How many holiday parties is too many holiday parties?

Hey guys, I hope that you are all having a great weekend and for those of you who are officially on vacations for the Christmas holiday -- woohoo!! Enjoy it, people :)

As I mentioned earlier, I am officially on vacation now but I still have had some work to do.  But, it's okay, and I've had a fun few days.  On Wednesday night I had my team's holiday dinner for work, which was really fun and involved a lot of delicious food.  We ate at a restaurant in Saratoga called the Crown Grill, which recently had some attention when Oprah had a surprise visit to the Capital Region and ate there.  I ordered the duck, because that's something that is a bit different for me and something I would never make for myself.  It was good, but by the time it arrived, I was already so full from the appetizers and pre-main meal foods.  One of which really stole the show for me, which was the butternut squash soup.  It was so creamy and flavorful and absolutely delicious and I'm sure ten million calories.

Thursday morning I did my best to burn off the soup and everything else I ate with a 4 mile run at the gym and a Tough Mudder workout with my friends.  However, things got unhealthy once again when work had a gingerbread cookie decorating party!

I love cookies, frosting, and candy so I had a lot of fun eating decorating the cookies :)  There were even little bags that you could wrap up the cookies and save them for later, so I made a TON of cookies and brought them to my next stop of the day -- which was happy hour with my friends.  I gave out the cookies and think people really appreciated my beautiful decoration skills!  One friend went to eat the cookie on the way home and sent me the following text message that made me laugh.

I don't know what he was talking about because I think that cookie is beautiful :)

Oh, and did I mention that the cookie decorating party was an ugly sweater party?  It was quite fun to see all my coworkers in their craziest Christmas getups and even more fun to see the strange looks I got when I left the party and went to happy hour wearing my sweater (notice the red tights too, haha)

So, Thursday was a unhealthy fun day that I kept going as I went into Friday.  I did a quick 3 mile run on the morning before heading off to meet my friends at the spa!  We had a great day planned consisting of a morning at the spa, lunch, and Christmas shopping.  Now, I can't share the details of the Christmas shopping as my friends and family read this here blog, but it sure was a fun day!  How could it not be, when it included these things?

I know the first picture is dark, but that is of the baths in Saratoga Springs, which I've written about a few times before.  Followed by a "Brussel Sprout Breakfast Pizza" from Max London's.  And the one (of two...) bottle of Prosecco, which was happily enjoyed with lunch (and made pulling out the credit card for Christmas shopping, slightly easier!)  How could that not be a great day??

Oh, and in case you are wondering, I ate that entire pizza.  It was delicious.  It made me laugh too because recently when I was in New York City with friends, we all had a massive debate about whether or not some of the girls could eat an entire NYC pizza.  I have no doubt in my mind that I could eat an entire large cheese pizza.  It's not even a question for me.  I could 100% do it.  I argued this as well as a friend Ashley.  Her husband and some of the other people at the party called us on it and we were pretty close to ordering pies for us to take on the challenge, but it never got to that point :)  Doesn't change my mind that I could 100% do it though!!

Friday night I spent with some handsome fellows playing Cards Against Humanity.  I finally ordered it for myself off of Amazon and I am obsessed with playing it! We had so much fun and so many laughs sitting around, drinking beers and playing on Friday night.

Saturday I was feeling pretty lazy after a late night of laughing and drinking too many beers with the guys, but I got my 1 mile run for the Runner's World Run Streak plus a mini strength workout.  Despite having missed two days while I had strep throat, I have been really good about keeping the streak going!  I spent the rest of Saturday at another holiday gathering and now, in the blink of an eye it's Sunday again. 

I did a 5 mile run, per my marathon training plan, and will be heading out to another holiday party this afternoon!  This one is a cookie swap, so yesterday I prepared some of the cookies that I made earlier this week.  Remember how I mentioned that they were so simple so I was excited?  Yeah, well, I still managed to screw these up and had to trash 2/3 of the cookies I made.  Seriously, I am missing some sort of gene and I just cannot bake.  However, I've got an okay looking stash and am looking forward to spending the afternoon with friends! 

Beforehand I have to brave the malls for some more last minute shopping, which will likely be terrifying, but all part of the holiday fun I guess!

Happy weekend everyone :)

Oh, and P.S.  Friday was my sister's birthday and I shared this photo of the two of us on Facebook.  Happy Birthday Nikki!!!