Spritz Cookies and Yoga Pants.

"What are you doing for Christmas?" my Seattle friends, coworkers, or volunteers at work would ask. 

"I get to go home to my parent's house!" 

That elicited 3 types of responses. 

"Oh, Minnesota! How fun."

"Oh, Colorado! Beautiful there I bet!" 

"Oh, South Dakota! How nice." 

Many of them just hear bits and pieces of my story so yes, it gets a little confusing. 

I get it. 

"Well my parents and I are from Minnesota, but they retired 3 years ago and moved to South Dakota, and I moved to Denver for just a year, but now I live in Seattle." 

Keep up, people ;)

So this year I get to spend Christmas in Spearfish, South Dakota. For both my parents and I, this will be the very first Christmas away from Thief River. And as sad as that is...this is their forecast this week. 

A HIGH of -8? Confession: I sort of brag about how cold it gets "where I grew up" but I didn't know any different when I was a kid. And I knew how to layer up. The more you looked like a Goodyear blimp, the better. If you try to be all cute and fashionable in northern Minnesota winter weather, you will die. 

Or you'll at least be made fun of. 

But I won't get to experience the Minnesota cold this Christmas. Which I'm kind of okay with because....now I'm kind of a wimp. Seeing extended family always trumps eyelash-freezing temperatures, yes. And holiday traditions are precious. 

But as parents retire and relocate, as grandparents get older, get sick, or pass away, as children grow up, sometimes old traditions become memories by necessity. To take their place, new "firsts" may eventually become new traditions. 

My mom and I just tried our hand at making my grandma's Spritz cookies in the name of keeping some sort of tradition. We don't have a cookie press so we improvised with a Ziplock bag. We ended up with delicious tasting Spritz cookies...that looked like piles of dog poop. 

Of course it was my dad who pointed that out, we all laughed but he still ate about 5 of them. I now secretly hope she never buys a cookie press :) 

Speaking of dog poop, we also took our friends' dog on a walk this morning. Yep, it's cold here too but not nearly as bad and the scenery gets me every time. 

So this is only Day 3 of my 10 days in Spearfish. Josh flies out here on the 26th so I have until then to be super lazy and not wear makeup and wear yoga pants every day. 

And when he gets here...let's be honest, I won't change a thing because it's Christmas vacation!!!