JILL'S CHRISTMAS IN LOS ANGELES

This past year has been one for the books and I luckily got to round off 2013 with a week long trip to Los Angeles for Christmas! My brother moved there this summer, so my family and I flew out there to celebrate the holidays. Los Angeles is seriously one of my favorite places and I'd love to live there one day... you never know!

LA nights are my favorite.
Photo by Adam Badlotto.

Anyone who has been to LA knows that the weather is perfect, so it was lovely to spend Christmas Eve and Christmas not sweating in Florida or freezing in Chicago! After shipping all of our gifts to California, we got a small tree and decorated it with bows and streamers, and hung our stockings, making it the perfect home away from home for the holidays.

The garden to our rented place.

Our mini Christmas tree was the perfect size!

Stuffed tomatos I made for Christmas Eve (recipe here).

Gifts!

On Christmas Eve, we cooked at our place with my family and new LA friends. After opening gifts on Christmas, we headed to downtown Los Angeles to check out the city and eat dinner (and eat, and eat) at this amazing restaurant Shojin.

Downtown LA.

Downtown LA art.

What's better than sushi? Sushi on fire.

The main dish.

And how cute is the gift my brother gave his girlfriend? His name is Teddy and was rescued from teenage boys who would take their cigarettes and burn them out on him. Luckily the rescue group CatPAWS took wonderful care of him and he's now a part of our family! 

Isn't he the cutest?

We did a ton of stuff while I was in LA, from hiking (almost) up to the Hollywood sign to biking Santa Monica and Venice Beach. But the most memorable part of the trip was making a late night stop to Shamrock Social Club, where I got my first tattoo! 

But I must admit, going to Disneyland was a very close second.

And of course while I was there I took advantage of the great weather (and my very artistic brother) and did some outfit shoots. They'll be posted soon!

How did you spend the holidays?

x Jill