Merry Christmas!

Hope your holiday was great! We had a lot of fun.

Christmas Eve started off really well - I had the day off! After working so much over the month, I was so happy to have the whole day off. Of course, I spent a lot of it cooking. Since that's one of my favorite parts of any holiday, here's a list of what we had for Christmas:


Christmas Eve dinner - appetizer buffet

Taco Chicken Fingers
Apricot Chutney Spread with Crackers
Peppermint Cookie Bars
Potato Skins
Pumpkin (Squash) Bread
Mini Sausage Rolls
Cheese and Spinach Ravioli
Mini Quiche

The highlighted stuff is all things I made. For the spread, I combined apricot chutney with some softened cream cheese and put it in a bowl to spread with crackers. It was the best thing at the party, I think. The cookie bars are a flexible recipe. This time I added some melted white chocolate with the frosting and topped the cookies with crushed peppermint candies. Super yummy.


Christmas Day dinner

Prime Rib - thanks for the help, Charesse!
More Potato Skins
Carrot Sticks
Sauteed Mushrooms
Crescent Rolls
Chocolate Truffle Cake

This was my first attempt at Prime Rib and it turned out fantastic. I put a garlic-herb crust on it and let it sit overnight in the fridge. It wound up full of flavor, tender and delicious. A side note - my meat thermometer is apparently not to be trusted at all. It kept saying the meat was rare, but when I decided enough was enough, it turned out that the inside was medium well, but we still had some pockets which were pink enough for Sarah and Randy. We will definitely make this next year, but I'm going to splurge on the boneless rib roast next time and save a little trouble.

The chocolate truffle cake was amazingly good, three kinds of chocolate filling and sweetened whipped cream on top, crushed Heath bars all over. It was super fantastic. Although really, I would be happy with a bowl full of sweetened whipped cream as a dessert.


New Year's Eve dinner - Chinese buffet

Veggie Won Tons
Beef Won Tons
Fried Rice
Orange Chicken
Mandarin Chicken
Orange Cookies

The won tons were homemade and very good - lots of zucchini, broccoli, carrots, mushrooms, and leftover prime rib. Yum. The cookies were also homemade, with a start from a cake mix. It was the first time I tried them and they turned out really well. The other stuff came from Panda Express.

How's the diet, you ask? What diet? I've gained back 5 lbs, but I'm not even worrying about it until Monday, when I go back to work and get back on the scale for real. Holidays are not about self-denial.

As for the presents, Mike was the clear hero here, surprising us with a 46 inch TV and a Blu-Ray! The kids were thrilled, and I admit that it sure was more fun playing the new video games and watching the new movies on the giant screen.

As always, I am late with the photos, but we had a lot of good moments. Sarah got lots of Beatle-related stuff, including the movie Help! and a Yellow Submarine journal. Ellen got Twilight Princess for the GameCube, which the kids are loving. And I got the Blu-Ray of Planet Earth. It's really breathtaking to see all that on the big TV.

I have to admit that I got choked up when Randy asked me to pray on Christmas. I am so thankful this year, more than ever realized, to have all my kids here for Christmas. Sarah has been having troubles lately and for a little bit it looked like she might have to spend Christmas in the hospital. Just having them all home was the best present I could have gotten. I know that now my kids are getting older, and will soon be moving out on their own. I'm not sure how many more Christmases we will spend all together like this. So it was a wonderful gift to have my kids all home on Christmas morning.

Here's hoping that 2010 will be a kinder year to us - and to all of you - than 2009. I'm firmly resolving to have a great year, no matter what.

Happy Holidays!