I had a great pre-Christmas weekend, although it made it very hard to go back to work this morning. On Saturday I got all of my Christmas shopping done and wrapped everything. I love wrapping presents and watching Love Actually made it even more fun! They are all under the tree now and are ready to be packed for Utah.

Saturday night was the 4th annual Christmas party that my friends upstairs throw. Each year is better than the last, although notably more tame as we get older. ;) I made these cheesecake stuffed strawberries which were a big hit.  Find the recipe here. They are so simple.

The not so fun part of the weekend was getting the battery in my car replaced. It’s been slowly dying for a couple weeks and I wanted to get it taken care of before I left it sitting for a week while I’m away for Christmas. They were very helpful at Autozone, and I paid more than I wanted to, but they installed it for me since I didn’t have a clue how to!

And the perfect ending to the weekend was doing our usual drive through Highland Park to look at all of the beautiful (and often over the top!) lights. We made a stop at Starbucks and got apple ciders and then drove through the neighborhood for an hour while listening to a Christmas Pandora station. One of my favorite Christmas traditions!

Now just three more days of work and then I’m headed west for some skiing with my family for six days. I just love this time of year.