“There are years that ask questions and years that answer.”

— Zora Neale Hurston, Their Eyes Were Watching God

I hope 2015 was a year that asked questions, because I don't have very much room for any more uncertainty these days.

2015 was a bad year.

• My parents split up and moved out of the house that used to be one of my favorite places in the world.
• Rob and I were in a car accident.
• My mom got cancer and had two surgeries.
• I took a step back from blogging and came back uninspired; feeling like I was flailing about in a sea of uncertainty while my peers raced ahead steadily.
• I tested positive for a BRCA gene mutation that increases my risk of breast cancer up to 84%.

And yet, it was a good one, too.

• We rescued a puppy and fell in love with him (as I'm sure you could tell from his ridiculous first birthday party).
• I was invited to speak at my alma mater about creating an unconventional job with an English degree, which I will always look back on as the first big honor of my career.
• We celebrated our first year of marriage in a city that finally feels like home.
• I teamed up with Courtney of Sweet C's Designs to pitch my first really huge blogging project and found myself on a sponsored trip to California to put our plans in action.
• We made a handful of really great friends and managed to maintain some old traditions in new ways--including sushi and bowling the day after Thanksgiving and a Love Actually girls night after a visit to a local holiday market.

I'm looking forward to so many new things in 2016--more travel, reading a ton of books, studying Spanish again, learning a few new skills (I have my heart set on hand lettering), and hopefully less heartbreak.

We all have so much to be thankful for, don't we?

“Happiness can be found, even in the darkest of times, if one only remembers to run on the light.”

— J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban

Happy New Year, friends.

Sometimes I find the week after Christmas to be even more magical than the holiday itself. Lots of people are still off work, and it's kind of the calm between two storms. Christmas has come and gone and we're in the few days before the new year that always make me look back on the past year with some reflection while simultaneously looking forward to the year ahead with determination.

This week I will be taking down our Christmas decorations, cleaning our apartment, finally throwing away the last of the clothes I never wear, and sitting down to make some resolutions for 2016. There will also be burgers and cocktails and cozy breakfasts at home, despite the 70+ degree days we've been having lately.

Between the weather and my family and the move, it didn't really feel like Christmas to me this year. But it definitely feels like time for a new year.

Merry Christmas, darling.

Christmas is this week, which means New Year's Eve is just around the corner! This year I wanted to post some ideas for an easy at-home New Year's Eve celebration, complete with small plates (so you don't have to cook) and a super simple photo booth backdrop, because it's not a party without a photo booth! 

Rob and I tested it all out last weekend because I just love you guys so much, and I wanted to be sure everything went according to plan.

We poured La Crema's Sonoma Coast Chardonnay and Pinot Noir, as well as their Monterey Pinot Gris, which paired really well with a wide variety of small bites like smoked salmon and charcuterie. I personally love a meal composed of tapas, so this is perfect--and since New Year's Eve parties tend to be later in the evening, I think you can get away with serving less food since most people will just be snacking. 

You can very easily make your own photo booth backdrop with a poster board and some tissue paper--check out the full tutorial over on the La Crema blog! I used some festive metallic tissue paper that I think feels very New Years-y.

This was my first time using a selfie stick and it's my new favorite thing. Rob and I were totally cracking up! And I don't know about you, but I'm not usually one to print out photos, so I just popped the photo booth shots into a collage maker so we could still get that quintessential photo booth strip. Don't forget the props! It's not a photo booth without a big fake mustache.

What are your New Year's Eve plans this year? If you make a photo booth for your party, let me know--I want to see pictures! (And don't forget to visit the La Crema blog for my full New Year's Eve menu and photo booth DIY tutorial.

This is a sponsored conversation written by me on behalf of La Crema. The opinions and text are all mine.

Photos by Rémy Thurston for Freckled Italian.