Tuesday, December 28, 2010

First Christmas Eve at Home

This year we decided to simplify a bit.  Instead of the usual Christmas Eve where we go to my parents or my in-laws and come home too late with the kids falling asleep in the car and feeling like there's not enough time for the little traditions.  So we decided to do our own Christmas Eve dinner and start our own traditions and spend time together with our little family.  I woke up in the morning and started my preparations: making praline nuts for the bread pudding, cleaning the house, ironing the linens, and the most exciting part- unwrapping our china.  We received a large set of beautiful china for our wedding and have never opened in until now- it was all still in the original boxes.  Ten years and we've never used it or our silver.  The kids loved unwrapping it and washing it and getting it all ready.  Setting the table was so exciting! We felt so fancy.

In the whole set only one mug was broken.  We've moved that china around so many times, I was surprised that only one piece was damaged.


For dinner we had rack of lamb with veggies, jello jigglers (the kids favorite part of the meal) browned lemon butter brussels sprouts (which I forgot to put on the table until we were all finished eating)

The lamb turned out amazing and delicious and very simple to make- we loved it!

We had a little program with songs and stories and scriptures.  Livi had been practicing "Santa Claus is Coming to Town" and played it beautifully.

It was so nice to sit and hang out and relax, enjoying each others company.  We went on a night walk with candles to light our way.  It was so quiet and peaceful, I think we will make that a tradition.  We talked about the Shepherds and how they must have felt, we looked at the lights off in the distance and decided that's probably a lot like how Bethlehem looked on that special night.

We came home and had THE MOST AMAZING bread pudding EVER! It was maple bread pudding with a maple glaze on top, served with vanilla ice-cream and the praline nuts I made in the morning.  It was absolutely DELISH!

New jammies and pictures by the tree...

one little difficult child refusing to sit by the tree- we decided this was better anyway- so cute!
We had a great time on Christmas Eve and the kids went to bed by 8:30 so Santa could work his magic and be to bed at a reasonable hour  =)

No comments:

Post a Comment