Christmas Eve

Late as usual! Oh well. 

When I was growing up, my parents always "hosted" Christmas Eve. Aunt Bonnie, Uncle Charlie, Nick, AJ, and my Gram always came over and my cooked a bunch of appetizer type stuff (or poker food, as my Dad called it). We all ate too much, watched Christmas shows on TV, my Dad passed out, the kids went sledding, the adults played cards, and we opened our Christmas presents to/from each other. And then the next day Aunt Bonnie & Uncle Charlie hosted the more "formal" Christmas day meal. It was all so much fun and we all looked forward to it so much. 

Now that my parents are gone and my sister spends Christmas with us, she and I like to host a Christmas Eve get-together. Much like my mom, we cook a bunch of poker food...probably more than we all need. But it's Christmas, you're supposed to eat a lot :) And Husband's family comes over and we eat too much and talk and play with Grant. Who, by the way, loves to be the center of attention.

Grant loves to help in the kitchen! So we found
something easy for him to do.

Crushing the crackers for the top of one of the dips.

Just a little bit wired...



Having fun with Grandpa

He loves when Daddy blows the train whistle

After the "party" was over and Grant had at least semi calmed down, it was time to put out Santa's cookies and read stories...then make some sort of attempt at putting Grant to bed.

Santa really likes the store-bought sugar cookie with
the mountain of icing on top. He really likes them.

And that pretty much sums up Christmas Eve. After Grant went to bed, my sister helped me ice the cake I made for Christmas lunch...which I may never let her do again but that's a story in itself.

Hopefully I'll get around this week to posting about Christmas!