THE LOOP
Olivia

H O L I D A Y 🎄 F O O D

As the years have passed, our Christmas traditions have definitely evolved, but a few key things have stayed the same. For example, my brother still tries to wake me up before 8am 🙅‍♀️ We also still have to wait at the end of the hall for my parents to give us the go-ahead before we can come out and see the stockings and tree, and we have specific Santa mugs that we only use on Christmas morning.

 

My family LOVES food though, so a lot of our traditions revolve around specific foods that we only have at Christmas. Every year, my dad makes prime rib on Christmas Eve, and on Christmas morning we have Monte Cristo sandwiches, which are deep fried ham/turkey/cheese sandwiches that you dust with powdered sugar and eat with jam 🙊I understand that this sounds incredibly whack (I thought so too), but ~wow~ it's so good. I look forward to them all year!

 

🎁🎄☃️🦌🎅🤶🎁🎄☃️🦌🎅🤶🎁🎄☃️🦌🎅🤶

Spencer

It's a Bird, It's a Plane, It's Rudolph?

For the most part my family doesn't have any abnormal traditions for the holidays. However I have a memory of my parents tricking my younger sister and I about Santa and Rudolph.

On Christmas Eve every year we drive to the Bay Area to be with my Dad's side of the family and we drive home the same night really late to be home for Christmas Day. 

As a kid, until a probably embarrassing age, my parents used to tell us that the blinking lights in the sky were actually Rudolph's nose lighting the way for Santa and his sleigh. I believed this wholeheartedly and my parents must've had answers planned out because when I got a little smarter I started asking questions. One of which was how there could be more than one light in the sky since there is only one Rudolph. They explained that the reindeer just actually fly that fast since they have such limited time to deliver all the presents. This blew my mind and like many people I thought reindeer were made up animals until an embarrassingly old age. 

Not that crazy of a story but a holiday memory I'll always have and plan on using for my future kids. I'm sure this is more common than just my family, or else my parents were extremely quick on the draw answering all of my questions! 

 

 

Brenda

New Years at the Redwoods

Not entirely sure if the following will count as holiday-themed but I figured I can somehow make it work since it did occur on a New Year's weekend. 
Back in 2016, on December 30, after debating on what to do for New Year's weekend, Andrew and I decided to drive up to see the Redwoods. We said, "What the hell, we live in Sacramento now and we've never been closer to the Redwoods than we are now." It was our first New Year's in Sacramento since we'd moved from LA and didn't have too many options to even consider. Anyways, it turned out to be the best decision EVER! 
I wish I could describe it but some things are better experienced than described. What I will say is that they are incredibly beautiful and full of awe. Standing there, in complete silence, admiring their beauty, you can't help but let your mind wander and appreciate the beauty you're surrounded by. 
Now, the major pro about going to the Redwoods on New Years' weekend is that you get to experience them with hardly anyone around. We only saw one person while we were there and it was only for a minute. There's, of course, many different trails and paths you can take/explore but not even hearing cars go by or the distant chatter you would likely run into if you were there any other day was like no other. Being able to walk miles deep into the Redwoods and experience it as if you were the only two people on Earth is something I will never forget.