Merry Christmas!

Happy holidays to all. We've been busy around here, mainly cooking for the last couple of days. Christmas prep has been woefully inadequate otherwise, but there are only so many hours in a day. Not pushing myself too hard (maybe a little bit, but not excessively) or getting overly stressed is always a goal for me over the holidays. They are supposed to be fun and special- how can that be the case if I'm wiped out and stressed to the max? So I let things go. We got to travel, so the trade off was decorating at home. Much to Martha Jr.'s chagrin, I might add. She wanted me to pull out the second box of ornaments (the one with all the Hallmark ornaments that are individually boxed) but I just couldn't do it. She's willing to put the ornaments on the tree but I'm the one that has to get them re-boxed when the holiday is over!

There are a few things I haven't given up! We are hosting a "Christmas After Party" tonight. (Name credit goes to The Wild Child.) A few friends, desserts, hot chocolate, and a fire in the patio fire pit where we'll be toasting s'mores and popping popcorn. I think the fire is turning into one of our family traditions- we started a few years ago and I really enjoy it. Before all of that, however, we have our brunch. We started brunch a bazillion years ago back when I had a lot of family in the area. It was a way to claim part of the holiday for myself; now it's tradition. We open presents first then laze around for a while, then we'll go eat eggs and french toast and home made cinnamon-raisin bread and fruit salad, as if all the calories we consumed yesterday (when we have our big, traditional meal) weren't enough! I splurged, I binged, and I'll be paying for it, but for now we feast!!!

Merry Christmas to you and yours! (Or Happy Hanukkah, or whatever you celebrate in your family.) With love and hugs.

Merry Christmas Eve

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!

It's Christmas Eve, and I feel like I'm over the worst of the stressfulness the holidays bring. The shopping is done, the menus are set, it's only a matter of execution and enjoyment at this point. We're having our big meal today for lunch, a tradition from my family, then for dinner we'll have pierogies, a tradition from DH's family. Tomorrow we've started our own Christmas brunch tradition, then it's leftovers for the rest of the day. Last year we had an outdoor fire in our fire pit and had hot chocolate and s'mores after dark on Christmas Day; I think we'll continue that this year as well if the weather is OK for it. We also exchange "family presents" today, then Santa comes tonight and those presents are opened tomorrow morning.

What are your holiday traditions? How does your family celebrate?

A Quiet Family Christmas

How was your Christmas? Ours was lovely. The kids opened their presents in the morning then DH and I cooked and cleaned up the rest of the day. In the evening we shared a wonderful meal with family and friends followed by some lively conversation. In between kitchen duties DH managed to play a little, some on the new Wii with the kids and some on his guitar with the new amp Santa brought him. Unfortunately he didn't play with his new camera quite as much so I don't have pictures to share. :( I got several new books from my Amazon wish list- yeah! I'm currently reading a book on my (old) Kindle so I haven't cracked open the new books yet, but I will. One is the Alicia Silverstone book The Kind Diet; it's a New York Times bestseller so I'm sure it's going to be great. My mom sent me a Cricut machine which should be a lot of fun to play with too.

My dad and my brother joined us along with our family friend and her mom so there were 9 of us for dinner. My grandmother would have pulled out her fine china and crystal glasses but I settled for paper plates; no one seemed to mind. Dinner turned out well; here's what we had:

Butternut Squash Bisque Soup from the Whole Foods Market Cookbook
Turkey (humanely raised, purchased from Whole Foods)
Gravy
Mashed Potatoes
Sweet Potato Casserole (following the Cooking Light recipe instead of my grandmother's traditional, high fat recipe)
Steamed Green Beans
Cranberry Sauce (from a can; everyone likes it as well as the homemade)
Crescent Rolls
Iced Tea

My brother contributed:
wine
coffee beans from Starbucks (I even have a coffee bean grinder, bought on a whim a few weeks ago, so we were able to brew some coffee to go with dessert)

Dessert:
Key Lime Pie
Nut Balls (a raw, vegan dessert)
My dad brought a Panettone

The post dinner conversation was fun; we had 3 Spanish speakers in the bunch (my brother, who's mom is from Cuba), my friend, (who is from Columbia), and her mom, who speaks very little English, but we all communicated quite well, I think. We talked about the little ones and food and language and traveling and all sorts of things. My friend's mom said she would come and make Arepas for us one day- whoo, boy, we're looking forward to that! The evening ended too soon, but I was so tired! The Middle Child and I are fighting colds so I crashed as soon as everyone left. I just hope I didn't get anyone sick; I'd feel terrible if I did because this is an awful cold. At least it wasn't as bad yesterday as today; I'm so grateful I don't have any obligations to deal with today and I've been able to indulge myself by laying around all day reading Wives and Daughters. You just need recovery days like that every now and again.