I am so content right now. 

Yesterday, I hosted my SEVENTH cookie swap. It’s a tradition I started in 2010, and I’ve also now hosted it in three different apartments…and a gym. And last year, the best friends in the world threw me a surprise cookie swap because they knew how important it was to me, but that I wasn’t in the place to host one myself.

This year, with a bigger apartment, and a bit more stability in life, I was ready to host at my own place! Knowing myself and that I’d have a ton of random last-minute errands to do on Saturday morning, I ordered everything on Amazon Prime Now (god bless that app) and Fresh Direct and had tons of boxes in my apartment Friday night.

Everything…except nonpareil sprinkles, which are weirdly hard to find in NYC. And real flour. (But plenty of gluten free stuff…that didn’t work in the recipe I was trying.)

So, Saturday morning I got me some real flour, dropped off Bailey at doggie day care (he doesn’t party well), went to the gym, and went back to the drawing board with the cookies. (Thankfully my original recipe turned out just fine!)

Meg and Lacey came over early to help, and they were the best elves in the world. We made quick work of transforming my apartment into a festive wonderland.

Things you probably didn’t know about me: I have a serious Etsy problem. I bought these bags and the woman even personalized them free!

For other non-cookie food, I just did some charcuterie, cheese and pigs in a blanket.

I bought a crap-ton of wine, and also made this sangria recipe. Several hours in, one of my friends asked if she could “cook the sangria.” She wanted to try to make mulled wine. It wasn’t quite mulled wine, but it was warm and flavorful…so there’s that.

I had about 20-25 people total, and it made me so, so happy to have all of my favorite people in one place celebrating my favorite season.

Coworker love!

Melissa totally wins for festive attire. (Although I do love my “fancy” llama sweater.)

10/10, would cookie again.

What’s your favorite Christmas cookie? And what’s your favorite holiday tradition you’ve created for yourself as an adult?

OK, so nothing will be as far beyond my fitness comfort zone as dancing with the Rockettes, but I went pretty far outside of my comfort zone the other morning for another dance class.

 

A video posted by Theodora Blanchfield (@theodorable) onDec 6, 2016 at 5:57am PST

Apparently, I don’t always dance, but when I do it’s with Target?!

Anna Kaiser, who runs AKT, a dance fitness studio, is collaborating with Target for a sweet new athleisure line, so they had an event to showcase the collection. I’ve been LIVING in my Target leggings since the Rockette event, so this is super exciting news.

But also happy hour is my happy hour.

No piece in the collection will be more than $41.99, AND AKT will be offering classes at several Target stores in Atlanta, Houston, LA and NYC. 

But you wanna hear about the class, right?

The 60-minute “happy hour” class — GOOD GOD. I’m in decent shape, and man oh man, was this humbling.

For one, I have zero moves. This is likely not surprising to any of you. Plus, I was battling some sinus crap and my equilibrium was a little (more than usual) off, so that was fun.

The class is mostly dance, but I loved that there were also several strength and plyo songs mixed in. And when I say dance, I mean super freaking high intensity dance. This not-super-sweaty girl was DRENCHED.

Although I felt like a fool for 94% of the time, I gave up caring and just danced. Was I at all coordinated? Could I keep up? NOPE. But I was really so bad it was comical to me, and any time I caught Ashley’s eye in the mirror, I couldn’t help but laugh.

10/10, would dance again.

Fave athleisure line? Dance cardio: yay or nay?