Recently, I've been posing this question to friends: what are your favorite Christmas traditions?

Most of mine are fairly simple, and mostly food-related. I love going home at Christmas and making food with my family. My sister gave my dad an ebelskivers pan for Christmas and we made those for the first time--Nutella filled? Yes please.

South Jersey is also home to many people of Italian or Italian-American descent, and my mom usually brings home a box of homemade pizzelles from one of her colleagues at work. YUM. (They are widely available in south Jersey/Philly, but even better when homemade; these make me nostalgic for the area where I grew up.)

Some of my other favorite foods to make at Christmastime are: Gingerbread waffles - this recipe

and Gingerbread spice Dutch baby - Smitten Kitchen Cookbook (recipe online here).

above: Christmas decorations in Madrid's Plaza del Sol (Those chandeliers were amazing!) and below: Christmas decorations in London--love; below that: NuSkin's Christmas lights are always stunning.

M and I went to the Mormon Tabernacle Choir Christmas concert and enjoyed the lights on Temple Square and some hot chocolate at Hatch--the best. (I just learned my sister Lauren has NEVER BEEN to see the Christmas lights at Temple Square! What?! How?!)

And of course, I love when friends come to town for the holidays and we can meet up. I hope your Christmas was a happy one.