Christmas in California

This year the holidays looked different for most, but I feel very fortunate to have been able to spend time with both my mother and Justin’s family. Now that we’re married, we’re planning to switch off doing Thanksgiving and Christmas with our families each year, so this year we did Thanksgiving in Michigan and Christmas in California. My mom flew out and we drove down to Salinas the day before Christmas Eve and spent a few days bubbling with Justin’s family. As my first Christmas not in Michigan and away from the rest of my family, it felt a little strange at first, but my mom and I soon felt right at home in the welcoming glow of the Mylanders and their Christmas traditions.

Typically Justin and his high school friends play an annual Christmas Eve game of football (this would have been their 19th year!), but we nixed that for obvious reasons this year in favor of a socially distanced meetup at a local beach where we ate tacos and exchanged holiday wishes through our masks. A true California Christmas, if I do say so. While it was definitely a California way to spend a holiday, it was not warm, thus my Grammie’s coat was a great call for temperature reasons and also to bring me another little piece of home. Here’s my look from our day at the beach.

For Christmas Eve, even though it was super casual and just the immediate family, I still felt like dressing up. This dress caught my attention last December while at one of my favorite SF boutiques, Isalis, but I just couldn’t justify the price point. I never forgot about it though, and just before Thanksgiving a few weeks ago, Isalis was having an end of year sale and I popped in just to see if the dress might still, against all odds, be there a year later. Not only was it there, but it was the very last one, happened to be in my size AND it was marked down about 80% off. I mean, sometimes it pays to just wait it out.