It's a Christmas Miracle!

As per usual, it was a Christmas holiday filled with tons of family, friends, food and fun at Andrew's parents house for the holidays.

It was a full house, with Amanda and Adam home for the holidays, and with my sister Amy and our friends Phu and Magali joining us in Plymouth for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day.

Although we jokingly said we would all wake up at 9:14 a.m on Christmas morning (just so it wouldn't be too early), everyone surprisingly ended up rolling out of bed earlier than that.

First thing in the morning, Amanda and Adam helped A.J. get dressed:

Did someone say that Santa would make his appearance? Is it me, or does Santa look a little pissed? :) 

Then it was time to attack our Christmas stockings before breakfast:

Magali, Phu, Amy and I all received Sing-a-majigs in ou stockings. You need to see them the truly get how funny they are, but basically, they're stuffed animals with moving mouths that can sing and harmonize with each other.

Another Christmas tradition, egg casserole and coffee cake with currants (pictured below) for breakfast, yum!!

Gift unwrapping in all its glory took place in the family room this year, due to the sheer quantity of gifts:

Everyone was in good spirits and ready to tear into the pile: 

Midway through the unwrapping frenzy, everyone looked simultaneously happy with their gifts and overwhelmed by trying to keep up with what everyone else was getting: 

I'll go ahead and say it, "He went to Jared." And by he, I meant Tom bought Charlotte a lovely charm bracelet that we all admired:

Exhausted by the hours (literally) of gifts and a full breakfast, we were all ready for a nap. Adam and A.J. were especially cute, although we laughed at the fact that 1) Adam sleeps with his eyes open (not evident in this picture) and 2) A.J. and Adam kept changing positions in unison while asleep:

What do you do after a day of eating and unwrapping? Eat some more! And pause to admire Charlotte's beautifully deocrated dinner table:

One of my favorite parts of the day - Christmas dinner with turkey and a lot of the traditional trimmings:

Everone was comfortable and cozy in their pajamas from the morning:

We waited to tackle dessert until later in the evening, so we could share with my Uncle Rich and my cousins Andrew and Andrea (more "A" names to join the crowd!) - we indulged in a chocolate silk and an apple pie, a delicious cheesecake-concoction from Charlotte that included a layer of sliced bananas and a cherry/blueberry topping as well as another tradition, a Frangelico trifle (Andrew's favorite).

It all flew by too quickly, especially since Adam and Amanda ended up changing their travel plans abruptly due to the approaching blizzard and left late that evening, but it really made me realize why Christmas is such a special time of the year. Here's hoping that your holidays were just as merry!  (PS. The title of this post was a running joke for the weekend, it's not funny enough to explain but pardon me for its use!)

Decking Our Halls

It's funny, until we were homeowners, Andrew and I never paid much attention to holiday decorations.  I've always enjoyed wrapping gifts but never got into buying little decorative touches for my old place.  A $20 fake Target tree, a string of colored lights and a few ornaments, and I was good to go. 

But now that we have a house that we're proud of (ridiculously proud of, in fact) and the prospect of spending our first Christmas as a married couple (truthfully, not different from life before the wedding except the whole owning a house thing), we're inspired to make purchases like:

My first wreath ever (this is where I bring in the whole, "I grew up on an Army base overseas" thing and say that people didn't hang wreaths up in the countries I grew up in, therefore, I didn't grow up with this tradition) - this thing still smells fantastic:

Our very own stockings to hang over the mantel:

Speaking of mantels, did I mention that we finally had our chimney inspected and after a rather costly repair, we were ready to safely have our first fire in the house (and my first time living in a house with a fireplace, again, attributed to the reason mentioned above):

There were a few other purchases that I'll 'fess up to making (Christmas runner for our sideboard, Christmas kitchen towels, Christmas guest towels and Christmas soap for the guest bathroom [Sidenote: I am totally in love with Bath and Body Work's Winter Cranberry scent right now]).  This was all bought for a Christmas Adam gathering (Adam coming before Eve, December 23 coming before the 24th, it's a family term from Andrew's family) we held for our families.

The after-Christmas sales are going to be especially tempting this year. Usually, I stock up on half-off wrapping supplies but I think this year, I'm going to have my eye open for more decorative elements.

After Christmas Craziness

So I made the mistake of going to the Wrentham Outlets the day after Christmas.

