A very merry

I hope that everyone is enjoying their holiday season and is excited for 2012 to begin. My Christmas was filled with family, gingerbread, Love Actually, and beautiful decorations. On Christmas Eve we engaged in the typical Italian tradition of eating seven kinds of fish (my mom tells me that this is for the seven sacraments) and watched It's a Wonderful Life, one of my favorite movies. I made a special holiday dispensation to my vegetarianism in order to eat the shrimp, calamari, crab dip flounder, baked clams, scallops and lobster tail. So much fish.

Here I am with my sister, Lauren, before mass on Christmas Eve:



On Christmas day, my family from Burlington came over. My cousins and I had a day of Harry Potter and endless snacking before the feast. After this we left for Long Island to visit both sides of my family. While on Long Island, Lauren and I went running on the beach. This is a change of atmosphere from the snowy mountains of New York and Vermont:



We used to live here! With my sister, Lauren:



Now, everyone should see this. My grandma made my mom drive in crazy Long Island traffic to observe the decorations on this house. They even rented out a radio station that makes the lights dance (I still don't understand how this works).



It was great to see so many members of my family (and the bagels and eggplant parmesan were great too!). I wish everyone a happy and healthy 2012!