Since I Tend To Talk Too Much, I Made My Title Long, But My Post Less Wordy, But With Lots of Pictures.

HAPPY NEW YEAR, FRIENDS!!!!!

Well, we got through the holidays once again.  Whew!  It's always a pretty busy time here, the few days leading up to Christmas Eve.  We usually have quite a gaggle of people for dinner, but this year Mama put the stops on things and insisted that only family be present for dinner this year.  Well, plus one couple that I really really like, so they don't count.  All together, only 14 for dinner.  SCORE!

As I said, we get a bit crazed in preparation for Christmas Eve.  I do all the baking and Jimmy does all the cooking, including a bazillion appetizers.

But wait, I'm getting ahead of myself.  He waited till the very last moment to take pictures of the girls so we could sent out Christmas cards.  But he did it and did it well.  Here are some of my favorites.

 

And the one we chose for the Christmas card.  I love this!

Strudel looks so innocent there, but the reason Mikayla's arm is up in the air was because Strudel had just been biting it!

So, as I said, Jimmy and the girls do all the cooking for our big party.  Here are some of his appetizers.

7-layer Mexican dip.  Hey Sue, look at those adorable place mats!

Crab (at first I accidentally typed crap) dip and Mikayla's ants on a log.

 

Veggie crudite

 White pizza dip and artichoke spread in the background.

There were plenty more, but it was kind of hard getting near the food when people were swarming to it like buzzards to road kill.

I was feeling silly, so took a picture of myself.

The sisters

 

The sisters being goofy.  Okay, so only one of us was being goofy.

Madison and Alexa were having a blast!

This is Gianna's "pretty" smile.  Errrr... try again, Poopy Pants.

Dinner was another success this year, with basically the same dishes as always.  Eggplant parmesan (made with my sauce, which is why it's so damn good... ahem.  And which is now entered into John and Tracy's  Super Bowl party in an eggplant parm cookoff between Jimmy and Kristen.  Jimmy asked for it by delivering trays of it to some of the neighbors and bragging that his has got to be better than Kristen's.)

Now where was I?  Oh yeah, dinner.  Spiral ham, shrimp scampi, scallops, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes a'la my mother-in-law (sooooo good!), and cornbread and a veggie casserole made by Jill.

And just when you thought you couldn't eat another bite...

We had lots of desserts too, and all homemade with sweat and cursing love by me!

Italian rainbow cookies

Sugar cookies that were so good that I caught a neighbor sneaking out of my house with them stuffed in a napkin.  I shit you not.

 

Chocolate peppermint bark

Cheesecake (although this is the only picture, and this is before it was cooked.

Italian cream cake which actually wasn't very Italian cream- cakey

 

Not pictured, there was also a fudge cake with white chocolate peppermint mousse and Italian (are you sensing a theme here?) butternut cookies.

A great time was had by all, I forgot to take pictures of the kids opening gifts, Rudolf was spotted in the sky and I went to bed much too late, Amen.

Next up?  Christmas day at my brother's house!

Pssst! If you love me, you might love my stupid sister more. Go visit her at Jill's Believe it or Not, and tell her I sent you!