I was backed up on 495 for 20 minutes, which didn't seem that bad until I spent another 20 minutes looking for a parking spot. I had to stalk a shopper, which I hate doing, to finally snag a spot. If your familiar with Wrentham, you can tell by all the double-parked cars in the picture that the parking situation is not good:


My goal was to exchange two shirts that we had gotten Andrew's dad Tom for the correct size at Eddie Bauer.

I considered myself lucky that I wasn't a shopper waiting in the Ugg line:

Or the Coach line...

...which looked bad from every angle! At least it was fairly warm outside for all those waiting.

The parking situation got much worse in the time it took me to swap the shirts - here's all the cars that were waiting in what I thought was the aisle that I parked in:

Turns out, I was actually two aisles over. One enteprising woman actually got out of the passenger side of the car her daughter was driving and walked with me for a few minutes (despite claiming recent back surgery) until I was able to figure out where I had parked my car. It was a bit awkward but I had to give her props for having the chutzpah to get my spot. Lesson learned: never head to the outlets or the malls (I suspect) on the day/weekend after Christmas.

Christmas Dinner 2009

At this point, I have to pause for a moment to thank Andrew's parents once again for a wonderful Christmas - they simply made it awesome.


After a great breakfast and a nap, I felt like all the "kids" (except poor Amanda, who was also cooking in the kitchen with Tom and Charlotte) in the house sauntered back into the dining room to find the table set for Christmas dinner - can you see the cute little presents scattered on the table?



Amanda, festively attired in shades of red, leads the way in trying out all the delicious food - we had turkey, Tom's famous sausage stuffing, asaparagus, creamed corn, biscuits, jello and "orange" mashed potatoes (from the addition of carrots):

Adam, visiting from California, looked happy to see the homecooked food although he's not as used to all my picture taking like Amanda is:

My delicious plate of food - I couln't be rude so I had to have a little of everything. :)

Another thing I love about Christmas - it's a time when family gets together to enjoy each other's company and good food:

After dinner, we headed over to Taunton for a few hours to spend time with my uncle Rich and my cousins Andrew and Andrea (as well as Andrea's friend Stephanie):

This was our first dessert of the evening - a choice between a beautifully decorated white cake, a cannoli cream cake and pumpkin pie. Andrew and I limited ourselves to a small slice of dessert each (knowing what was waiting for us back in Plymouth) and we dived into several rounds of Apples to Apples - what can I say, the game is great to play with all ages and both sides of the family!

With Andrew's family waiting patiently for us back in Plymouth to start dessert there, we headed back to find this monstrous trifle:


As well as homemade carrot cake and pumpkin pie:

I think my stomach is still full from Christmas.

Christmas Morning 2009

I'm not going to lie, I still wake up excited on Christmas mornings.

Especially when I see a table set with Christmas coffee cake (complete with currants):

And a bulging stocking - somehow Santa knew I could use more rubber spatulas, cupcake liners and Swedish fish:

Note the Swedish dala horse napkins that matched the horses on the table and the Ferrero Rocher chocolates waiting for us:

Another shot of the beautiful tree and presents waiting for us after breakfast:

This is the second tree downstairs next to the chimney where the stockings are usually hung - they were moved to the dining room chairs to allow easy access for all the "Santas" in the house to add gifts:

What's for breakfast besides coffee cake? Another Christmas tradition for Andrew's family - egg casserole:

As I helped play Santa by handing out gifts, there aren't too many pictures of gift opening from Christmas morning. But I did manage to capture Tom's big gift for Andrew's mom Charlotte:

Her engagement ring reset, with a diamond added on each side, and her wedding ring recoated to match her engagement ring - they looked brand new and shiny!

Very Berry Granola and Muddy Buddies

OK, I know it's been ages since I've blogged.
I had a wonderful trip to NYC over the weekend but sadly, I think I may have accidentally
deleted most of the pictures. There is a small chance that I did manage to upload the photos to Andrew's sister's (our gracious hostess) computer, so there may be catch up later this week.

So onto the present.

As a last minute decision, I decided to make some holiday treats as Christmas gifts for my coworkers. I'm usually not around for Christmas, as I usually spend a couple of weeks visiting my parents in Japan around this time. So it was strange to be in the office so close to holidays and not have anything to offer people.

Based on the fact that I've been on baking overload lately, I wanted something quick, relatively easy and something that could be packaged attractively.

I decided on homemade Berry Granola and Muddy Buddies.

