Bethlehem Dinner

Christmas Eve...

We started the day out with a trip to the movies. Hannah has been begging us to take her to see Desperaux. It was a really cute movie! We came home, (stopping off for a few last minute items) made some more cookies, wrapped some more gifts and then started to prepare our Special Christmas Eve Dinner.

We got the idea years ago, and it has become our family tradition...

The Bethlehem Dinner is fairly simple. We light candles and turn out the lights. We eat simple foods, trying to eat things that perhaps they might have eaten back then. We eat fish (we just fry a simple salmon filet), grapes, cheese, simple crackers and bread, and as we ate, we talked about what this dinner represented - Joseph and Mary, journeying to Bethlehem...
After we eat our meal, we all sit back and listen to the Story of the Nativity from St. Luke in the Bible. Normally Bill reads. This year I don't really know if it was a way to involve Rebekah more, since it could be our last Christmas together with her for a while (or at least with just our family)... or perhaps it was because Liam was being a pill, he had not napped all day and so Bill held him and tried to have him re-enact the Nativity story with one of our little Nativity sets. It was nice.

After dinner we let the kids open pj's (they all have fun, seeing what kind of jammies they each get), then everyone changes and puts on their new pj's. This ear when they all started asking to open just one more gift... we decided that we'd let them open the present they got from playing secret santa - when they drew each other's names. It was sort of funny this year - Liam had Marissa, Marissa had Hannah, Hannah had Sariah, and Sariah had Liam... then the two older girls managed to draw each other's names. It was cute to see what they came up with. They both did a little scrap book for each other - Amanda did a best friend theme, and Rebekah did a sister theme. Both of them were partly to say I love you, and also so that they won't forget each other next year.

We sent kids upstairs to get setteled down, and let them take the small tv/dvd player up to the little girls room where the 4 younger kids all attempted to fall asleep, while watching a movie. Liam eventually fell asleep, then later Hannah and Marissa fell asleep. I think we were upstiars in bed by 11:30 pm or possibly a bit before. That's earlier than normal even! ;-)

I didn't fall asleep until after midnight, and Liam came in around 2:30 am. In between Hannah would get up and go to the bathroom... or go look at the clock in Sariah's room. They had been discussing what time we could do presents (how early in the morning they were allowed to wake us up!), we'd told them bsolutely not before 6 am! I had tried to get away with 8 or 9 am, but I was out voted!
At about 4 am, I heard Hannah go and report back to Sariah (they were both awake from about midnight on), that they only had about two more hours left to wait... I think I was awake just about every hour all night long. Bill woke up a little before 5 am. I woke up hearing the kids across the hall, then heard Rebekah get in the shower, so Bill figured that really the only one asleep in the whole house was Liam and he wasn't going to be happy no matter what time we woke him up... (and perhaps Amanda), so... we were all awake and downstairs for presents, just before 5 am! (ugh!!! I am NOT a morning person!) ;-)
Before 7 am, I had baked monkey bread (that I'd prepared the night before) and cooked Bacon (in my new pan's that Bill surprised me with - since when I cooked bacon last week for quiche, it burned and stuck to the bottom of our frying pan, my 10-11 yr old pans, were done for!). That's a red letter day! First of all, that I'm up and moving, let alone ready to eat, and certainly not cooking before 7 am! I usually prefer to eat breakfast around 10 am - I'm real good for Brunch! ;-) I would rather not eat early, and I don't usually (hardly ever, if I don't absolutely have to), make breakfast!!!!! Bill is the breakfast person at our house. Now that the kids are older, sometimes they will either offer to cook breakfast, or we can beg them to cook breakfast, but you can ask my kids, I don't cook breakfast!!!

Anyway, we all took a break from playing and reading, (except Liam, who is having a love afair with his Thomas the Tank Engine train table and train stuff (Bill/ I mean Santa, got a really great deal from someone on Craigs List). It has been the hit of the day!!! He played for hours and hours on it!), to eat some breakfast and then everyone was back to playing by 7:30 a.m. or so. Hannah and Marissa were even dressed and outside riding scooters that early! Yikes! I thought it was cold!!!
Rebekah was absolutely thrilled that she got a laptop computer... We weren't so much since that is just one step closer to her going off to college... :-( Amanda is thrilled with her new phone! Of course the fact that her old one litterally broke in half about a week or two ago almost messud up her Christmas! Bill was able to find a phonne someone was giving away on free cycle, and it was the same brand as one of our old one's so we were hoping the old charger woud work on it. It has managed to hold her off, and not let her know for sure about wether or not she was getting a new phone or not from Santa... Sariah was not so happy that she didn't get the cell phone she was hoping against hope for... but she got a fun new camera to be able to take all the pictures she ever wants.
This afternoon we went to the movie again and saw Bedtime Stories (aside from a small amount of bathroom humor), it was a very fun movie!!!

