In this vlog, Katika Shears documents a weekālong family Christmas trip to Michigan, a tradition that involves a fiveāhour roadātrip from their Canadian home. The vlog opens with holiday greetings and explains the annual visit to cousins. The family explores U.S. Costco and Trader Joeās, highlighting unique snacks like True Bars, churros, spicy tortilla chips, peanut butter, and cookie butter. They take a forest walk with relatives. On Christmas morning they play a numbered giftāexchange game, open presentsāincluding a Lego set that they assemble into a peacockāand conduct a macaroon taste test, praising the soft, flavorful version from Costco. The vlog then showcases a detailed Christmas haul: a large stress ball, a gingerbread ornament, an Octobuddy phone mount, camera batteries, an Aquariusāthemed necklace, Starbucks and hotāchocolate gift cards, German gingerbread cookies, and dark chocolate from Trader Joeās. Breakfast is spent watching the TV series Suits, and a cousin receives a Dyson heatāless hair curler, prompting a discussion of a sockāstyle curling trend. Evening entertainment includes watching Squid Game Season 2 and anticipation for Season 3. The next day they walk in a rainy waterfront town, eat several Chicagoāstyle pizzas with diverse toppings, and edit the vlog. The final day features packing, a farewell, and a teaser for the upcoming āInternship in BCā series documenting her fourāmonth move to Vancouver Island. Throughout, the tone remains upbeat, personal, and conversational, emphasizing family bonds, holiday traditions, and excitement for future adventures.
Chapters
Merry Christmas, everyone! Happy holidays!
Go!
Hey everyone, in this vlog my family and I are going to visit our cousins in Michigan for the holidays. It's a 5-hour drive from where we live, and because of this we always road trip instead of fly. It's become a tradition of ours to visit them every single Christmas, and we always have lots of fun there. A great mini trip to end off 2025 before I move to British Columbia for 4 months, which I can't stop talking about. The vlogs for that are coming very soon. This is Katika Shears.
I dream of a better life, but sometimes I don't know what to do. Yeah, I'm surrounded by your lies. Oh, I just wanna be close to you.
Good morning, guys. So I woke up an hour ago. I just finished doing some yoga and stretching. I woke up at around like 7:30 because I was having such a bad dream, guys. I'm about to just grab a book and I'm just going to read while everyone else is asleep. And yeah, I'm just going to have a really nice, relaxing morning.
We always visit the US Costco when we come here because it's always super fun to look around at the type of food they sell compared to the Costco back home. I usually always get these delicious protein bars called True Bars. When I'm here since they don't sell them in our Canadian Costco. And of course, sampling all the food here more than once is a must.
Thanks so much.
Salam aleikum.
Thank you.
Thanks so much, guys.
These are like my favorite, they're churros. Our next stop of today was Trader Joe's, another store we go to every time we're here. Probably one of my faves ever. I always get these staple foods, which are these spicy tortilla chips and peanut butter and cookie butter, my fave snacks to purchase. Then we ended off our day with a walk with our cousins and the rest of the family in this gorgeous forest. It's like half of it.
Like the vibe of it. Yeah.
It's Christmas morning, and of course, like every other family on this morning, we started off with opening presents. We actually played a little game where everyone chooses a random number and then receives a gift corresponding to that number. I got number 10, and a bit later in the video I'll show you guys what kind of gifts I got from the bag. My cousin got a Lego set, so we decided to open it up and make it. This is my first time making Lego in a very long time and actually was kind of tricky, but we ended up finishing and the Lego peacock turned out super cute.
One.
We got some macaroons from Costco, so we decided to do a little taste test. The last time I tried macaroons, I was not a fan. They tasted very dry and the texture was very flaky, but these ones brought my macaroon expectations to a higher level. They were so soft and the flavors were so prominent. Definitely a worthy purchase. If this is what macaroons are supposed to taste like, I approve.
