Joy to All

We are enjoying the calm after the storm.  I'm referring to the whirl-wind of Christmas plus also the actual snow storm we had resulting in a white Christmas this year, a rarity around here.     

We were so lucky to have a white Christmas this year.  Seattle only gets a white Christmas 7 out of 100 Christmas's.  Plus, it started snowing on Christmas Eve and was still snowing on Christmas morning to make it even more exciting. Here is a photo from our front porch on Christmas Eve.  It was so serene.    

We went out for dinner to Ivar's Acres of Clams on Christmas Eve, one of our favorite places to eat.  We drove the suburban in 4-wheel drive to pick up Lauren and Ari and then drove to the restaurant which was only a few miles away on the waterfront. 

  

Seattle is not equip to deal with snow and with all the hills, it makes it a challenge to drive so we were glad we had a large vehicle with 4-wheel drive.  The restaurant was still bustling and it was a very festive affair.  We love the food at Ivar's.  Lauren and I got their special that was pasta with seafood including a large portion of seared halibut. 

We loved it and the halibut was so moist and delicate.  It's always hard to cook something like this at home.  Ivar's has a real variety on their menu which is one of the reasons we like it so much.  There are always specials, plus fresh salmon or something as simple as fish and chips.  The restaurant is located right next to the ferry terminal so it's fun to watch the ferries come and go.  We were glad to have seafood on Christmas Eve because we were preparing beef tenderloin for Christmas.  We made my mustard crusted beef tenderloin for Christmas dinner and it was a hit, as always.   

We had 14 of my family here for dinner and our new enlarged dining room worked out perfectly.  

This is how I've always envisioned our holidays in Seattle.  A toast to another wonderful family Christmas.  

For my special cocktail of the evening, I made my pomegranate mojitos

and also some hot buttered rum.  I thought with the snowy backdrop, that people would be in the mood for hot buttered rum but actually the mojitos were the popular choice.

My sister brought appetizers

and the twice-baked-potatoes for dinner and my brother made our first and second courses of the dinner.  First course was spinach and star fruit salad with dried cherries.

I would post the recipe except my brother just makes it up in his head.  

He worked as a chef for Paccar in their executive dinning room years ago. 

He started this tradition of serving a Christmas dinner restaurant style where we prepare all the plates in the kitchen and serve the dinner restaurant style.  

So that's how we do it now and it makes it very elegant and memorable.

And just like Thanksgiving, I bought a Christmas tree butter sculpture this year. (Remember, it's the little things)

Salad was the first course.  Once everyone sits down and has their salad, then we serve the soup which my brother also made, a butternut squash soup.   

Next comes the main plate of beef tenderloin, twice-baked potatoes and some green beans.  

Dessert was a Bushe de Noel that my brother also brought that he picked up a their local French bakery. 

This was our special Christmas dinner, our once-a-year celebration.  Of course, that doesn't include the abundance of Christmas cookies

and almond roca that we make every year.  

We put little bags of almond roca at each place setting with names on them for everybody at the dinner.  

Along with the almond roca, this year Lauren took photos of everybody with her polaroid camera and we placed the photo for each's place setting, as well.  

The photos look like they are right out of the 50's or 60's.

Lauren says polaroid photos are really popular.  They look like the filters people put on their normal photos in Instagram and other social medias.

I'm always drawn to the old-fashioned look so I thought they were the perfect touch for the table.  

Lauren and Ari came over early to spend the whole day with us and to unwrap presents and have breakfast on Christmas Day.  We had our usual Dutch babies for breakfast. 

We used raspberries on them since I had some leftover from the red raspberry gelatin salad that I also made for the Christmas dinner. 

Everyone did a great job on our presents this year and it was great fun opening all our presents.  Some of my favorite gifts:

Christmas ornament that Lauren made for us that has our granddaughter in it

I LOVE my new framed poster from our trip to the eclipse that Bruce gave me.  We bought this poster from the artist who also signed it for us.  Then Bruce put a few photos of our trip in the frame with the poster.

I also loved my first ever Glassybaby.  I got Diva and Grace and I love them both.

Every time I go into their shop, I can never figure out which one to get and just get totally overwhelmed.  These two went immediately on our Christmas dinner table and were PERFECT.  

Bruce and I both got new hats and mine came with plans to go to the Mariner Baseball Spring Training in Arizona.  That will be a fun trip to look forward to!

Bruce liked his new cribbage board I gave him

and we didn't waste anytime playing with it.  Bruce and Jim taught the younger generation how to play after dinner and they had quite the game going. 

We also liked the Mai Tai glasses that Lauren gave us and we used them for the Pomegranate Mojitos.

The presents were excellent this year and we had a lot of fun opening them all.  I also received our traditional fruit cake from my sister in Colorado who uses my mom's recipe  (wrapped in rum-soaked cheesecloth) Mmmmmm

and I got some spices for mulled wine from another sister.  There were lots of other wonderful gifts we received but I won't list them all here.   I will just say that this was one of the best Christmas's we've had.  The food was great, the gifts were perfect, and it wasn't too overwhelming or exhausting.  (You know how the holidays can get...)

Even our pre-Christmas activities were fun like Bruce's Company Christmas party in California.   We went to a Christmas concert by the Seattle Men's Chorus that was highly entertaining and very popular here in Seattle.  They are the world's largest LGBTQ Men's Chorus that started here in 1979 and are now known around the world.  

 It was also our first concert at Benaroya Hall, home of the Seattle Symphony, so that was sort of a special occasion. 

Back to the gifts, I'd have to say my most favorite gift this season was one that I gave.  I made a Christmas stocking for our grand baby, Hana.  I was actually sad when I had to mail it away to Japan because I loved it so much.   I stressed and stressed about how to make her a special Christmas sock after Nick asked me if I'd make her one.   But I loved how it turned out and it was actually really fun making it.  

Nick says it's fantastic and that Hana loves touching all the little attachments on it.  It was fun shopping for gifts for her this year, too.  I ended up going to the post office four times to mail all the gifts to them. They will open their gifts on New Year's because that's the tradition in Japan.  I was so motivated about making Hana's sock that I then made a new sock for Bruce who's never really had one.  Some of our best gifts are in our socks, you know.   

Christmas is always best when children are around and I know one day that our little Hana will be here with us to experience the magic of Christmas like my nephew's little boy.  It's so fun to watch children in their wonderment. 

I hope your Christmas was as wonderful as our's.  

Joy to All!