Fantastic Fun and Cozy Christmas

Sad to see Christmas go, we had such a fun relaxing time!
No credit cards were harmed in the purchasing of all these goodies :) I was so very proud of myself this year for saving money since last January, until November for Christmas. We rarely use credit cards for Christmas anyway, but then we usually have to come up with it in one big chunk. This past year I decided to surprise my husband with stashing a little here and there, and I was so happy to have reached my goal for the budget I had planned. It sure does make for a stress free holiday.
Enough about that! Lets dig in to some crab, wine and salad. I love doing a mini crab feed on Christmas eve. Don't know how this started, but it was pretty funny. I can't remember who won. Come on girls, it's time to eat!
After church, we came home to sit around the tree for a bit and relax. The kids were looking at David's new ipad.

Christmas morning we all got up pretty late, and had brunch first before opening our gifts.
Some snazzy new shoes, given to Caitlin by Nicole and Pierre
Nicole got Pierre all these cool vintage coats.
Pierre gave Nicole this funny box of tea, I think I need some of that!
Um, I wonder what is in this?

I always get the kids lottery scratchers to put in their stockings since they all are now over 18. This year Pierre and Caitlin each only won 4 dollars.


The aftermath!!!

After picking up all the wrappings, I then set the table for dinner.
Cyrous and Pierre, the two math guys, trying to figure out how a slide rule works. My dad gave Cyrous, who is a math major at Cal, a slide rule and a book on how to use one. I remember using one in chemistry eons ago!
Caitlin was not paying any attention to the slide rule, and was hoping we were looking at her new Christmas outfit :)
Time to eat! The kids all LOVE ham, so they wanted me to make it again this year, I obliged, and used a different glaze on it. This year I used apple butter, with Dijon mustard and brown sugar. I roasted apples along side it, and served it with a carrot relish, and those really yummy tiny potatoes that I blogged about a while back. Oh, and I made buttermilk biscuits from the Sarabeth baking book. I thought I would have leftovers of those, but no, they were consumed.

Instead of wine this year we had this beer. It went so well with the flavors of the ham's glaze and the carrot relish.

The girls even had some time to do a bit of face painting.

Thanks Whole Foods, for another yummy buche de noel. This year it had hazelnut cream in it.

I'm so very sleepy now, but happy with wonderful thoughts of our little family having a very merry little Christmas.

Hope everyone had as much fun as I did. Happy holidays once again.