Family Christmas Party

Once again the Dog Walker bailed me out on the post last night...thanks Nate!

After our awesome evening at the theater we all went to Applebees for 1/2 price appetizers and then we sat around and talked for a while and it was after midnight before we got home. Prima Donna still had a bunch of earrings to make for her church lesson today and I had a lesson to prepare for Curly's class. We also had a bunch of party prep to do before our big family party today.

If you remember from last year, we invite all my siblings over for dinner and a little fun. This year we decided to make candy. It was a bit of a stretch for us, but we wanted to try something new. My sweetie grew up dipping chocolates at Christmas time, but it was not something we have ever done. His favorite are the Almond Joys, so he made the centers and we put them in the "cooler" (our big van) overnight to set up.

We spent the better part of the week making treats to fill the little cardboard boxes we gave each person to take home. We made fudge and peppermint bark, peanut clusters, toffee...my sweetie even tried his hand at divinity!

When our guests arrived, we had dinner first, potato bar and salads. After they were finished eating, we quickly took down all the tablecloths and replaced them with paper. Then we set out a bunch of bowls with liquid chocolate, gave them all the Almond Joy centers, and told them to have at it. While they were working on that my sweetie mixed up a batch of caramel and then we brought out the pretzels and let them make those.



After the candy mess was mostly finished my amazing sweetie dressed up in his Santa suit and passed out gifts to the kids then we mixed up a huge batch of eggnog shakes. Family gifts were exchanged and by about 9:00 the party was over.

I love having everyone here for the holidays, it keeps my family close and gives the cousins a chance to get reacquainted. My grandma had a party every year when we were kids for most of the holidays and now that we never get together I hardly know those cousins at all.

I hope you are all enjoying the holidays like we are. I better get moving, I've still got tons of gifts to wrap...I can't believe tomorrow is Christmas Eve!