Holidays At Home
Happy new year! My first post of the year, and it's all about our Christmas time. I know a bit late, but better late than never. Time just got away from me this holiday season. You may have read our Christmas break didn't start great, with a kid with the flu and the other with an appendicitis scare on Christmas Day! Sigh. And then the hubby got the flu. So yes, our holiday was a bit rough. If you're wondering, everyone but me got the flu shot in the fall. I seem to always leave my appointments for last, and that's something I definitely want to work on this year, but I'll leave that for another post. I'm still working on my new year's resolutions.
We played our favorite Christmas movies on repeat all month long. And yes Michael Buble's holiday songs were also on repeat.
We ate all the gingerbread cookies and trimmed the tree while watching Home Alone. This is one of my favorite days of the year.
A plate full of homemade cookies for Santa. See the recipes here.
Although some of these cookies are quite time consuming, I love having this assortment of cookies every. And it's so much better when you have little hands helping.
We also boxed some of these and gave them to some of our friends and neighbors. We obviously left some for us to enjoy too!
Our Christmas morning ritual, homemade cinnamon rolls. See this post for the recipe. Due to our sickness, we actually enjoyed them on the next day, but the Christmas sentiment and feeling was there.
I also transformed my mood board into all things holiday.
I didn't get to photograph or share our Christmas menu, but here's what we had.
Horseradish Mustard Sauce {linked with rib roast}
We pretty much do the same every year. We prefer to have the dinner on Christmas Eve, and then come Christmas Day, we'll sit in our pajamas all day, watching movies, and eating leftovers while the kids play with their new toys. It's just so nice not to be stuck in the kitchen on Christmas Day.
Thankfully by New Year's Eve we were all much better. After a few days of sickness, it felt like a treat to celebrate the holiday. We started the afternoon with our tradition of a bottle of champagne, and some oysters.
Our oysters recipe can be found in this post.
And this year, I also made a classic mignonette sauce to go along with some of our oysters. I don't mind switching things up as long as we stay within our traditions. LOL!
This year to change it up a bit with our traditional seafood feast, we made a cioppino. And it's so tasty with some of my favorite Gallego bread from Whole Foods.
This cioppino recipe we used was so good. We'll definitely make it again.
For dessert, we enjoyed our Apricot Rum Cake.
It's always the saddest day for me when all the Christmas decor has to come down. I even go through some post-Christmas blues. But alas, life has to go on.
We were hoping to go back to Savannah and Charleston after Christmas, but we decided to keep our holiday trip closer to home. We managed an escape to Naples and Palm Beach before the end of the holiday break, and it was very much needed and welcomed. Some good R&R does the family good. More of our trips next.