I love Christmas.
I have off work for Veterans Day in November and I'll go into the basement and bring up our holiday dishes. I have Winterberry by Pfaltzgraff and people have been buying pieces for me for years. I'll get the dishes out on Veterans Day and then I don't pack them away again until late February, sometimes early March. It makes the kitchen festive even before Christmas gets here.
Christmas dinner is usually at our house....our kids come every other year for Christmas Day and dinner (when they're not with us; they're with our DIL's family). When they come for Christmas Eve dinner, everybody will go to church while I'm putting the finishing touches on our Eve dinner. This year, my sister and BIL (and their kids) and brother and SIL are coming, my mother is coming, and my in-laws are coming for dinner. It's the kids' time to be with us, too, so we'll have a full house.
I love doing our Christmas dinner. It's always a crown roast of pork with my apple, sausage, and cornbread stuffing piled into the center of the roast. And lots of side dishes. We splurge a bit on several bottles of a really good white wine. Dessert is usually some kind of cheesecake or sometimes a trifle. And sometimes both....nobody goes away hungry. (My sister said she'll do a small turkey to go along with the pork roast since there's going to be quite a few people this year.) My niece and niece-in-law will come early to help me with food prep.
Do you want to know about decorations? Rick will put multi-colored lights on our trees outside and sometimes, he'll outline the house in lights. He knows how much I love lights and he indulges me by decorating outside. It usually takes him several days to get it all done....on the Monday after Thanksgiving, he used to go deer hunting. Now he decorates the house. We don't do Santas and reindeer and such outside; it's just lights everywhere.
We decorate three Christmas trees and will start the weekend after Thanksgiving: the living room tree is our traditional tree and that is decorated with the ornaments that we've had for years and years. It has our bubble lights and bell lights and many ornaments that my great grandmother gave to me. We have some little ornaments that glow in the dark; I love them because we got them the same year our son was born and when I would get up at night to feed him, I would sit by the tree and watch the ornaments shine in the dark.
Our kitchen tree is my Tacky White Tree with nothing but blue and white lights and blue balls. That's it. Nothing else. It's called the Tacky White Tree because many years ago, when I was a child, my mother insisted on a white tree at Christmas and it had to be done in blue balls. My sister and I would throw a fit and tell her how tacky it was, but she didn't care. Several years ago, for some reason, I decided that I wanted a Tacky White Tree of my own. Everybody makes fun of my tree, but I don't care either....I love my TWT. (And so does my mom!
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And then our Santa tree is in our bedroom. It's a great big fat tree, decorated with Santas and deer ornaments and red mini-lights. We didn't put it up last year because we were worried about Mollipop getting into trouble. This year, we're not sure either, because of Tabby. Amber loves to get into the back of the tree and nap in the branches.....I've never been able to get a picture.
We hang our stockings along the steps coming into the living room. Rick and I each have our stockings and then each cat has his or her own stocking, too. We got Mollipop a pretty stocking last year with her name engraved...I have to order Tabby's stocking soon or she may not get it in time for Christmas. They always get food, treats, Sip, and we buy them toys and such, too. There's a place in town....the people make their own catnip pillows and sell them. Very pungent catnip and we always make sure each cat has their own pillow, although they'll still fight over them anyway....they love those pillows.
I love to bake for Christmas and I usually start my cookies the weekend after Thanksgiving. I'll make a ton of different kinds of cookies and then there's almond brittle, White Trash, sugared popcorn (which is an old recipe from my great-grandmother....she made it every year. When she passed away, it fell to me to make sugared popcorn, enough for everybody in my family...I make red and green popcorn and it looks so pretty on a tray with cookies and candy), and homemade marshmallows (which are absurdly easy to make. Once you've tried homemade marshmallows, you'll never go back to those store-bought things. They are just wonderful with hot cocoa!) I always like to try one or two new cookie recipes, but I also stick with the cookies that Rick and our son love, too. They'd be heartbroken without snickerdoodles, chocolate crinkles, sugar cookies, molasses crinkles, pecan sandies, etc. We have been mailing cookies to friends now for years and usually by Thanksgiving, people will email me and ask when they can expect their cookies.
And I guess that's really more than you wanted to know. It's my favorite holiday and I try to make it special for anybody who comes to our house. But when it's over? I'm glad it's over and we can get the house back to normal.
) Then we head over to my sister's house who lives right next door (lol) and have some snacks/mimosas while we socialize/open some more presents/watch the kids play. Then we head back over my parents house to start preparing the Christmas meal. .... However, since being married and having a child, my husband and I take this time to go visit w/ his family who live about 45 mins from my parents house. We stay for a few hours, eat some food, then head back to my parents house where we eat their leftovers (LOL).
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I'm not sure where you live, but if you're anywhere close to PA, you're more than welcome to stay with us for Christmas. Honest, we'd love to have you with us.
