Christmas Fun 2009

Wow, what a wonderful day!  Santa came and left lots of goodies under our tree.  I bet it is because we left him milk in a Bama glass!  Roll Tide Roll!

We started our Christmas festivities on Thursday by making all of our sweets!

• Red Velvet Cake Balls that you can find here
• Magic Cookie Bara that you can find here
• Puppy chow
• Apple pie

Think that should be enough!

        

 

After making treats all day, we headed off to church. 

      

After coming home from church we had a yummy Italian Christmas Eve dinner of homemade lasagna, caprese salad and garlic bread.  Then we decided to tackle the Gingerbread House!

 

Then it was time to put out the reindeer food – which had magically disappeared this morning!

    

Next,we got Santa’s milk and cookies ready.  I think Santa appreciated the Alabama Crimson Tide cup and the Fudge Stripe cookies – all 15 of them!

After all that excitement, it was finally time for Sofia to go to bed – but not before she did a little bit of dancing!

Then  I read “The Night Before Christmas” to her.  I gave this book to her on her first Christmas and me and her Daddy wrote notes to her in it.  I read those to her and she really liked the notes! 

After being snuggled in her bed for a while, I finally decided it was safe to finish up the wrapping and begin staging.

 

looks like Santa left a thank you note!

 

Santa writes with swirly letters at our house!

    

Santa brought this jogging / biking trailer to me and Sofia!

Sofia allowed me to sleep in until 6:12am and then she could just not wait anymore!  So we all went downstairs to see what Santa had left.  This is what we saw:

Wow!  Santa was very good to us!  Some of her favorite things:

• Wii system
• Karaoke machine
• laptop
• horse and sleigh for her AG dolls

Santa picked a bike that is a little too big for her, so it will have to wait a while.

She was so excited opening all of her presents!

     

 

Sofia gave me some shopping money, a necklace and a coffee mug filled with candy and Santa brought me these pretty things:

Paula Deen cookware set – including her roasting pan, which I put to good use today making what could be the BEST ham I have ever eaten /  created in my LIFE! 

Speaking of ham, this was our yummy Christmas lunch (and dinner):

 

Nothing fancy required here!  I cooked a ham that was almost 12 pounds and I bet we will eat it all!  For Sofia, good ole Kraft Shells and Cheese.  Green bean casserole of course and rolls and we were all set!

Now, back to this ham!  I happened to be flipping through the channels the other day and stopped on “Big Daddy’s House” on FoodNetwork and he was making this ham and potato salad that you can find here and here.  I am telling, this ham was to die for!  In his recipe, he used a spiral-cut ham. I don’t like those kind and well since my mom always made yummy ham and she always used the pork butt or shoulder that is what I buy too. 

Whew, what a day!  Hope everyone had a very, Merry Christmas!