My First Christmas Dinner Prep

Well, I did it. I prepared my first Christmas dinner ever. EVER! It seems so sad that at ages 8 & 10, my girls have never enjoyed a holiday meal prepared by their own mother. But, we've always ever eaten at mom or grandma's for holidays in the past---or received other invitations from friends. There was never a need to do it on my own. Until now.

I'll be honest & say that the day before Christmas dinner didn't start out so nifty. I cooked the pumpkin pies ahead of time, so as to take off as much of a load on Christmas day as I could. And sometime during baking in the oven, the cookie sheet, carefully holding the two pies, warped with a horrible rumble in the oven & slopped pie filling all over. The house smelled like burnt pie for 3 days.

It was a simple meal. I cooked a ham. Which was already cooked. So, really, I heated a ham. And then I prepared a faithful scalloped potato pinterest dish, sweet potatoes (topped with french vanilla marshmallows in the shape of snowmen), green bean casserole, & homemade rolls. A friend brought over a fruit salad & apple pies.

Silly me, so consumed with the food prep, totally forgot about the table setting. So, a few hours before guests came over to partake in a happy holiday meal, I rounded up everything mismatched: chairs, place settings, & cloth napkins. (I don't have enough matching plates. And I barely had enough forks to use! And there were only 8 of us.) The tablecloths I had on hand were much too short, due to the extra leaf in the table. So, I draped a few here & there until the whole table was one mismatched glob. Which I love. At each setting, I placed a vintage angel decoration, tied with a tag & each person's name.

It wasn't as much fuss as I'd anticipated, although I did spend a lot of time in the kitchen. So, not mingling with my company & family was kind of a bummer. 

After dinner we sipped hot drinks & ate pie & played games. I'm kicking myself that I never got my camera out after my dinner guests arrived! I was so mentally occupied with making sure everything went smoothly, that I just plain forgot to photograph it. But I proved to myself that I can do it, & I'm awful proud of that.

♥