Holidays at home

The Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree, New York City

I am blogging from my mom’s place in Jersey!  A little town called Hackensack.  I loved growing up here! 🙂 We are just a few miles away from New York City.  As a kid, I’d take the bus into the city with a few friends and we’d just walk and walk.  It was a total blast!  Especially at the holidays.  I haven’t gotten a chance to come home in about four years, so this was really great! 🙂

My sweet grandmother is going to be NINETY this year!  I got a chance to have Christmas dinner with her. It was amazing! 🙂  No one gives hugs like a grandma!  That’s for sure! 🙂  God has been really good to keep her with me this long!  Love her so much! 🙂

Tamara & her lovely grandmother

My Christmas visit also included visits with some dear friends of our family.  My mom’s best friend Susie comes from a large and lovely Italian family.  If you are Italian…you know what I mean! 🙂 Good times and good FOOD! 🙂  When I was a teenager, I looked out for each of her boys and her sweet daughter.  Even though we’re all a bit older…we are still pretty tight every time I get a chance to hang with them!  I love this picture because it was the first time I’d gotten to experience snow in about five years! 🙂  So fun! 🙂

Here I am with Peter, John, Drew and David!  Isn’t John’s little guy just as cute as can be?? 🙂

On my last night home, I got a chance to hang out with two of the best cousins ever! 😉  Now…lemme tell you…as the youngest of the cousins,  I was pretty spoiled for the most part growing up.  Both Tysone and César doted on me all the time!  I absolutely adore them!  So…imagine my luck at having the whole afternoon in the city with them!  Good times for sure! 🙂

Here we are at the 9/11 Memorial

Tysone & I at the 9/11 Memorial. (Now, we are close, but don’t get it twisted people…it was DARN COLD TOO! We were SURVIVING out there!!! 🙂

The lower Manhattan buildings and the Memorial

César, Tysone & I at the Memorial

Here we are at the tree!  Now…why this random person I asked to photograph us did NOT get the whole tree in here kind of irritates me, but…it is, what it IS! :/