I can’t believe the Holidays have come and gone! Everything went so fast this year that I feel like we barely had time to get excited or really enjoy it. Seemingly overnight, our house was filled and vacated by both of our families, and now it is quiet again, almost too quiet.
I was able to do a little baking. These vegan pumpkin cookies (recipe coming soon!) were a hit with family, friends and coworkers, and were so easy to throw together at literally the 11th hour before family started arriving at our house. I think I baked something like 12 dozen cookies in 3 hours?
We tried a new (to us) breakfast of muffin-sized quiches held together with wonton wrappers. They were so easy! Just spray a little non-stick oil spray into the cups; line with wonton wrappers (I used two for each); beat eggs together with salt, pepper and add whatever else you want in your quiche; pour; and bake at 350 for around 20 minutes. They were a hit!
Once Neil’s family arrived, things became a blur and taking photos took a major back seat. I’m sad I don’t have many to document our first Christmas in the house, but oh well I guess.
On Christmas Day, my family arrived with tons of Mexican food (the super authentic, legit stuff). They have a kitchen built for entertaining, but were okay with indulging our smaller kitchen so we could have Christmas at our house.
Things were crazy in the kitchen as we prepped and tried to get everything set up. Like the apron I gave her to wear? It’s from our POM Party last year. So wrong!
My mother tackled frying the tortillas while I blackened some shrimp for my brother and his girlfriend (pescatarians). I might have eaten a few too…
After dinner, we sat around our living room and opened presents and watched movies. Austin managed to put together an entire puzzle.
Felix even ventured out of the bedroom to check out the action (and taunt the dogs—his favorite pastime).
Felix had an interesting first Christmas with us. Because we were in Minnesota last year, we went a little overboard on the treats and toys for his presents. We left them out on the counter, thinking they were “up” and safe. Well not from Felix. He jumped onto the counter, put his head in the bag (through the handle), got stuck and freaked himself out. He jumped off the counter, dragging the bag with him, which was then found by Clive and ripped apart and eaten. Felix ran off with the bag still attached to his head.
Felix caught in the act, with a piece of the bag around his neck.
Clive was left with just a smidgen of his present that Neil was able to grab away, including this rawhide stick. Rawhides are special treats because Clive makes a huge mess of them and likes to bury them in places like the couch or a basket of clean laundry.
…aaaand he doesn’t fail to disappoint yet again!
Overall it was a great Christmas. We gave and received nice things and at some point I’ll get around to showing you a few of them because they got pretty creative! I just wish we could have slowed the weekend down, because it came and went so unbelievably fast. This is literally about 90% of the photos Neil and I managed to take, a pretty sad selection. Is it just us, or did it go Way. Too. Fast?
