~Christmas Eve Part One: Feasting~

My family has many Christmas Eve traditions. In fact, I've often felt like Christmas Eve is more important to me than Christmas Day. To break things down into more palatable bites, I will be using multiple posts to showcase our festivities.

Typically on Christmas Eve we feast on Hawaiian Haystacks (we love the festive array of colors that comes with toppings) or Roladin (a traditional german dish). Since I wasn't feeling up to pounding out thin steaks, smothering them with pickle, bacon, and mustard, pinning it all together and frying all that meaty goodness up, I decided to serve Hawaiian Haystack. With bubbly on the table, and homemade egg nog in the fridge (courtesy of Chef Ryan), they made a lovely meal.

The Welch's graciously brought Welch's to toast the evening away. Nice touch, eh? I ran out of seats setting a table for 11 adults and 3 children. I was so excited to have an excuse to use my Christmas dishes and poinsettia table clothes again. I haven't used them since we lived in Utah and hosted "Romania Girl" holiday dinners. Weren't those fun, ladies?

The traditional Christmas Eve dinner family picture. Yes, we're packed in my tiny little house good and tight. Good thing we all like each other, eh?

After plates were piled high and the grape juice bottles were corked, intriguing intellectual conversation abound. Seriously. I'm not kidding. At some point I'm sure someone was talking about communism, Toyota's falling place in the vehicle market, or the latest bill in Congress. It is also likely that there was talk of upcoming box office hopefuls and at some point a Brangelina reference was made, at which point my mother rolled her eyes. That's just the way we are in the Starks' Family.

Washing it all down with a hardy toast.

Oh, how I love Christmas Eve Dinners, surrounded by the people that I love most.