sleigh bells ring, are you listening?

Home is so close, I can feel it. I have been a major slacker, or maybe just consumed with so much school work as the semester has wrapped up to blog. I must give credit to my mother for the last entry which was so beautifully written. I cannot believe tomorrow after my last and final exam of the week (the fifth one this week, might I add) that the semester is over. It feels like just yesterday we moved in and had our first meal together.

I cannot contain my excitement to be home for break, so many things to look forward to. I am to the point of counting down the hours and the thought of not having to look at an educational book for a whole month and to not have a care in the world for a month for the first time since the beginning of the semester is just so exciting.

The holiday season is my favorite time of the year, hands down. The fact that it is blustering cold and snowing constantly is outweighed by the happiness and love that is all around. Speaking of ridiculous amounts of snow...that was what we experienced last week. Talk about awful. We were basically snowed in, minus the fact that good ole' Syracuse insisted that we still have class. Digging out our cars was a real treat, but on the bright side we got to play in the snow as we did it! Being snowed could of worked to our benefit, our cupboards were stocked of 6 pounds of coffee and three bottles of wine, it's suffice to say we would of been perfectly fine being snowed in! Being home during the whole month of December would be ideal, I love the feel and the look with all the decorations and the tree and the smell of cookies baking. Of course, we have had our share of baking despite how busy we have been.


The day we came back from Thanksgiving break up went the tree and all the decorations to get into the holiday spirit (I think we all wished Thanksgiving break to be over quick so we could come back and decorate!)

We also had a Christmas party which to say was a blast would be an understatement. We of course baked up a storm because what good Christmas party doesn't have cookies?!

 First we made Candy Bar Shortbread Squares (because we always have SO much candy and we thought it'd be perfect to slim down the candy drawer a bit)

We added some red and green m&m's which consisted of us buying five bags of regular m&m's and sorting them during the commercials of gossip girl but going to the real store was out of the question so we had to deal.

These were delicious, you can put any type of candy you want, of course we had to opt out of any peanut butter kinds because of me but I still think they turned out okay :)

 So they might not be the prettiest of cookies, but we tried. I'm not sure we even tried these, but just gave them right away because at this point it this was our third batch of cookies of the evening and the amount of dough and cookies we had consumed was getting to be excessive.

 Smores are my ultimate favorite, if you give me anything smores I'll be a happy camper. When we came across this recipe I knew we had to make them. They were divine and fun to make!

I almost forgot! Mariah and Emily took over the kitchen one evening and made me dinner! It was so nice not to have to cook, and they even waited on me hand and foot!

One of the most delicious drinks we were introduced to here was butter beer. It is butterscotch schnapps with cream soda, oh my is it tasty! We of course had this the night of the Harry Potter premier in favor of the movie. We also found butterscotch schnapps makes a perfect addition to hot chocolate at night which soon became a nighttime favorite.















This semester was by far one of the best times of my life, I have friends and memories that I will never forget. I am so thankful that this is where I am and that life is wonderful. I am one of the luckiest people alive and I would not change anything.

Being apart from my roommates will be difficult, Mariah left last night and I think we've called her, texted her, facebooked her a million times since she left. I am so very grateful that I get the pleasure of living with two of my best friends. Although we are just coming up on our one year mark in January I feel like I have known them forever. They are two of the most wonderful people and there is never a dull moment in this apartment.

On a different note, I AM SO EXCITED TO BE REUNITED WITH MY FAVORITE PEOPLE. One of my very bestest friends decided it was a grand idea to go college on the other side of the world..well Nebraska but it might as well be the other side of the world, and she does not come home until Christmas every year. Needless to say I am counting down the seconds until she gets home and tal is reunited again. Although I did see Al over Thanksgiving break it was just not enough, break was so short and once Tess, Al and myself are reunited I will be the happiest camper, ever.