Merry Christmas.

Is it just me or did Christmas come up so fast? I feel like I was running through the summer heat not that long ago! Anyway, I hope you all have a great Christmas!

Chris left on Friday to visit his family, so Thursday night we cooked dinner together and exchanged presents. I got him a jersey and shirt of his favorite German soccer team and he gave me a bunch of my favorite Trader Joe’s items (!!) and this, a race medal display!! I am THRILLED because my bibs and medals have been scattered all throughout my apartment. I finally have a place to hang them.

Saturday my sister and I decided to do some last minute shopping. We avoided the malls and headed over to Troy! We started with brunch at Xs to Os vegan bakery…one of my favorite local places.

Their brunch on Saturday was gingerbread pancakes with apple crumble topping and home made vegan whipped topping, black bean cakes, and sweet potatoes.

The gingerbread pancakes were so tasty…especially with the warm apple crumble.

After brunch, we wandered around the streets of downtown Troy, admiring the Christmas decorations. I’ll take shopping in Troy over the mall, any day.

We stopped in a bunch of shops to look around and I discovered this painting.

Nearly identical, no?

After our excursion to Troy, we met up with our friend Brendan and hung out for a while at my place until dinner time. We wanted pizza so we decided on Smith’s Tavern, a great pizza place in Voorheesville, about 15 minutes from Albany. I was shocked when they had a local beer on Tap–the Davidson Brother’s Brown Ale.

It was pretty good. Brendan and I split the Christmas Pizza, a special they had on the menu. It was a white sauce pizza with tomatoes, cheddar, olives and broccoli. It was VERY good, as always. Smitty’s never disappoints.

Yesterday was pretty low key, too. I went to the gym in the AM for some Body Pump, followed by yoga–then got ready to head to my grandma’s where I got to spend time with family. It was great!

Hope you all have a great holiday! 😀

{in case anyone is wondering, Chris got the race medal display from this shop on Etsy}