I adapted a recipe from Martha Stewart to use for the granola:

Ingredients (I doubled this recipe)
2 cups of old-fashioned rolled oats
1/2 cup of sweetened shredded coconut (I upped this by an extra 1/2 cup because I LOVE coconut)
1/2 cup sliced almonds
2 tablespoons vegetable oil (I doubled this and the honey, so with the double batch, I had 8 tablespoons of each total)
2 tablespoons honey
1 cup dried blueberries (Replaced this with a cup of mixed berries (strawberries, blueberries and cherries) from Trader Joes and added a half cup of cranberries)

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

On a large rimmed baking sheet, toss oats, coconut and almonds (since I doubled the batch, I had to split the mixture into half for baking):

In a small bowl, stir together oil and honey. Pour over oat mixture and toss

Bake, tossing occasionally, until lightly toasted, 16 to 20 minutes (I mixed it every five minutes and baked it for 15 minutes total).

Place mixture in a large bowl and stir in blueberries. (I just poured the berries on top of the pan so the granola could remain on the bowl to cool):

After it cooled, I stored it in an airtight container (plastic tupperware) overnight.

Next, it was onto the Muddy Buddies.

Ingredients

9 cups of Chex cereal (I went with Corn and used the whole box)

1 cup of semisweet chocolate chips (I upped this to 1 1/2 cups)

1/2 cup of peanut butter (I upped this to 3/4 cup and used creamy peanut butter)

1/4 cup butter

1 teaspoon vanilla

1 1/2 cups of powdered sugar

Directions

In a large bowl, measure cereal (I skipped this step).

Microwave chocolate chips, peanut butter and butter in a microwaveable bowl on high for 1 minute, stir. Microwave for another 30 seconds or until mixture can be stirred smooth. Stir in vanilla. Pour mixture over cereal until evenly coated (I reversed this by pouring the cereal on top of the mixture):


Now for the fun part, pour the cereal into a two gallon resealable bag with the powdered sugar, seal, and shake until coated. (I had to split the batch into two parts since I only had one gallon bags):

Spread on waxed paper to cool:

In the morning, I packed the granola into Ziploc bags and placed them into cute Christmas bags I had picked up in Japan, along with a helpful hint from Martha Stewart. The hint (which I printed on individual tags) gave suggestions on what to eat granola with (since I was afraid not everyone was familiar with granola):


The Muddy Buddies were simply put into clear plastic bags and tied with raffia and everything was ready to go to for the office.

Ladies + Cody Baking Night

As I mentioned last year, one of the holiday traditions that I've come to appreciate more and more each year is baking with a group of wonderful friends that I met while working at Monster. As our lives get busier each year, which on the plus side means we have more to celebrate, I love the fact that we're able to make time to spend a day baking with each other. This goes beyond a mere cookie swap - we bake most of the treats on site while catching up on lives and helping one another out. This year was made even more special with the addition of a little helper, Cody. I can remember when his Mom's belly was 9 (!) months full on the same baking night two years ago.

Everyone pitched in to help me unwrap candy cane and regular milk chocolate kisses:


Cody joined in on the action:


And showed remarkable restraint by not eating a single one! Although, Kelli attributed this to the fact that he probably didn't realize that the kisses were chocolate. :)

As a reward, he was given one of Z's delicious chocolate chunk cookies:

Um, three guesses on how much he liked the cookie:

Before you think that I've devoted most of this post to Cody (it does mention baking in the title) - here are some of the things we made.

Z's famous chocolate chip and chocolate chunk cookies. She also did a batch with white chocolate chips and heath bar bits - yum!

Trays of Heather's oreo truffle balls, before they were drizzled with white chocolate:

My contribution - chocolate cookies with candy cane kisses and peanut butter cookies with milk chocolate kisses - we had a few mishaps since white chocolate melts more quickly than milk chocolate! Problem solved by putting the candy cane kisses in the freezer for a few minutes before topping cookies hot out of the oven:

Z was pretty as a picture in an apron:

Then it was time to introduce Heather and Kevin's (who had just arrived home) babies Daphne and Clyde to Cody, after Cody had literally babbled about "puppies" all afternoon:

I realize this picture makes it look like Daphne was grabbing Cody but they both were really gentle with him, nuzzling his arm and giving him kisses:

Cody loved interacting with the dogs from the safety of his mama's arms:

A group shot at the end of another long baking session. Joy of joys, I got to hold Cody all day and for the picture (how cute is that hat?)

I can't wait until next year's baking session (which will be year five!). Hopefully, I'll be able to host it if we have our own place and a nice kitchen!