Christmas Eve afternoon was filled with prep work for Christmas Eve dinner as well as Christmas dinner. I planned Christmas dinner this year around dishes that could be made in advance and just be warmed up in the oven (or were to be served cold) when Christmas day came.
Spreading out the preparation allowed for us to take the preparation a little more slowly allowing the kids to have ample opportunity to help.
One dish the kids requested was a creamy Kale and Parsnip dish that we like cold. With a garlic tahini sauce it tastes a bit reminiscent of potato salad. The kids are kind of infatuated with parsnip. It's cute. They built little parsnip forests while I chopped them up and they put the pieces into the pot.
While the kids and I worked on the last little bit for Christmas dinner. Jason diced up some veggies for our Bethlehem dinner. Typically, I don't really take photos of Christmas Eve, but I felt compelled to take a few this year. The kids were pretty stoked about getting to sit at the Christmas tree and eat dinner.
Before I go into the loveliness of Christmas Eve dinner, I feel the need to mention the adventure we had with all our prep work in the kitchen. Jason burnt his hand - really badly. Our oven caught fire. Let me tell you, it's pretty alarming to look into your oven and see big flames inside. Milayla caught her fingers in the cupboard and had a nicely bruised finger. And I know I am forgetting some other items because there was definitely more. It was one very accident prone day. Not to mention my last minute finishing on some Christmas presents that I made. But as the sun set and evening was upon us all the accidents, injuries and stresses of the day seemed to melt away. And we were able to enjoy our evening together as we welcomed the birth of our Savior.
The meal was simple. As always. Veggies, grapes, hummus, pita bread, socca and grape juice. Then we finished our Christmas tree countdown by reading the birth of our Savior. The kids have really loved our Christmas tree countdown this year. All those hours and paper cuts to put that thing together are really paying off.
We talked about our gifts for the Savior that we started at the beginning of the month.
And then the kids opened up their Christmas pyjamas and their new Christmas book. Pretty sure this part is always a hit.
These faces are awesome.
Hugs!
We lucked out and picked a nice treasure of a book for Christmas. It's about trains and giving at Christmas. The kids love trains so it was pretty perfect.
After we read the book together and sang some Christmas songs the kids excitedly went to bed with big anticipation of Christmas Day and they both requested that we get to sing more Christmas songs on Christmas day than last year. That made my heart smile.
I would love to say that we continued our tradition of reading A Christmas Carol into the late hours of the evening but seeing as I was still getting over a sick bug I was just fine with finishing up the wrapping of a few gifts and heading to bed early. We watched A Christmas Carol with the kids earlier in the month so I at least felt fairly filled with "good will towards men" and satisfied that between that, scriptures, The Nativity, and service opportunities that the kids had their hearts filled with that good Christmas Spirit as well. And we slept through the night. It was a good night. A good preface to a lovely Christmas. But more on that another day.
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