Christmas Food 2021

 I loved the food this Christmas.  On Christmas Eve, we did a "dinner in Bethlehem"  I had my kids decorate with candles, turned off the lights, put a tablecloth under and over our ottoman, listened Tabernacle Choir Christmas music, and got my kids dressed in Bethlehem clothes.  It was so fun and my kids thought it was pretty special.  It was the easiest meal to prepare.  We had my mom's homemade grape juice (in the kitchen, after they ate), raisins, grapes, nut cups, cheese cubes, olives, costco veggie tray, Hummus?, buttered nan bread, and Mark cooked some fish that was preseasoned too. I think we also ate pumpkin bread that my neighbor dropped off that morning. Afterwards we had a live nativity, unwrapped sibling gifts and jammies, and wrote notes to Santa.  I think we may have had hot chocolate for dessert. 

That night, I made up the breakfast casserole with tater tots from mels using ham and the sticky buns.  I did mom's recipe on here with instant pudding.  I think it turned out the same? Didn't notice any difference. The sticky buns definitely need a tray underneath or less rolls in it because it overflowed again. I had enough ingredients to do this same breakfast meal again for new years eve breakfast and just used the leftover rolls in the bag from Rhodes. Since there were less rolls, it didn't overflow and drip.  Next year if we want to repeat the breakfast for new years, I think I would just split up a normal bag of rhodes in half for each breakfast. I did the same amount of sugar/nut mix on both breakfasts.  I went a little pecan happy the second time. It wasn't as good. I think I also found another recipe from six sisters stuff that dispersed the mix more on bottom and top. I liked that instead of putting it all in at once. I am pretty sure I did all the singredients and other steps from mom's recipe though. It's on this blog under christmas from 2020.  https://www.sixsistersstuff.com/recipe/gooey-caramel-breakfast-pull-apart/#wprm-recipe-container-92356

We had hot chocolate for dessert if we had anything? 

For breakfast we had: sticky buns (buy two pudding packets at Thanksgiving for christmas and new years), tater tot breakfast casserole, oranges with powdered sugar, and egg nog--best is normal watered down with oat milk or oat nog (have to get early or they run out. 

Lunch: I don't think we had any except for some cheese and crackers? I think I got out the veggie tray too 

Dinner: Mark cooked up some steak and I think we did au gratin potatoes from costco, Bundt Rolls, peas, Cranberry fluff salad  (this was good and tasted more like dessert. 

I made a chocolate cream pie from the Betty Crocker cookbook.  Just like the year before, no one wants dessert on Christmas. Next year, I vote finding a special hot chocolate recipe and having the ingredients on hand in case someone wants something or save a special treat the neighbors give for that night in case, or something really really easy like mels frozen hot chocolate and stick a storebought pepperrmint cookie in it or something. Do yourself a favor and go simple. Could do something earlier in season and freeze extras for that night.