, maybe I was the only one struggling on that front.

While back on the East Coast, we fit in all the main Christmas hits—Repak Family Dinner on Christmas Eve, jetlag-napping through Christmas Eve mass, the Aloia Family Christmas Day Party, endless marathons of A Christmas Story, and last but not least, our 8th annual Cousins' Campout, a tradition resurrected from our collective childhoods in the 90s.

Ho! Ho! Ho! Merry Christmas!

Some things were different: the big family party saw a new host, we had a new furry family member in the mix (who took home the Mr. Stinky prize at this year's Cousins' Campout), and somehow Cards Against Humanity didn't make an appearance (is it even really Cousins' Campout without it??). Overall we came, we saw, we conquered, and we left the family in one piece. Can't really ask for much more from the holidays.