Merry Christmas!

Happy Holidays to you and yours!

07_Family Photo

On Christmas Eve when we were all dressed up for mass, Mom would sit us in front of the tree for a family photo. Clothing disclaimer: No, we weren't Mormon, it was just the late 80s/early 90s and I guess Newsies had just come out.

06_Cookie Party

Every year my Aunt Karen would host a cookie decorating party at her house. She baked gingerbread and sugar cookies ahead of time. Bowls of brightly colored icing, sprinkles and edible decorations of every kind were laid out before us. My cousins, siblings and I would go to town adorning the baked dough. At the end of the night we packed up a selection of the uneaten masterpieces in shirt boxes to bring home, ready for Santa's Christmas Eve plate.

05_Popcorn Chains

In the pre-microwave days, Mom would cook up a batch of popcorn in the yellow popcorn maker that sounded like a vacuum cleaner. My siblings and I would open a bag of plump cranberries, thread a needle and get to work making popcorn chains to decorate the tree with. They couldn't have been that long since we ate at least a third of the ingredients ourselves.

In other news, I'm pretty sure our current microwave died but it hasn't been too much of an issue yet. I'm giving it til after Christmas to see if we'll need to get another one.