Our First Christmas Tradition

So one day Superman and I were talking about our first Christmas together on our way home from work. We were both pretty excited about it as Christmas is our favorite holiday and we both get really into it. During the conversation the topic of family traditions came up and we were trying to figure out what our family traditions would be now that we’re married. We bounced some ideas off of each other but we realized that we actually already had a very special one…


~The Christmas Date~


Every year since we’ve been together we go on a Christmas date. It is always very highly anticipated and we take turns planning it. Whoever’s turn it is to plan the date keeps the details very hush hush. It’s highly confidential because it’s supposed to be a complete surprise to the other person, plus an unspoken goal is to try to top the previous planner's Christmas date.

Well it’s my turn to plan this year's rendezvous. I’ve decided that since we’re in a brand new home we’ll have it here.

The ambience will be perfect, what with all the Christmas décor, Christmas jazz music and the candles that are sure to fill the room.

“Home dates” are very popular with us. Usually we have them when we’re short on money or we just don’t feel like going out. We always make it special by having it somewhere different, we even dress up sometimes. Hot locations we’ve been to in the past have been the couch, the basement, the dining room or even in our bedroom…bed picnic anyone? It’s exactly how it sounds, it’s a picnic but on the bed. This usually consists of getting takeout, spreading a blanket on the bed and watching a movie. Its great fun, you should try it. Anyway, this year’s home date locale will be the dining room. As I mentioned before I’ll do it up real nice and romantic.

I’ve been pondering on the menu for a little while and I’ve finally decided on what will grace our palettes this year. We’ll be having: a wedge salad, NY strip steaks with shrimp skewers, roasted asparagus and twice baked potatoes. For dessert I think I’ll bake some red velvet cupcakes.

Now, what will I wear…hmmm…

To be continued...

XOXO,


TNB

Playing Host to a Host, My First Thanksgiving

Before I give you the rundown of hosting thanksgiving at my house for the first time, I’ll give you a little background about me. I LOVE planning parties and such. I’ll turn the simplest thing into a production. For example, back when Superman and I were dating, he up and quit a job he hated. Despite the fact that he didn’t have another one lined up, I was happy to have him rid of that dreadful place. So to celebrate the occasion I baked him a cake that said, “You Quit” on it in sprinkles (his favorite) and picked up a bottle of sparkling cider. There, now you see how I’ll use any excuse.

Now that you're aware of my love for all things event planning, then you know that the idea of hosting Thanksgiving dinner at my house was all too exciting for me. I always look forward to Thanksgiving because I have a big family and the house is always full of laughter, food, men yelling at each other and the television about football, intense Phase 10 card games and love. This year was no different. I had 16 people at my house. When I tell people that they're always shocked but its normal for us. I wouldn't have it any other way.

Anyway, leading up to the holiday I had a few people call and ask me if they could make their dishes at my house the morning of Thanksgiving. Thinking of how much fun it is cooking with the women in my family, naturally I said yes. However, I failed to think about that fact that I only have one set of cookware. Within that set, I only had one big pot...coincidentally, the one everyone needed for some stage in their cooking processes. Thus, we had to share. This made things oh so stressful. Dinner was supposed to be at 4pm but because of this snafu, it pushed dinner back 2 more hours. I had a bunch of hungry family members that were expecting to eat at 4pm, what was I going to do?.....Distract their stomachs with hot, buttery dinner rolls, that what. Remember when I used this trick on Superman for the first supper? Well, it proved successful yet again. They too, didn't know which end was up.

Once my family was distracted with the rolls, we were able to finish up and warm up all the food, we gathered around, Superman said the grace, gave thanks and we all ate. Unfortunately, I was so busy that I didn't get to take any pictures. But all in all, it was a great day. As a reward for all my hard work I stayed in on Black Friday, didn't get out of bed until 11am, ate leftovers and proceeded to spend the rest of the day lounging around the house.

XOXO,

TNB