We did Christmas a bit different this year, as my daughter left on a trip on Christmas Day. We had our big dinner on Christmas Eve. I think I like this - I might make it a new tradition. It made for a very relaxing Christmas Day!

Merry Christmas a day late. Do you have a story to tell?

No interesting foods or experiences, but the glee of grandchildren telling us about the fruit in their stockings and gifts such as new PJ's and socks was heartwarming knowing that the simple things please them.

Thank you
Jackie

Living in a city sometimes you lose track of the spirit of Christmas with all the shopping and crazy drivers. Last week I was driving early in the morning to work, quiet with no traffic, just a car in front of me.the road was newly paved and it was raining and dark. The light turned green, the brake lights of the car in front of me - that made this glorious reflection on the pavement of red and green. It was just very unusual, I thought - how cool is this and said merry Christmas to myself right then and there :-)

We finally got to meet the new girlfriend of my husband's oldest best friend. They've been together for some time now and we've heard lots about her. She's really nice and good for the friend. Other than that, lots of visiting with friends and family, too much eating and driving. A really nice holiday, all in all, and not much drama. There's been too much drama around here this fall, so that was really great.

Merry Christmas!
Sandi

The best thing I experienced this Christmas was having both my kids home with their loved ones - especially our new daughter-in-law-to-be, sharing Christmas with us for the first time!

My twenty-one year old son has started acting like a real adult. He's been polite, conversational,funny, and generally pleasant to be around. Santa brought a 'Catch Phrase' game for my kids, and we all (ages 14 to 74) have enjoyed playing together.

Having all my children home for Christmas has been fabulous! Christmas day was spent in front of the tv and a blazing fire watching 'The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel'

It was interesting that it took 11 adults to fill in for my bed-bound Mom. She's better today but was pretty green with the flu yesterday. My contribution was watching the four grands under five #BDSI

My son is five, and Christmas just gets better each year he's around! He loved every part of it this year -- except waiting for his turn to open gifts. He was very patient though you could tell it was killing him! So glad for today's snow day, so we can lay around and recover from the crazy hours and rich food -- and do some sewing. Thanks for the giveaway!

This Christmas has been just so calm and organized without it ever feeling like I am doing a lot to make that happen, so that is my experience, it is not "normal" at my house usually. This is a lovely giveaway, I will check out the rest. Likely no sew in here, more guests are arriving after lunch.

The joy of listening to my 3 year old nephew sing a word perfect rendition of Rudolf at 6am from his bedroom next door to me, it's a good job I love him to pieces!!

Our whole Christmas was what my husband calls "The Weirdest Christmas Ever." We knew going into it that we were going to share our daughter and her fiance with his family, but due to some interesting turns of events, we ended up not hosting a single get together here in our house for the first time in decades!

I enjoyed the Christmas dinner with my family. My brother surprises us with a new girlfriend :)

It was a lovely Christmas with my Sweetie's family. I missed my 3 grown kids - 1 in Sweden, 1 in Japan, and the third working some 1200 miles away. The one who had to work, ran into friends on Christmas and went out to dinner -- wonderful! I was so happy that she was not spending the day alone...

The most interesting thing I heard this year was a story my 2-year-old granddaughter was telling. The only words you could make out were Papa and Nana (my husband and I) and she was very expressive with her hands and face while telling said story. It was a long one too. I am not sure what it was about but I enjoyed it!

It was really cool that we got to see our 6 year old niece this Christmas - haven't seen her in about two years. My son (4-1/2) LOVED playing with his cousin and it was really neat to see their interactions :)

I have one! We ate homemade bacon that our friend made. It was delicious and sure didn't last long! Hope you had a very merry Christmas!
Sandi

We had all the Christmas hoopla over before the 25th so I sewed most of the day.

I tried several new muffin recipes and a biscotti recipe. I may be making more biscotti before the weekend is out! Otherwise, everything was fairly normal this year. We're definitely in a transition phase between having small children of our own around but not having small children of the next generation around yet. Starting to see shades of Christmases to come! Wonderful giveaway, and thanks for linking up on my blog too!

My little girl is three years old and this was her first Christmas where she really understood what was going on. She was so proud to inform others that she was "on the good list" and got lots of toys. It was a precious time I will cherish always.

I ate my most favourite meal of the whole year - Xmas day breakfast we have fried perogies and sausage (a Ukrainian tradition) along with eggs and thick slices of white bread toast and cheese spread. YUM!

I got a recipe from a friend who makes and sells Anna's tomato (perhaps called Marinara) sauce for Chicken Caccitore. In the process of making pies, I took, what I thought was, rhubarb out of the freezer. It turned out to be tomato sauce from some unknown frenzy of domesticity. As I needed to make dinner, I used the recipe (without the Anna's, which is VERY good jar sauce, BTW) and made Chicken Caccitore for dinner. It was very good. The bad part was that I had no rhubarb. My mom saved the day by bringing the last of her rhubarb over, so we had enough pie for Christmas.

My favorite Christmas morning quote: "I got my very own [scotch] tape!"

Years ago we started the tradition of having fajitas for our Christmas dinner. We still have ham or turkey every now and then, but usually we stick with the fajitas. :)