Christmas Eve

This year we agreed to host Christmas Eve dinner at Casa de Fein, with the stipulation that we would be forced to use folding tables and folding chairs as we don't have a proper dining room table and can't seat 15 people at the kitchen table. Michael's family was of course very agreeable to this arrangement but this left me mulling over decorating ideas for weeks... I decided I had to have enough Christmas stuff to detract from all the folding contraptions.

Last year I picked up a good bit of stuff during after Christmas sales but this new house is so darn big that it needed more. I had to pull out the big guns. The morning after we landed from Florida, I threw the kid in the car, picked up the dog from the dog ranch and pulled into a tree lot and got the tallest, fullest tree they had left... for $20! It turns out waiting to get a tree six days before xmas has it's advantages. I asked the guy to strap it to the roof of the car with twine, which he agreed to do but told me in broken English that it "should" hold if I drive slowly. So we meandered 20 minutes home instead of the usual ten and arrived without an eight foot tree flying off the roof of the car. Tree - Check.

I immediately went to work decorating it only to realize that we had never had a tree that big and therefore did not have enough lights. Again, I threw the kid into the car and ran to the store to buy the last five boxes of lights at 75% off. Procrastinating is awesome. Lights on Tree - Check.

Next the ornaments went up, followed by the nick knacks, brick bracks, figurines and other crap. Miscellaneous Holiday Spirit Crap - Check.

For weeks I had this idea of hanging garland around the ceiling of the dining room so I made a late night run to the craft store and bought some at 75% off along with four green tablecloths and more miscellaneous stuff. Decorative Garlands - Check.

Prior to our vacation I had started this awesome project and managed to finish off the embroidering a couple days prior to xmas. I had visions of it looking less lumpy but when you give things in boxes, lumpy it will be. I want to give credit to the tutorial I found that saved me $25 making it myself, plus I made it bigger and personalized it. Santa Bag - Check.

We squeezed in a playdate with Gavin on Thursday and his mommy had her Christmas Village up and it gave me the gusto I needed to pull mine out of storage and finally put it on display (PoPo gave them to me years ago). It turned out pretty well and gave me the Christmas Village bug, now my mom wants to start slowly funneling all her village pieces to me... she has a garage full... literally. Christmas Village - Check.

This is Christopher the Elf. Same idea as the elf on the shelf many parents invite into their home, but I think Christopher is less creepy looking then some of the "realistic" looking elves. Harrison thought it was fun to find him in a new hiding place every day. It's a good thing I wasn't too tired at the end of each day to ensure that elf remembered to move himself. Elf to ensure good behavior - Check.

Many dozens of Raspberry Pinwheel Cookies later, the remaining few that did not go to friends were left out for Santa, along with some celery for his reindeer. Remember all that raspberry sauce I ended up with in July? Turns out that I could add some pectin, re-cook it and put them in the cookies. Auntie Chyna our hard work did not go to waste after all! Treats - Check.

In the end, Christmas Eve was nearly perfect and the house looked wonderful. I would like to clarify nearly with this quick story. Our oven broke in early November and we got it fixed in early December. I baked a zillion cookies, several dinners and on Christmas Eve a Chocolate Cake with no trouble. Three hours later, Michael went to put in the roast and the oven was broken. He ended up shuttling two trays of roasts to our neighbor's house to cook and we ate an hour late. Quite funny really. Although I am still dealing with getting the oven fixed.

Yes, I know it sounds like I just did a lot of complaining, but my family was really happy which in turn made me one happy mama.