Merry Christmas

I hope everyone had a very merry Christmas!

I had a lovely time today and I can’t believe it’s only 7 o’clock as I write this.  Geeze, it feels so much later than that.  I suppose it doesn’t help that out here in Boston the world gets pitch black dark by 4:40p.  Anyways, let’s recap shall we?

To give you the whole story, we’ll need to rewind to the evening of Christmas Eve.  Here in Jack’s family there is a Chinese food tradition.  It was decided that we would order from a local restaurant for a 7p dinner.  The order was placed at 6:45 which I thought to be a little late for comfort.  Oh little did we know that this place was what we dubbed “the worst Chinese restaurant EVER” because not only did they not have dumplings (apparently they are raviolis…) but they completely didn’t include our Szechuan chicken in the order and the food was cold when we got it.  By the way, we got the food at 8p.  That’s right, an hour and fifteen minutes later. Ugh.  We were starved.

When we set out all the food we did have quite the spread though.  Beef teriyaki sticks, chicken wings, puff-fried shrimp and chicken with sweet and sour sauce or plum sauce, crab rangoon, egg rolls, house fried rice (awkwardly pink in color), chicken lo mein, and pan-fried “raviolis”.

I had a taste of just about everything, minus the chicken wings.  Honestly, if I wanted wings I would go to Buffalo Wild Wings or something.

Aside from being cold the food wasn’t all that flavorful either but the tradition was fulfilled and it certainly wasn’t awful by any means.  And afterwards we got to the cookie part of the evening which cancelled out any lingering Chinese woes.  I mixed up four colors of icing and we grabbed just about every sprinkle known to man and went to town.

For the last cookie we tried to combine all the frosting and do a “dipped tie-dye” cookie.  It turned out to be a bad idea but it was definitely worth the laugh.

In the end we finished over two dozen cookies and they turned out to be one of the main Christmas Day food groups. *blush*  Also eaten on Christmas morning, thanks to the hotel that Jack and I along with his brother and brother’s girlfriend (Dan and Dani) are staying at, were things like waffles, eggs with ketchup, bacon, and yogurt.  [Sorry for the cell phone picture…]

Presents were the main attraction.  The tree was practically overflowing with presents.  I honestly don’t remember the last time I saw so many under one tree.  It was probably when I was much, much younger.  When it’s just you and your two parents, the tree is seldom bursting at the seems as it can be when 10 peoples’ presents are under there.

Jack’s dad played Elf and distributed gifts and Jack was Elf #2.  He even wore the hat to go with the role.

When all was said and done I got quite a few things (always more than I expect) from everyone in the family including a santoku knife, partoku knife, bling-ified slipper socks, cold packs for my shins, and a nice silver-threaded shirt.

Mom and dad got me a gorgeous scarf (which I opened before we traveled) and Jack got princess cut fire opals.

Every girls knows that some of the best gifts come in blue boxes with white bows.  =D  After presents we put the roast in the oven and settled around the dining room table for a game of Foodie Trivia.

The roast ended up taking about 90 minutes longer than originally planned so we played for quite a bit.  No one did very well.  We had a lot of trouble with the dates and the names.  Oh well, it was a game full of lots of laughs.  I think we had more fun making up the answers than getting the right ones.  Haha.  Finally the roast was finished, thanks to the new meat thermometer reading 135 degrees, so we set the table.

Love the paper towel napkins, huh?  Some of us had red wine, a Bordeaux, and others white and still others had water.  On the table we served the cracked pepper roast, sweet potato fries, carrots cooked in butter, and a red bell pepper/bacon/sweet potato dish.  There were also a few awfully overcooked fingerling potatoes on the table because we threw them into the roasting pan when we thought the beef was only going to take 30 minutes.  They were not mean to take two hours of oven heat.

I had some of everything (minus the sad 2 hour potatoes) along with seconds of the sweet potato-red bell pepper dish.

The pepper-bacon-potato mixture was incredibly unexpected, especially with the white wine deglazing action I did over the burner on the stove.  However, it was really good and something I actually think I might make again.  Maybe adding onion to it would take it to the next level.

Apple pie a la mode was for dessert a tad bit later after dishes were done.  I’ll admit though that I probably ate my weight in cookies throughout the day.  It’s a good thing this kind of day only happens once a year…

After dinner, dessert, and dishes I grabbed my computer and sat in an empty room to Skype with mommy and daddy.  It was wonderful to see them instead of just talk to them.  Fairly sure mom and I almost cried at the beginning.  I think I’d like to turn this into a much more frequently occurrence.

Now the group is off to watch The Help which Amanda, Jack’s sister, scored for Christmas.  I’ve read the book but we’ll see how the movie compares.  Once again I hope you had a great Christmas.  I hope you got everything to fill up your heart and soul.  I’ll catch you later my dears!

Questions: What did you get for Christmas?
Have you seen The Help? Thoughts?