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The Peppermint Pinwheels were tasty too! Mostly just a sugar cookie with a hint of peppermint. They were very fun to do and I hope my recipients enjoyed them!

After I got all my baking done and shipped out, it was time to concentrate on cooking for Christmas Eve. My father-in-law flew up for a visit and everyone came to my house for dinner and presents on Christmas Eve. That morning, I woke up at 6:00 AM to get things ready.


I got the table all set for dinner.

As a side note, I am a bit of a dinnerware freak, so I have lots of sets of dishes. My favorite dishes by far though are my World of Disney Christmas dinnerware set. I always want to have Christmas dinner at my house just to use my dishes!

The dinner plates are big and so pretty.

The dessert/salad plates are just adorable. There’s 4 different ones with Mickey, Dumbo, Dopey and Tinkerbell. I love them so!

For dinner, I made a turkey that I brined. Because brining makes all the difference in the world. Also, I have made several different roast turkey recipes over the years from Martha Stewart to Pioneer Woman. This year, I went with Alton Brown and, with him, I have found my go-to Roast Turkey recipe. Hands down, this was the best (and easiest) turkey ever! I will never go back to anything else! This turkey was perfection! Thanks Alton!

Alton Brown’s turkey gravy recipe is also out of this world good! It comes together like magic!


For the rest of dinner, I made our standard holiday-fare. Pioneer Woman’s Mashed Potatoes, Pink Salad, Green Bean Casserole, Corn Casserole, Cranberry Sauce, my Stuffing and my mom made her Layered Pea Salad (recipe to follow on that one too). Throw in some Rhode’s Rolls and there you have our Christmas Eve dinner!

I think everyone enjoyed it!

Even Haley ate a tiny little Christmas Eve dinner!

The threat of “you better eat a good dinner so you can open your presents” always helps!


Speaking of opening presents, Haley could hardly contain herself. She was so excited to get at her stocking! She can’t resist Webkinz.

Cicely had a hard time resisting Haley’s new Webkinz too!

Apparently a stocking full of dollar Hello Kitty items goes a long way for a 5-year old!

Haley was a great helper handing out presents to everyone. Jennifer and  Zak and the Wayneman and I got my parents a Blu Ray player.

Haley got a Hello Kitty boom box that she loved as you can see. As soon as she opened it she shouted “Whoo HOO!!!”

Jennifer really made out with her new Le Creuset Dutch Oven and Julia Child cookbook & DVD.

Emily even got to open her presents!

We got the Wayneman’s dad a giant Genealogy resource book when we were at the National Archives in Washington, D.C. earlier this year.

The Wayneman liked his new rolling 4-ball bowling bag.

Hungry Hungry Hippos for Haley! Jennifer and I had that game when we were little!

We got Emily a Bumbo seat. At first she wasn’t too sure about it.

But, she came around. First Christmases will do that to a girl.

Cicely didn’t know what to make of all the excitement! In her mind, the best Christmas gift she could get would be the trash bag full of paper to shred. That is like candy for this Basset Hound.

I think everyone enjoyed themselves and had a wonderful Christmas Eve. I know I did!

Since Christmas is now officially over, I finally have time to write about all our holiday happenings. Things have been busy, busy, busy around here (not only for me but for everyone I am sure).


First up was getting the house all decorated for the holidays! Started with lights outside...

... and the tree inside. We have an artificial, pre-lit tree with like 1500 mini white lights on it. Last year after Christmas, right before we took the tree down, about half the lights went out. Good luck trying to find the bad bulb. So this year, we just strung the big, old fashioned multi-colored lights on the tree to match the lights outside. I think I may like this look more than the mini white lights, so it worked out for the better!

I also put out my Hallmark animated plush snowman collection and my Boyd’s Nativity. For several years, I’ve collected the new Hallmark snowman they put out. However, this year Hallmark didn’t do a snowman! They put out a dumb Snoopy one instead. I was bummed about that!