Christmas Eve

For me, the holidays are really about tradition more than anything else. For years, I always hosted a Christmas eve get together at my parents house to celebrate the season and to help my parents celebrate the end of the busy retail rush (honestly, my friends and I like to get together to watch daddy get drunk!). This continued on through out my college years and even then first couple of years that we were married. The past two years, we switched it up a little bit, with a Turkey Fry at our house in 2009, and then hanging at Elaines last year.

Since this is Asher's first Christmas, it seemed like the perfect time to start some new family traditions, so here was my vision:

During the day we can run around, see family, take care of last minute gifts and what not, but come the evening, it's family time at the freeman house. We will spend time together in the kitchen (listening to christmas music) making a tapas style dinner with lots of delicious finger foods!

While the food is cooking, we will each open one present from under the tree. That present... brand new pjs (Christmas theme encouraged but not required) I know this is not original and that tons of people do this, but I just love the idea of everyone getting new pjs and hanging out by the fire watching christmas movies on Christmas eve and then opening presents Christmas morning in their new jammys.

That is my vision, and this year Nick helped to make sure that my vision came to life

Last night once we put the baby to bed, we turned on the Christmas tunes and hung out in the kitchen baking some pinterest inspired Christmas treats. Of course we ran out of a few ingredients and ran to the grocery this morning to pick up some last minute items (and the ingredients for our feast tonight).  When the baby was taking his morning nap, Nick and I finished up with all of our baking!

Mint Oreo and Regular Oreo Truffles

Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Truffles
(We now are calling them Salty Cookie Dough Balls....If you follow this recipe use less salt)

Shirley Temple Cupcakes (COMPLETELY from Scratch!)
(the recipe came from a gluten free web site, but we used regular flower instead and added a little extra grenadine)

During the day we ran around, delivered some gifts and treats and spent some time at Mimi's house visiting with Uncle Wayne and Cousin Catherine.  Mimi let Asher open up his gifts from Uncle Bill and Aunt Pam. (an adorable fleece outfit and a crawl ball that kept him very well entertained!)

When we came home and Asher was napping we started to prep for our feast, so that once we put the baby to bed for the night, we could relax downstairs.  Once the baby woke up, we had time for the 5th night of hanukkah and then time for our Christmas Eve PJ tradition and a few quick pics.

Just before bedtime in our new PJs

This year, the baby is a little young to stay up with us and watch the christmas movie, so we fed him dinner, gave him a bath and put him to bed, so that Nick and I could enjoy the rest of the quiet relaxing Christmas Eve at home together.

By 8pm we were downstairs eating our tappas style dinner and watching a Very Muppets Christmas. (a very cute movie that I would recommend and watch again)

Oh...What did we eat?  We ate well!!
          Sirloin Cheesburger Sliders, Pigs in a Blanket, Bacon Wrapped Shrimp, Shrimp Cocktail, Spinach
          Artichoke Dip with Pita and Angus Meatballs.

It was a great day and a wonderfully relaxing and enjoyable evening.  Cant wait for tomorrow to celebrate Asher's 1st Christmas!