We spent the whole day of Christmas Eve together as a family, and it was so nice and so relaxing. We started out the morning with baking another batch of chocolate macaroons to give to our family, and my favorite - a red velvet cake. I have never made one, or even tasted one, but by the picture in the magazine I knew it would be the perfect dessert for Christmas dinner. The kids and Matthew helped me make it, and we were all pretty impressed with the bright red color of the batter. It shouldn't have been a surprise, the recipe called for a whole ounce of red food coloring!
After they were done cooking, the red color wasn't quite as bright, but it still looked pretty festive:
I decided to wait until Christmas morning to frost and color it, because I didn't want it to get damaged or soggy. So while we were waiting for the cakes to cool enough to wrap them up for the night, Matthew got out his caramel corn recipe. Its something that he has made many times in the past, but he had misplaced the recipe for a few years, so this was the first time I was able to watch him make it. Its a pretty interesting process, but fairly easy. He heated up a mixture of butter, brown sugar and corn syrup, and melted it in the microwave. Then he poured it on top of some freshly popped popcorn and some peanuts in a brown paper bag:
He gave it a few good shakes to mix it all together, while Rowan looked on eagerly:
After it was mixed around, he put the bag and all into the microwave for a minute and a half. Shook it around again, repeated the microwave time and shook it around again. Then he poured it on the wax paper covering the counter to allow it to cool.
I had suggested doubling the recipe, which turns out to not be such a good idea when making caramel corn. The popcorn was really soggy at first, although it did firm up a bit by the next day. It was delicious! I could have eaten a whole bag of it, and it was a hit with the rest of the family the next day at Christmas dinner.
The rest of the day we spend relaxing, watching movies (Santa Clause 1, 2 and part of number 3) and playing board games. After dinner the kids had a bath, and got into their new Christmas jammies. They always open one present each from mom and dad on Christmas Eve, and its always pajamas....they don't even pretend to be surprised anymore! They also got to open the present Stephanie had brought for them a couple weeks ago at the cookie making party. They had been anxiously saving it for Christmas Eve, and it turned out to be a beautiful book by Mary Engelbreit. I love her books so much, the pictures are so detailed and gorgeously colored. It was the perfect present to open that night, as our tradition is to read our Christmas books together before bed. We read our new book along with the Night Before Christmas book that we have by the same author, and a book about Rudolph.
After the books were finished, we all crowded around the computer to check Norad.com to see where in the world Santa was. He was in South America, near Bolivia I think. The kids were super excited that he was on his way towards us, and we spent a little time estimating how long it was going to take him to get to our house. We set out some milk and cookies for Santa, and some cheese sticks for the reindeer because we were out of carrot sticks, and felt like they would like a change anyways:
We put the kids to bed, and they both had a hard time falling asleep. I remember Christmas Eve was always the hardest time to fall asleep when I was little....there was just so much excitement in the air! They were both asleep by 10, so Matthew and I hauled all the wrapped presents out of the attic. Usually I have some wrapping to do on Christmas Eve, but this year I got it wrapped everything the week before at our wrapping party. It was nice to have it all done, and fast getting it all under the tree.
On a side note....in the weeks leading up to Christmas we had stuck a few wrapped presents under the tree, just to look pretty. Tonight the kids counted them all up, and there were 5 for each of them, and one to share. Killian asked if that was all they had, and I said there were a couple more that I still had to wrap (which was true, we had OMSI and Blazer game tickets to wrap). I asked if it was okay that he only had a few presents, and he answered of course it was! I was really pleased to hear him say that, and that he wasn't upset that there weren't more, more, more. When I was growing up, Christmas was about quantity, not quality...something I still struggle with when I am shopping for my own kids. We don't buy them many toys during the year, its usually only on birthdays and Easter. We don't buy them something every time we go to the store, and I am glad that our family is like that because I think the kids are growing up with a good sense of financial responsibility and a leash on the unbridled consumerism that is our culture. But Christmas....Christmas is different. Since we don't go overboard the rest of the year, my instinct is to be like my mom and completely overdo Christmas. Matthew helps reign me in, and keep the gift buying under control and in perspective, something that I am grateful for. My kids would have been fine with those 5 presents, there wouldn't have been any whining for more. I am proud of them for that, and it makes me feel like Matthew and I are doing A-okay with this parenting stuff. At least where Christmas is concerned :)
However, the kids didn't end up with just those few presents, we had a couple more hiding in the garage. There were about 20 for each of them, which looking back still feels a little excessive, but we had carefully chosen each one to make sure it was something they would actually play with, and we were happy with the choices. Under the tree they looked so pretty - I think I may have been more excited than the kids!
"Santa" left his contribution, a present for each of the kids plus stockings totally overloaded, as usual. Stockings are usually the only thing that Matthew and I shop for together, and we have so much fun picking things out that we inevitably buy too much to fit into the stocking. We got smart and went to Michael's Craft store this year, so they got a bunch of neat things, mostly craft stuff that they could get creative with.
