Holiday Season 2025
While we didn’t start with major plans for Thanksgiving or Christmas, we ended up with a fairly busy holiday season! With two visits to Idaho Falls and family coming to visit us twice in Phoenix, we had plenty to keep us busy. 😊
Thanksgiving
Our first drive to Idaho Falls of the season was smooth, only hitting some dense fog as we approached the Idaho border. Plus, driving for 28 hours means we made great progress listening to a new audiobook series, He Who Fights With Monsters.
While it wasn’t totally intentional, this week turned out to be full of family. This meant we had plenty of time to visit with everyone we don’t get to see often, which was great! Granted, the extra 4 dogs across 2 houses were a lot. We happily escaped to our hotel each night to avoid allergies and chaos 😉.
On the Weil side, Nathan’s brother and sister-in-law drove out from Chicago to spend the holiday with his parents.
On the White side, my brother and sister-in-law were in the process of moving to Idaho Falls from Seattle, and my sister decided to drive up at the last minute, so we had everyone together for the first time in years!
During the week, we spent the day working remotely, and then split the evenings between the families, trying new restaurants like the new Indian restaurant, Himalayan Flavor, playing games, or BIL had Nathan try pickleball for the first time.
Nathan and I were also able to join a few walks around the river and see some of the lights and decorations they had set up for Christmas.
Unfortunately, Thanksgiving didn’t quite go as planned. I volunteered to cook to ensure my mother-in-law didn’t have to stress about it, but we were hosting at their house. This meant we were going to have 15 people over for dinner between both families.
By the time we got there at 6-7 am to start the turkey, BIL and SIL had already left to drive home early in order to avoid a storm that was scheduled to hit the Midwest. Then my brother and his family decided not to join because my niece was sick and they didn’t want to spread anything to the rest of the family.
So what started as 15 ended up being 8, which made eating at the kitchen table a little easier, but we ended up with way too much food.
Granted, I think you always end up with too much food on Thanksgiving. 😉
(Thanks, Kym, for taking the picture!)
Christmas
In December, Nathan’s aunt from Denver came to visit for a few days, which was great to see and visit with her. We ended up going to Phoenix Zoo Lights and enjoyed a “cool” (we at least had to wear jackets) Phoenix winter evening along with pretty lights.
For Christmas, we decided to make things nice and complicated. We wanted to make sure Nathan’s parents had family around, so 4 weeks after driving to Idaho Falls, we turned around and did it again! But to make things complicated, my parents wanted to visit my sister for the holiday. So we left the day after Christmas and drove down to Phoenix with them, and they flew home before New Year’s.
Our week in Idaho Falls was great! We were able to do a few more things we didn’t catch over Thanksgiving, like Cafe Sabor and Geraldine’s cinnamon rolls. Plus, we had a quiet week to visit with Nathan’s parents and help them with various things around the house.
Once we were back in Phoenix, we had fun with a few different things.
First, we went to our first drag show! It was Schitt’s Creek themed, and not AT ALL what we expected 😂. We thought it would be more comedy-based, but it turned out to be a PG-13 strip show, dance thing? I guess. We aren’t really sure. 😂 To be clear, these photos were mild moments of the show.
After that, we went a little more wholesome and went to the Arizona Broadway Theatre for dinner and a show. We saw A Christmas Story and enjoyed the themed dinner and snacks to go along with it.
Next year, we want to do a little bit more around Christmas to really get in the mood for the holidays, but we were still happy with how the 2025 holiday season ended.
Happy Holidays!
