Three’s Company

Christmas was such a blast this year with three families mushed together. It was like in the movies!

Everyone had lots of great conversations and of course we had delicious foods.

Even Lily! She told me she wanted to start a blog so Matt and I got her a placemat and sardines bowl for Christmas

And Aunt Karen brought her some albacore tuna!!

This afternoon Matt, Andrew, Candace (Larbs’ Matt‘s mom!) and I did a Dave Farmar Yogadownload in my bedroom complete with space heaters and lots of zen.

We did a 60 minute podcast and I was so impressed that they all stuck around for the whole hour. It was quite a good workout!!

Afterwards we did some wild hula hooping with my mom’s hoop!

We came down from yoga around 6:00 famished from not eating since noon! Thankfully the rest of the family had gotten a head start on cocktail hour with leftover snacks and drinks

I had 2-3 slices of cheese on crackers and a few chips, but since dinner was less than an hour away I didn’t want to spoil my appetite.

I also made a mocktail with POM, soda, lime and cherry. I don’t miss alcohol when I have this in my hand, but I do still like to have wine with dinner.

We were all getting ready for our big Christmas Dinner

Dad let the wines breathe. The Clay Station is the last bottle from our wedding rehearsal dinner and the Red Rock is from Larbs’ college graduation.

Because we had 11 people to fit around the table, we served dinner buffet style.

Ham + pineapple

Cranberry sauce, brussels with bacon and corn pudding

October beans (with salsa for topping)

Karen’s oyster pie and sweet potato casserole

Plus Great Harvest Virginia rolls!

The food was so very delicious!!

My blogging lighting station My family knows to call me in first to photograph the meal before anyone starts to serve

With dinner I had about 2 glasses worth of various wines

And water in silver goblets

I had some prosecco with dessert

We had a very special dessert tonight. Larbs and Matt brought this Party Favors cake all the way from Brookline, Mass on the airplane because they just love the icing.

We also had some holiday ice creams

I could have easily eaten seconds on dinner, but this cake was smiling at me throughout the meal and I knew I wanted to save lots of room!

I took Matt Allen’s advice and smothered my mum icing onto the cake part

And then had to try the ice creams as well. LOVED the pumpkin one!!

OK, OK, I couldn’t stop with just one slice. It was fabulous and I had more – plus a taste of mint chocolate chip!! ‘Twas incredible all around.

To family, friends and blog readers!