Around 11:30 Matthew and I headed to bed, leaving Harlow to watch over (and chew on) all the gifts.
After they were done cooking, the red color wasn't quite as bright, but it still looked pretty festive:
I decided to wait until Christmas morning to frost and color it, because I didn't want it to get damaged or soggy. So while we were waiting for the cakes to cool enough to wrap them up for the night, Matthew got out his caramel corn recipe. Its something that he has made many times in the past, but he had misplaced the recipe for a few years, so this was the first time I was able to watch him make it. Its a pretty interesting process, but fairly easy. He heated up a mixture of butter, brown sugar and corn syrup, and melted it in the microwave. Then he poured it on top of some freshly popped popcorn and some peanuts in a brown paper bag:
He gave it a few good shakes to mix it all together, while Rowan looked on eagerly:
After it was mixed around, he put the bag and all into the microwave for a minute and a half. Shook it around again, repeated the microwave time and shook it around again. Then he poured it on the wax paper covering the counter to allow it to cool.
I had suggested doubling the recipe, which turns out to not be such a good idea when making caramel corn. The popcorn was really soggy at first, although it did firm up a bit by the next day. It was delicious! I could have eaten a whole bag of it, and it was a hit with the rest of the family the next day at Christmas dinner.
The rest of the day we spend relaxing, watching movies (Santa Clause 1, 2 and part of number 3) and playing board games. After dinner the kids had a bath, and got into their new Christmas jammies. They always open one present each from mom and dad on Christmas Eve, and its always pajamas....they don't even pretend to be surprised anymore! They also got to open the present Stephanie had brought for them a couple weeks ago at the cookie making party. They had been anxiously saving it for Christmas Eve, and it turned out to be a beautiful book by Mary Engelbreit. I love her books so much, the pictures are so detailed and gorgeously colored. It was the perfect present to open that night, as our tradition is to read our Christmas books together before bed. We read our new book along with the Night Before Christmas book that we have by the same author, and a book about Rudolph.
After the books were finished, we all crowded around the computer to check Norad.com to see where in the world Santa was. He was in South America, near Bolivia I think. The kids were super excited that he was on his way towards us, and we spent a little time estimating how long it was going to take him to get to our house. We set out some milk and cookies for Santa, and some cheese sticks for the reindeer because we were out of carrot sticks, and felt like they would like a change anyways:
We put the kids to bed, and they both had a hard time falling asleep. I remember Christmas Eve was always the hardest time to fall asleep when I was little....there was just so much excitement in the air! They were both asleep by 10, so Matthew and I hauled all the wrapped presents out of the attic. Usually I have some wrapping to do on Christmas Eve, but this year I got it wrapped everything the week before at our wrapping party. It was nice to have it all done, and fast getting it all under the tree.
On a side note....in the weeks leading up to Christmas we had stuck a few wrapped presents under the tree, just to look pretty. Tonight the kids counted them all up, and there were 5 for each of them, and one to share. Killian asked if that was all they had, and I said there were a couple more that I still had to wrap (which was true, we had OMSI and Blazer game tickets to wrap). I asked if it was okay that he only had a few presents, and he answered of course it was! I was really pleased to hear him say that, and that he wasn't upset that there weren't more, more, more. When I was growing up, Christmas was about quantity, not quality...something I still struggle with when I am shopping for my own kids. We don't buy them many toys during the year, its usually only on birthdays and Easter. We don't buy them something every time we go to the store, and I am glad that our family is like that because I think the kids are growing up with a good sense of financial responsibility and a leash on the unbridled consumerism that is our culture. But Christmas....Christmas is different. Since we don't go overboard the rest of the year, my instinct is to be like my mom and completely overdo Christmas. Matthew helps reign me in, and keep the gift buying under control and in perspective, something that I am grateful for. My kids would have been fine with those 5 presents, there wouldn't have been any whining for more. I am proud of them for that, and it makes me feel like Matthew and I are doing A-okay with this parenting stuff. At least where Christmas is concerned :)
However, the kids didn't end up with just those few presents, we had a couple more hiding in the garage. There were about 20 for each of them, which looking back still feels a little excessive, but we had carefully chosen each one to make sure it was something they would actually play with, and we were happy with the choices. Under the tree they looked so pretty - I think I may have been more excited than the kids!
"Santa" left his contribution, a present for each of the kids plus stockings totally overloaded, as usual. Stockings are usually the only thing that Matthew and I shop for together, and we have so much fun picking things out that we inevitably buy too much to fit into the stocking. We got smart and went to Michael's Craft store this year, so they got a bunch of neat things, mostly craft stuff that they could get creative with.
Around 11:30 Matthew and I headed to bed, leaving Harlow to watch over (and chew on) all the gifts.
