Christmas Dinner 2014

One of the great things about being home for the holidays is that I get to attend the annual Christmas dinner that my parents hold each year. It sort of makes up for missing Thanksgiving. Since my brother was working today it was just us and my aunt and cousins this year. Leilani arrived early as she skipped going to my uncle's house and benefited from listening to her traffic app which told her not to go through San Francisco. Chris and Mei were not as fortunate and it took them over 3 1/2 hours to get through the City to our house due to total traffic gridlock. What a nightmare! By the time they arrived we had already indulged in the hors d'oeuvres, including baked brie, bacon wrapped pineapple bites, shrimp cocktail, and my favorite holiday beverage mulled cider.

After breaking open some sparkling wine for the weary travellers, we grabbed our plates for dinner. Mom had things set up buffet style this year and the menu was as follows:
- Jello salad
- Biscuits
- Roast turkey
- Sausage and herb stuffing
- Spinach gratin
- Goat cheese mashed potatoes
It was all very yummy even though the stuffing got a bit dry due to the longer than expected cooking time (gravy fixed the moisture issue). After eating and chatting in the dining room we went into the living room to open presents before hitting up the desserts. I spent all of Christmas Eve baking apple pie, a pistachio and rosewater cake, sugar cookies and snowball cookies. Thankfully they all turned out pretty good! Everyone was well and truly full of holiday cheer (and food) by the end of the night.