We are in Kentucky this week to celebrate Christmas with my family, spending our days putting the finishing touches on Christmas gifts, sitting around in piles on the couch, and reading embarrassingly bad teen pop fiction in front of the fire. Ok, that last part is just me — it’s my vacation addiction.

I feel like every time I have popped in here to write lately it has been all WE ARE TRAVELING or LIFE IS AWFUL or CHRISTMAS IS MY FAVORITE. I promise we really have done other things this month, normal non-blog worthy things like finish up student grades, try to keep our rug vacuumed from pine needles, and wrap up final papers. We also polished off some Trader Joe’s gingerbread dough. I’ve also photographed some really cute babies and families, and I hope to eventually get some of those up here.

In the meantime, I am retroactively blogging some images from a couple weeks ago, when we had a drizzly cold December Saturday. My brother and his girlfriend came up from Charlottesville and we enjoyed the coziest of DC offerings: lunch inside Union Market, an afternoon spent at the National Gallery, and dinner back at our home in front of the fireplace (Netflix Fireplace For Your Home – but only ever Season 1 episode 2). And obviously, there were donuts that they brought from my favorite Charlottesville donut shop. Nothing dramatic, nothing crazy, everything cozy.

I hope that all of you, no matter how much the season has been, have enjoyed some cozy moments like these!