Christmas Eve/ Christmas and all that jazz
Christmas has come and gone but fortunately/ unfortunately the remnants of it are not gone. Fortunately, memories of time spent together with loved ones, the feeling of enjoyment of giving presents, the enjoyment of receiving presents, the utilizing of/ playing with presents will be with us long after the season. Unfortunately, the indulgences of the season may stick around in less than desirable ways... tighter fitting clothes, higher blood pressure than normal, higher blood sugar than normal, etc. In defense of my over indulging (which I did do and have photo proof of below, lol), I did include exercise in post Christmas days.
We hosted family on Christmas Eve and Christmas. Not sure that hosting both will happen again :). Everything worked out fine and we all had a good time but I felt like my kitchen was in a perpetual state of being used which means that I wasin a perpetual state of cleaning perpetually feeling like I should be cleaning it.
On Christmas Eve, I prepared some dishes ahead of time both for our Christmas Eve celebration and our Christmas celebration. We went to the 3:00 pm Christmas Eve service, or "event" as our church referred to it. The service/ event/ Christmas Eve church attending was quite entertaining. It featured reenactments, dancing, singing, etc. It was very non traditional; the church offered an 11:00 pm "traditional" service that I would have enjoyed attending. But, 11:00 pm? Heeeeck, no. I'm in RPM most nights well before 11:00 pm.
Shortly after we arrived home, preparations were in earnest for our guest coming at 5:30 pm to eat. My brother John arrived at about 4:45 pm bearing sugary treats for our celebration. It was great to see him. Shortly after that, our other guests arrived. We dined on Chik- fil- A nuggets, cabbage rolls, meatballs, cheesy potatoes, veggies, pasta salad and all the desserts.
After dinner, we did a gift exchange. Here are some pictures from Christmas Eve:
Three Rineer Kids before church
Sweet Sisters...
With their momma...
Between this...
and this...
...It was beginning to a look lot like Christmas
Christmas Eve with lots of family time...
...presents
...and posing for the mariaazzi
Donnie and Denise
Denise and Bev
Donnie, Denise and Bev
Alyssa and John played soccer downstairs for a long time. I came down to take some pictures.
Back upstairs... I wish I'd taken a picture of the tables setting. I took this after we had eaten. We had eleven people sitting around the kitchen table eating.
I didn't get any pictures of the main food, just the desserts. Everything was so good!!
Mark and Cindy brought the Nothing Bundt Cake. I thought the cake itself was just so-so but the cream cheese icing was outstanding.
Pfeffernusse? From Germany?? Via Aldi??? Ja wohl!!!
Mark and Cindy "broke" the rules of our gift exchange and got me a gift. Well, if they insisted... it's not like I could take it back since they had it personalized . I mean, there's maybe another Maria out there who would like a cute gardening tote with some gardening tools but too bad, it's mine :).
A picture of Cindy and me
Christmas morning: The kids received lots of clothes, video games, Star War items, books, and Harry Potter things. The girls got a PlayStation 4 and all three received a Star Wars augmented reality game device
...and Alyssa received some squishes. She was quite clear that she wanted squishies for Christmas
A reindeer tag for the Three Rineer Kids gift because "Rineer" and "reindeer" are one long A and D sound away from sounding like the same word :)
The girls' PS4
The dining room: with six dining room chairs, two kitchen chairs, and three folding chairs borrowed from Uncle Doug along with squishing a cardboard table to the dining room table gave us room to fit eleven adults in the dining room to eat. The kids sat at the kitchen table. Note the snow outside. A white Christmas!!.
Speaking of eats, we had turkey, ham, shrimp cocktail, sweet potatoes, cheesy potatoes, corn, rolls, cabbage rolls and more.
And... the cocoa bar was used this year...
Alyssa loved the beanie she received. It has a hole in the top to accommodate her pony tail. Not sure her hair color could be any prettier...
Good times...
After round two of presents (round two of presents on Christmas Day)
Donnie's dad and Donetta brought this Swiss cheese snowman dip. So cute!! When whimsy and cheese come together, this is what you get :)
My dessert plate on Christmas Day- it's fairly impressive when you consider that I was not even hungry before dinner began due to pre- meal snacking. Then I ate a full plate for dinner and then got ready to eat the good stuff (the good stuff being dessert).
I had a rare dessert eating fail. In my defense, I truly could have eaten everything on the plate but I feared I would be unsatisfactorily full. I decided not to touch the Killer Brownie because Killer Brownies are too good to waste on a super full stomach. I wanted to appreciate it when I was less full (alas, Abby ate it off my plate about an hour after :().
We hosted family on Christmas Eve and Christmas. Not sure that hosting both will happen again :). Everything worked out fine and we all had a good time but I felt like my kitchen was in a perpetual state of being used which means that I was
On Christmas Eve, I prepared some dishes ahead of time both for our Christmas Eve celebration and our Christmas celebration. We went to the 3:00 pm Christmas Eve service, or "event" as our church referred to it. The service/ event/ Christmas Eve church attending was quite entertaining. It featured reenactments, dancing, singing, etc. It was very non traditional; the church offered an 11:00 pm "traditional" service that I would have enjoyed attending. But, 11:00 pm? Heeeeck, no. I'm in RPM most nights well before 11:00 pm.
Shortly after we arrived home, preparations were in earnest for our guest coming at 5:30 pm to eat. My brother John arrived at about 4:45 pm bearing sugary treats for our celebration. It was great to see him. Shortly after that, our other guests arrived. We dined on Chik- fil- A nuggets, cabbage rolls, meatballs, cheesy potatoes, veggies, pasta salad and all the desserts.
After dinner, we did a gift exchange. Here are some pictures from Christmas Eve:
Three Rineer Kids before church
And dad...
Between this...
and this...
...It was beginning to a look lot like Christmas
Christmas Eve with lots of family time...
Donnie and Denise
Alyssa and John played soccer downstairs for a long time. I came down to take some pictures.
I didn't get any pictures of the main food, just the desserts. Everything was so good!!
Mark and Cindy brought the Nothing Bundt Cake. I thought the cake itself was just so-so but the cream cheese icing was outstanding.
Pfeffernusse? From Germany?? Via Aldi??? Ja wohl!!!
Mark and Cindy "broke" the rules of our gift exchange and got me a gift. Well, if they insisted... it's not like I could take it back since they had it personalized . I mean, there's maybe another Maria out there who would like a cute gardening tote with some gardening tools but too bad, it's mine :).
Christmas morning: The kids received lots of clothes, video games, Star War items, books, and Harry Potter things. The girls got a PlayStation 4 and all three received a Star Wars augmented reality game device
...and Alyssa received some squishes. She was quite clear that she wanted squishies for Christmas
A reindeer tag for the Three Rineer Kids gift because "Rineer" and "reindeer" are one long A and D sound away from sounding like the same word :)
The girls' PS4
Speaking of eats, we had turkey, ham, shrimp cocktail, sweet potatoes, cheesy potatoes, corn, rolls, cabbage rolls and more.
And... the cocoa bar was used this year...
Alyssa loved the beanie she received. It has a hole in the top to accommodate her pony tail. Not sure her hair color could be any prettier...
Good times...
After round two of presents (round two of presents on Christmas Day)
I had a rare dessert eating fail. In my defense, I truly could have eaten everything on the plate but I feared I would be unsatisfactorily full. I decided not to touch the Killer Brownie because Killer Brownies are too good to waste on a super full stomach. I wanted to appreciate it when I was less full (alas, Abby ate it off my plate about an hour after :().
Comments
Post a Comment