Foster Family Fun: Our AMAZING Christmas

Matt and I played host for Christmas Eve/Day this year. We had a blast. I really want to express that Christmas with a 3 1/2 year old is a hoot! Mackenzie was super excited this year. And not just when opening presents. It all started when we went on the Santa Train. She talked a lot about Santa after that. She knew that he was watching.....and she was good. The Foster's have always opened presents on Christmas Eve, even when Matt was a kid. So that is what we do. Then in the morning you see that Santa came. When I was child, we opened one present on Christmas Eve and did the rest in the morning.

I took Mackenzie to her first Christmas Eve candlelight service at church. Matt's mom went with us too. It was a lovely service. Mackenzie held her own candle for a couple of minutes and then handed it to me. She was very careful. She was in awe looking out over the congregation (we were in the balcony) and seeing all of the candles. There was a live nativity also. Mackenzie was excited to hear about the how Jesus was born and loved singing the Christmas carols.

Let's talk about the food.

Oh the food. It was delicious! Here is what our menu consisted of:

Christmas Eve we had leg of lamb with a sweet and spicy rub along with plum sauce. Green and white lasagna, broccoli with oranges and almonds, along with rolls. It was wonderful! We were too full to even touch dessert!

Christmas morning we had spiced apple crepes, sausage balls (meat and non-meat), caramel apple sweet rolls and mimosas.

Christmas Dinner we had a black forest ham, mashed potatoes and mustard gravy. We also had leftover lasagna, broccoli and rolls.

Dessert was a cake that had alternating layers of pumpkin and chocolate with chocolate ganache between the layers. The frosting was a salted caramel buttercream. It was wonderful too. I thought the cake was a little dry but it was still wonderful.

It was a great time with our family. The only thing that was missing was my family back home. I miss them so much, especially at Christmas. When I was growing up my sister, mom and I would make big gingerbread houses from scratch while listening to Christmas music. Dad would always come in dancing and singing "Christmas times a comin'" to make us laugh. What wonderful memories we share.

Here are some pictures from our AMAZING Christmas. I tried to rearrange the pictures but blogger is being a bugger.

Opening up her first gift from Santa-Princess Belle doll