Merry Christmas everyone! Happy holidays! It is the day after Christmas and I just woke up and I thought I'd do a little Christmas what I got. So starting off with This is one of my favorite things my cousins got me. This huge stress ball. I had the same one, but it was smaller size. This is huge. I think that means it's gonna break less because I broke the other small one so quickly.
But guys, look at this.
Next thing I got was this really cute gingerbread thing. I don't really know what I'm gonna do with it. I don't know if I'm gonna even do anything with it, but I think it's very adorable. And then I wanted this so badly. My dad got this for me from Amazon, but I got this Octobuddy, which if you guys don't know, Octobuddies are things you put on your phone so you can stick them ontoā stick your phone onto windows or like metal surfaces. It's this color and it's double-sided, which means that I canā I don't have to put it on a case and have it leave it there forever. I can just like keep in my purse and just put it on whenever I want to like film something. And then next thing I got content creation related is I needed batteries for my Panasonic camera. My dad got me these batteries, a ton of them. Okay, the next thing I got was from my dad too. It's a necklace. If you guys don't know, my zodiac sign is an Aquarius, so I wanted my dad to get me this. I got a Starbucks gift card. You guys, I love Starbucks. Actually, I just started drinking a lot more of it. This year. Guys, I love hot chocolate too, and they gave me hot chocolate. My cousins gave me hot chocolate. This is marshmallow flavor. In terms of other sweets, I got these German cookies. They're gingerbread with nuts and spices from Trader Joe's. This wouldn't be a "what I got for Christmas" without some chocolate, so my sister and I, we got this to share. We got this from Trader Joe's dark chocolate collection. But yeah, That is pretty much everything I got for Christmas. Hopefully you guys enjoyed looking at this little haul. Let's move on to the next thing that's going to be happening in this vlog.
On this morning, my parents, sister, and I ate breakfast while watching Suits, the TV show we're currently watching together as a family. We're currently on the 7th season, and as someone with zero knowledge in law, I feel like I'll know a lot more about the system now. And it's just overall such a good series.
It's the coldest kind of comfort.
As a present for her birthday, my cousin got a Dyson hair curler. It's a heatless curler, and she did my sister and I's hair with it, and it worked wonders on my hair. And actually, there's this recent sock trend I see going around, and I'm actually going to try it to see if I get similar curly hair as I did with this curler. Plus, with socks, I feel like it's a lot easier to do and it takes a lot less longer.
At least we try. Can't call you a friend when I'm in my head on down.
Then we ended off the night by watching Squid Game Season 2. I'm so excited for Season 3 to come out in 2025. The next morning we went on another walk in a town near the water. It was raining slightly, so we had our umbrellas to keep us semi-dry. And then we decided to stop by this pizza restaurant and order a few Chicago-style pizzas. I've been really loving pizza lately, The toppings we got were super unique and the combinations were delicious. We tried pesto pizza, Greek pizza, this spicy chicken pizza. We also had a mushroom pizza, and all of these definitely filled us up. And then I ended off the day editing this vlog.
Good morning guys, so I woke up. It is the last morning here in Michigan before we leave today. We're going to be leaving at around 1:00 PM and right now I'm just on my computer. I'm going to be editing the vlog a little bit because this video is coming to an end. Good morning!
Another night, another fight. How do you feel? Are you hurting?
Maybe we should take some time. Wait, wait, I got you, I got you.
Indeed, my son. Hi, Seku. Tia, look at us, the lights in here. Hey guys, so pretty much all packed and we're ready to head out on our 5-hour drive back home. The next video, you guys, stay tuned. I'm so, so excited. The next video is going to be the first episode of my Internship in BC series. It's going to be the first vlog, which is moving to Vancouver Island, which I'm literally going to be moving to Vancouver Island a week from today. So Next Sunday we're at the airport and I'm flying off for 4 months and you guys will come with me along the full, full journey.
You'll see every single thing.
I'm going to be vlogging everything and I can't, can't wait. And I'm just so excited to meet new people and just share this whole experience. But yeah, thank you so much for watching and I will see you guys very soon.
