THE DAY AFTER

Ahhhh, it feels so good to sit down. We had a great

time on Christmas Eve, with family, food and fun.

Here are the tables being readied for dinner:

We had Cornish Game Hens, rice, salads, Borscht, bread

and for dessert a variety of cookies and a chocolate cake

made by my niece.

Before dinner we had a few appetizers in the kitchen. My

favorites were my sister in law's warm Artichoke dip and

broiled Mushrooms stuffed with Feta Cheese--yum.

It's amazing that you don't know how hungry you are

until you smell the good food!

This must have been the See Food platter.

The black appetizers are Penguins made from olives

stuffed with cream cheese with carrot feet and beaks.

We also made Krumkakas for the first time. They

are Scandinavian cookies that are cooked on a

special iron, then rolled on a wooden cone to make

a pretty shape. We used a small camp stove

because I have an electric stove and gas works

much better to control the heat of the iron.

My older brother has our Grandma's iron and wooden

roller, so he brought it over and my uncle gave me

our Grandma's recipe to use.

It was fun and a little high-tech because Keith used his

iPhone to time how long to cook the cookies :-) We put

them out on a platter and they were gone instantly so

they must have been good!

The cuzzies had fun together...

Sally & her daughter Nancy visited from Washington

and brought an extra special gift for all of us. Sally

crocheted a Hefty bag full of hats and we each got

to pick one out to keep!

Here are some of the special hats and just look at the

gorgeous servers that volunteered to carry around

my Grandma's china set for people's tea and coffee.

One of the games we played was Frozen Tee Shirt. The

night before I had soaked a few of my husband's shirts

in water, tied them in knots and froze them. The next

morning I took them out to thaw just a little and the

idea was to grab a partner, untie the shirt and then

one of you has to put it on to win.

It's definitely not as easy as it sounds!

Yeeesh that's icy cold over a velvet dress!

The winners!

Another game was Name That Christmas Carol. Teams

of 3 or 4 pick a leader and send the leader to the host

to see the name of a common Christmas carol. The

leader then goes back to their team and has to act

out the carol until the team recognizes it and shouts

it out. They then have to sing the carol and the

whole thing is timed against the other teams.

The Christmas Carol winners!

A pretty picture taken as we went to bed on Christmas Eve.

My little doggy just chillin' and enjoyin' the view after

all the excitement. He likes to sit by the angels and

watch the birds flying around.

Merry Christmas and God's Best Blessings on

your New Year from my family to yours!