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How Katie Holmes and Suri Cruise Spent Christmas

PEOPLE
By Tara Fowler
12/31/14

For Katie Holmes, the holidays are all about mother-daughter bonding time.

Despite reports that Holmes and 8-year-old daughter Suri spent Christmas with Tom Cruise, that's not the case.

"Katie did not spend Christmas afternoon with Tom Cruise," a rep for the actress tells PEOPLE exclusively. "She and Suri spent Christmas afternoon visiting children at a local hospital in L.A."

The holidays are important to Holmes, who recently took it upon herself to prepare her first Thanksgiving dinner.

"I'm very excited because this year, I feel like it's really the year," the 36-year-old told David Letterman in November of tackling the turkey dinner.

She added: "I'm the baby of five and I've been sort of using that for a long time. But now I'm taking responsibility, and my mother's going to teach me how to make a turkey."

The actress, who split from Cruise in 2012, told PEOPLE in October that she has moved on as a single, working mom and doesn't want that moment to define her.

"I don't want that to be what I'm known as," she said. "I was an actor before, an actor during and an actor now."

• Reporting by KATE COYNE