Christmas Eve Ginger Bread House Construction and Deconstruction

Christmas Eve dinner was simple and low stress (I think we needed that after all the wedding planning) but super delicious! Tamales and salad, chips and salsa, shrimp cocktail and wine…. pretty much my favorite meal EVER.

We had decided to go to midnight mass, so in the mean time we entertained ourselves with the last task from the advent jar: build a gingerbread house. Paul insisted on buying a kit, I would have been happy with graham crackers and on-sale icing… but the kit turned out to be more fun then we bargained for. Construction went well at first….

Then while decorating there were a few reconstructions that had to take place, the frosting they give you to go with the kit is LAME. We dug into some real frosting at Paul’s parents.

Everything was looking pretty good

until Paul’s snow storm hit….

Then there was this which stood together about two seconds

We actually had a lot of fun making it, I think Paul’s favorite party was dumping the whole container of frosting on the top.

Mass was beautiful, it was nice to be in the church we got married in a little over a month ago (was it ONLY 6 weeks ago???? So much has happened since then its crazy!)

Christmas

I slept like a baby Christmas Eve so I woke up in an extra special good mood Christmas morning. I went downstairs to help finish prepping breakfast. My mother in law and sisters in law had made a pumpkin french toast bake and quiche lorraine the night before. The french toast just needed to be topped with yummy brown sugar and nuts, and the quiche needed the eggs.

While breakfast was baking I started the morning off right by spiking my coffee with pumpkin pie liqueur…

Around 10am we were ready to eat the pumpkin french toast bake

and the quiche lorraine (made with turkey bacon, I was so proud!)

my plate

Little Max really liked the toy he got from us!

My sister in law and I in front of the beautiful tree

Lunch/Dinner was even more epic than breakfast! I had Salmon made by my hubby, green beans, zucchini, scallop potatoes, and chili cheese bread. I definitely dug into a couple more slices of chili cheese bread…. yuuuummmmmmm! We also had the clean eating sweet potato casserole I made (I need a break from sweet potatoes I think) and Honey Baked Ham.

A couple hours later after we let our stomachs digest a bit, it was time for Dessert. There was quite the line up…

Peanut Butter Dark Chocolate Oatmeal Cookies and Date Bread

Cookie Bars–> my favorite I ate two pieces

Homemade Pecan Pie

And that was all she wrote, it was beautiful time spent with loved ones and good food I couldn’t ask for anything more!

 

*This post was edited to change the year from 2014–>2013, how come no one noticed?????