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Welcome back! I hope you all enjoyed a very merry, relaxing, festive, and thoughtful Christmas with your loved ones. We sure did! It was small and perfect.

I took a half-day of work on Christmas eve and surprised Ted with an overnight retreat to a small, secluded, quiet B&B in snowy mountains of upstate New York for Christmas eve and Christmas morning. We went to Christmas eve mass at the only Catholic church in the tiny town where we were staying and enjoyed a funny yet adorable children’s Christmas pageant and a hauntingly beautiful rendition of Silent Night on the harmonica. We dined on a delicious pizza from a local pizzeria and homemade kiss cookies, drank wine and hot chocolate while wrapped in cozy blankets in front of the glowing fireplace, opened and read our Christmas cards together, watched “Home Alone” and “The Nutcracker”, read Twas the Night Before Christmas and Polar Express from the comfort of a sweet little window seat reading nook with picture perfect views of the mountains and falling snow, set up our Nativity set, turned on some Christmas music, and soaked in the Jacuzzi while the snow fell all around us. It was glorious.

On Christmas afternoon we made our way home though the snow-blanketed finger lakes wine region while we listened to Christmas music and admired the mountains and skinny winding finger lakes. Back at home we unwrapped a few gifts from our parents beneath our decorated pine bough and “fireplace”, made a Christmas dinner of slow-cooked baby back ribs, mashed potatoes, green beans, and cranberry sauce, drove around town at nightfall to see the Christmas lights in a few nearby neighborhoods, called our families to wish them a Merry Christmas, and finished the day with more kiss cookies and a mug of hot mulled firebowl wine while we unwound with a few episodes of Big Bang Theory.

It was cozy and quiet and we were together – which is, quite frankly, exactly what we both wanted the most for Christmas.

I have a whole post with lots of pictures coming up next week about our little mountain escape but, until then, here’s a sneak peek from our cozy little Christmas.

Happy holidays!