Christmas Catch-Up

I hope you all had a wonderful holiday weekend! I know we did. I’m still full from all the festivities! I have so much food and fun to catch you up on! (Just a warning, this post has a LOT of pictures. 🙂 )

Christmas Eve Eve

The eve of Christmas Eve is something to celebrate, too! In the afternoon Jason, his dad, and I went to have Thai food for lunch. Let me tell you, I’ve eaten at A LOT of Thai places…everywhere from New York City to Boston to Atlanta, and this little place in Westfield has the best Thai food I have ever tasted. We make a point to go eat there any time we’re in town visiting.

The three of us split pad thai and pad-gra-praw, which were both delicious. Jason and I got Thai iced tea to wash it all down.

When we got home we relaxed for a bit before starting dinner preparations. I admired the beautiful tree, which is full of wonderful ornaments that all have a story to tell.

Then the table was set and the wine was poured for the Christmas Eve Eve tradition…

…pizza and mussels!

My father-in-law makes the mussels in a delicious tomato sauce and they are amazing.

Something about the combination of the pizza and the mussels together is perfect! Jason and I hadn’t had pizza in months so it was a great treat. Perfect start to the holiday festivities.

Christmas Eve

This was a busy and awesome day! Every year on Christmas Eve Jason’s grandparents and uncle and aunt come from Brooklyn for a wonderful seafood feast. Eating seafood the night before Christmas is an Italian tradition, and it might just be the best idea ever. My in-laws were working in the kitchen all day to prepare the delicious dinner.

Not without a little wine along the way of course! This Bordeaux was delicious.

Soon the family had all arrived and dinner was served! As an appetizer we enjoyed some prosciutto bread from Brooklyn. Yes, it is as good as it sounds.

The first course was my father-in-law’s linguine and clam sauce. So many clams, so much deliciousness!

We continued on with some fried shrimp and fillet of sole, with red sauce on the side of course! Those shrimp were seriously addictive.

After dinner it was time to open a few gifts! It’s always so fun to see people opening a gift from someone else, I love it!

After gifts we moved on to dessert! On the dessert menu was some of my mother-in-law’s cookies…

my chocolate chip rum cake…

…and some pastries from a bakery in Brooklyn!

I had WAY too much dessert, but I couldn’t help myself. The canoli and napoleon were particularly delicious.

And since I clearly wasn’t having enough sugar already, I had some hot chocolate on the side.

Needless to say, I went to bed VERY FULL and excited for Santa’s arrival after we went to sleep. 😉

CHRISTMAS DAY!!!

First thing’s first–we all opened our presents!!! There is nothing more fun than opening presents on Christmas morning. 😀

Everyone is so generous and I got so many wonderful things that I’ve been wanting! And check out this baby that my hubster got me:

I’m so excited!!! The stand mixer I have is broken so I’ve been using a hand mixer for the last couple years. This will make my bread baking SO much easier! 😀

After all our presents I shifted gears to breakfast. In my family our Christmas tradition is to make a big, indulgent breakfast in the morning that we eat on our nice china. I thought it would be nice to share that tradition with this new part of my family, so I made Christmas breakfast for everyone! On my menu was breakfast strudel…

buttermilk waffles…

winter fruit salad…

…and maple glazed bacon!

It was fun to make a big breakfast and I think everyone enjoyed it! After breakfast it was time to get ready for…you guessed it, another meal! 😛 The Christmas day feast/party/extravaganza is at Jason’s uncle’s house in New York, and it is amazing. The party starts with an amazing spread of appetizers! Pizza, cheese, olives, cheese straws, tomato and mozzarella salad, crackers, dip, soups, and more!!!

The feast continues with an incredible buffet of entrees, brought by various members of the family!

Mom brought her famous eggplant parmesan, and I brought along a few dozen yeast rolls (which I failed to take a picture of…oops).

I couldn’t possibly remember every dish that was served, but I can tell you that some of my favorites included the eggplant, broccoli rabe pasta, sausage and peppers, and meatballs. This much Italian food in one place is almost too awesome to handle.

After many hours of catching up with family and eating wonderful food, the evening started to wind down and it was time for dessert! More awesomeness.

I had a couple pieces of dessert but tried to keep it to a minimum because I had really gone overboard with the desserts on Christmas Eve and my body is still hating me for it. I couldn’t stay away from these things though:

I don’t even know what they’re called but they’re an amazing little fried Italian pastry that taste kind of like a wonton! So so good. It was a wonderful holiday indeed.

 

Whether or not you celebrate Christmas, I hope that you enjoyed your friends and family this weekend and took the time to count your blessings. I know we certainly did.

Thanks for reading!

-Lauren

P.S.- I realize now that I managed to make it through hundreds of photos and not get a single one of myself…fail. I’ll work on that, sorry! 😛