We had a very good day over all, and especially the fact that we are all very tired!!! I can't believe anyone is still awake! I want to go to bed! (and Christmas eve.after I get the phone call back from one of my mom's - I hope quite honestly that she's not in labor, since I am not in top form, and wont' be as good a help to her as I normally would be), I will be off and can hope for a full nights sleep!

Thanksgivng

I'm thankful for the help I had preparing Thanksgiving dinner, and I'm thankful for my family.

I had help making rolls... They didn't turn out quite like mom's, but were fun to make. Liam kept eating his dough...

On Bill's way home from Football he stopped and bought a couple of things I forgot to get, and he brought me home flowers. I loved them! So bright and harvest colored. I love when he surprises me and brings me home flowers. I don't NEED Roses, or anything fancy. I just love that he thinks of me and will bring me flowers (even if it's just from the grocery store). :-)

Bill is the Apple Pie man at our house usually. He makes what he calls a Frumpy Apple Pie - he stuff's as manyapples as he can in the pie. After Playing football with the guys from church that morning, He was laying on the couch watching football... and we were having fun in the kitchen, so Hannah did most of the apple pie this year. Mom helped with the apples (since the apple slicer was a little unwieldy for Hannah alone), and Amanda helped by making the pie dough. Liam helped out by eating the apples...dad came and helped with putting the top crust on. We ended up with a lattice top since we were running out of dough. It turned out quite Lovely and tasted very good.

And of course there are a couple of other Thanksgiving traditions - Amanda donned the Olives on her fingers...







We were cooking several things at once, and we had JUST looked in the oven and the marshmallows were barely getting a slight color to them, and in no time at all they had burned to a crisp... Rebekah peeled them off the top of the sweet potato cassarole and we topped it with fresh marshmallows, and cooked them till they were lovely toasted brown and yummy.

Something I have wanted to do for a long time, but I've had a somewhat small table and a lot of young children for a lot of years, and so we normally eat on our regular dishes (plastic) or paper plates. This year I just really wanted to have a special dinner, and I got out the China.

Years ago I got my china - very basic, white with silver rims around it. When my mother died, I got her china. I packed it up and took it to my friend (and Bishop)'s house and Sister C let me store my mom's china at her house. It spent 20 years in her basement underneath the pool table. I finally had her send it to me a year or two ago, when I felt like we were somewhat stable, and It needed to get out of her way. My mothers china is grey with white flowers, and it has a silver rim around the outside.

When we lived in Japan, I bought a set of china there. It is a white background, with japanese scenes on it in a grey color - Mt. Fugi, etc, with pink cherry blossoms, and it has silver rims around it, so I thought it might be cool to have the three sets that might all blend together with each other, and some day... if, after I die, my kids all want the china, they could each get a couple of each set - my old china, my mothers - their grandmother's, and the Japanese set where they all lived (except for Liam).

So I got out a tablecloth that my mother had, and washed the china, and put it on the table (with a little sparkling juice to celebrate the day). I mixed and matched the china at each place setting, and I think it looked nice. It was nice to think of my mom as I got out her china.

I brought in a little table to make more room at the table, and Hannah and Liam were very excited about sitting there, so that worked out nicely. Sariah ended up sitting at another little table (a desk from her summer classroom) to make room to set a few more things on...

Liam was getting quite fussy just before we managed to eat dinner, and I knew he was tired, but dinner was just about on the table. He started eating his dinner, but then climbed up in dad's lap, and fell asleep. At some point Bill put him up in bed, and he woke up and came back downstairs, climbed up on dad and fell back asleep, so he napped while Bill watched some t.v. Amanda is so silly some times. As she was eating, her plate was all cleaned off, except for these last three green beans, and they were in a 'smiley face' pattern. Amanda was so funny, and her face was all smiley with a big grin too, to end off our meal!