For Christmas my family usually goes to Delaware to visit my mom’s parents. They have this plastic tree with tinsel that lights up and changes color at the very ends and a ceramic town to go underneath it. It’s pretty cute.

We rarely go anywhere besides home for Christmas - the most recent travel I can remember is sometime in early elementary school when I went upstate to visit my grandparents (mom's dad and stepmom). The rest of the time, we've just had quiet celebrations on our own! The big festivities actually happen during our winter solstice party, an annual event that we host. Most of the people invited are from a particular friend group - middle-aged parents with kids my age that we go camping with over the summer, we're all pretty close. It involves the adults socializing, the kids hiding downstairs and watching Netflix/playing video games, and a "jam session" where we sing carols and other winter-related songs. It's a lot of fun.

This year we actually are going somewhere, though! For the first time in forever. We're flying to California to visit my dad's side of the family - my grandparents have visited here a few times, but I haven't been to CA in three years, so it'll be nice to see everyone! (and finally meet their dog!) Of course, it means no chance of a white Christmas, but I can deal. xD 

Well, yesterday we were going to drive up to my uncle's house for the last night of Hannukah, but we got sixteen inches of snow! We fell in a ditch about a block out of our neighborhood. Fortunately my dad is a good driver and managed to drive out of the ditch again, but we decided not to risk driving after that and went home, very slowly. Then the car got stuck in the driveway and we had to dig it out! The snow was really bad for the roads, because on top it was super fluffy and powdery, and underneath it was slick and slushy. So now we're all hanging out at home. But sixteen inches is insane for Virginia! I've never seen this much snow here and I've lived here for fourteen years!

Our older sister, Twirlgirl, and I went to Orlando! We flew JetBlue, which was good, and spent one day at Universal. Harry Potter World was rather awesome.

We rarely travel for Christmas, but if often works out that we have to travel somewhere right after Christmas. Two years ago it was my sisters wedding. (My brother and his wife had a baby the day before we left, so it was an exciting late December/early January.) Last year it was a friends wedding (Which was a 24 hour drive one way. We had to stop on the way out because it was snowing so hard we couldn't see more than a few feet ahead of the car. On the way back we drove the entire night through. We stopped at a gas station and got pizza at 2:00 in the morning. It was both awesome and terrible) This year I'm leaving for a band trip the day after Christmas. Florida here we come! The band is going to Disney World and Universal studios, and it's gonna be The B e s t. (Harry Potter World! I get to go to Harry Potter World!)