Our Christmas

Christmas Eve is when we celebrate our Christmas at my place, and yes I go overboard but what the heck... it's Christmas! 

We start our celebration with a bit of a visit, then me, well being me, take the family photo.  This year my middle son couldn't make it for our dinner so even though we're down two in our family picture, both him and his girlfriend are in our hearts.

After the family photo it's dinner time! 

My oldest son was put to work carving the ham.  Thank you Shayne! 

And dinner is served with a menu of appetizers (shrimp, smoked oysters, pickles, cheese, and crackers), then the main course of ham, two types of homemade perogies, cabbage rolls, whipped potatoes, glazed carrots, fresh homemade gluten free cheesy garlic buns, a special cream sauce for the perogies, and way too many baked goodies! Nobody leaves the table hungry at my place EVER. 

Elyssa tracks where Santa is...

Then it's time for our gift exchange. 

A pleasantly surprised young lady! 

Another pleasantly surprised young lady! 

Even our pets get gifts, can't be leaving them out. 

And this is a portion of our Christmas.  I hope your holidays were as rich and blessed as mine have been.  Family, a warm home, tons of good food and immense love... what more could I ask for? 

Wishing you all a blessed and Happy New Year! 

Annual Family Christmas Party

A glimpse into our amazing Christmas

The first weekend in December our family comes together and we celebrate Christmas all together as a larger family unit.  A few years back we decided to go with a theme for our parties, the host chooses the theme and this year it was a North Pole Theme.  There's prizes for best costume, as well as second and third place.  Talk about a fun time! 

Santa and two Mrs. Clause's showed up, as well as one adorable elf.  

Make that two elves! I'd shown Elyssa what I was wearing to our theme party a week or two before the event and she told her Mommy and Daddy my secret, but it's totally forgivable... Elyssa wanted to dress like Grammy and also be an elf! :-)

My daughter, the reindeer, won first place for her costume

As you can see from the following photo, the family that plays together

stays together! :-)

Now this is a definite first, we did our family photo outside and it was December 5th this photo was taken outside of my son's house.  It's never been warm enough to do an outdoor shot in December!

Thank you Shayne, Sandy, and Elyssa for your gracious hospitality.  The Jeopardy family game was a blast, heck, the entire evening was a blast! 

In Hopes Santa Will Soon Be Here

Wow, where has this past month gone?  I can't believe it's been a month since I've visited my blog.  I know one thing which has kept me busy this past while, I've been doing a ton of baking in preparation for our Christmas celebrations. 

Here's a bit of what I've done thus far. From left to right on the top is Butter Tart Bars, Hawaiian Cheesecake Bars, Date Squares, Gluten free Cheesecake cookies and on the bottom is Nanaimo Bars. 

I've also made gluten free brownies, whipped shortbread, both regular and gluten free and last weekend I had a helper in my kitchen.  We did up Elyssa's special cookies and had us some fun doing so! 

Some of the finished cookies...

And perogies are also in the freezer, the kids came over and we spent an afternoon pinching perogies, which is always such a good time and an early feast! I'd also prepared an elk stew and was it ever delicious! 

So now that most of the cooking is done, all of my holiday gifts are bought I'm wondering what in the heck can I get into next?  I have to behave or Santa won't bring me anything...
 sigh, what to do!