Hosting Our First Christmas!

This year, my family decided they would come down to North Carolina to spend the holidays with us in our new home.  Since June, we've been furnishing the house slowly and we don't yet have all the rooms complete, but we are furnished enough to entertain guests.  With my mom, dad and brother set to arrive mid-day on Christmas Eve, Colin and I worked vigorously to prepare ourselves for their arrival.

Throughout the week, we went grocery shopping, prepared the meals and desserts that could be made ahead of time, and cleaned the house.  I took a day off with the intention of doing my last minute Christmas shopping, and finished so quickly that I spent most of the day cleaning.  On three consecutive evenings, Colin made the three desserts for our holiday meals.  He decided that every dessert would have a "healthy" component to it, so he made pumpkin cheesecake, beet brownies, and lentil cookies.  I will admit that all three desserts were a huge success, and the beet brownies were divine!

On the eve of Christmas Eve, while Colin made lentil cookies, I made Eggplant Parmesan - the Italian portion of our Christmas meal.  I don't know about you, but Colin and I find that it always tastes better the day after it's made. In addition, it allowed us to have more time with the family on Christmas Eve.  When my family arrived, the house was mostly in order, snacks and lunch was set out, and Colin and I had each taken Darwin out for a walk or run.  Our goal was to tire him out so he wouldn't be too crazy for our guests.

With my mom serving as my sous chef, we had the traditional Portuguese Bacalhau (codfish) dinner, Eggplant Parm, and all the sides on the table by dinnertime.

Colin and I busted out our fancy wedding cake cutter to serve the Pumpkin Cheesecake 

After dinner, we went to the evening Christmas mass and
managed to get a great family photo in our holiday getup

No one can wait for Christmas Day to open gifts in my family, so we decided to exchange presents after church.  The evening was spent rocking out to Rock Band.  It has become a holiday tradition - and I must admit we are rather good!  I usually play the drums, while Colin, my dad, and my brother alternate on the 2 guitars (my dad prefers the bass).  My mom is a rock star on the vocals!  Colin and my brother are the best all around players because they can actually sing (unlike me).

After a long day (especially for my family - who had been up since 5am), we all retired for the night.  I went to bed with a fair amount of anticipation for Christmas.  I planned a complex meal for Christmas Day that would test my cooking ability.  The menu was based off of a cooking class I took a few weeks ago - creamed onion tart, pork tenderloin, and au gratin butternut squash.

Knowing this was a heavy meal, I planned to serve it at lunchtime.  Thankfully, my mom helped a great deal and served more as my co-executive chef than my sous chef.  We managed to have everything finished around the same time so it was all hot when we sat down to eat.

The butternut squash did not come out quite as delicious as it did in the cooking class I attended, but the creamed onion tart and pork tenderloin did not disappoint.  With no complaints and everyone eating hearty portions, I'd consider my cooking a success.

After two and a half days of cooking, I was exhausted.  I don't know how people host dinner parties on a regular basis.  It was exciting and fun to plan the meal and wasn't too bad while I was preparing it, but I felt like I spent all day in the kitchen instead of spending time with my family when I finished.  

At least we had lots of leftovers after those two days.  I didn't have to cook a meal again until Wednesday (we had to take my family to our favorite pizza place).

Stay tuned for details on how we spent our holiday week in the next blog post!

What traditional holiday meals do you make?

How do you host a dinner party so that you spend time with your guests?