Christmas eve

I can't believe how this year has flown by! It seems like just the other day we were making wedding plans and now we're making plans to have a baby! Its crazy.

We usually spend Christmas eve with my in-laws. Tonight we'll be going over to them for a lamb on the spit dinner, which sounds very tasty. I'm hoping that we'll actually eat at a decent time. My in-laws have a terrible habit of getting started so late, it drives me crazy! Having dinner on Christmas eve at 11/12 o'clock is a bit too late for me. In addition to dinner we'll open some Christmas presents too, this is more for the kids though. Last year N dressed up as Father Christmas and her nephews loved it, the little one (who was 2 then) had no idea it was her, it was too funny.

And Christmas day we usually spend with my family, and its usually at my mom's place which means a ton of work for N and I. I usually spend hours and hours cooking and she spends hours and hours cleaning. But this year I'm hoping it will be a bit different. Since its so hot here at the moment we'll be doing a variety of cold meats and salads. Thank goodness I won't be doing all the preparations for it. We've told each family / couple to bring a meat of sorts and a salad. N and I will be doing Honey & Mustard Gammon, Tongue (ready cooked, I would never try cook that thing!!) and Roast Vegetable Couscous salad. Others will be bringing Roast Beef, Roast Chicken, salads, desserts and the ever fun Christmas crackers (its just not Christmas without them - kids or no kids). A good few times we've done Christmas at my parents place where I've done all the cooking (turkey, gammon, all the trimmings and dessert) and as lovely as it is, its really too much. This year I'm looking forward to a relaxed, sane Christmas.

Last night I spent the night baking my ass off. I made 7 dozen biscuits. 3 Dozen Ginger Biscuits and 4 dozen Chocolate Chip Cookies. I'm not a huge fan of the ginger ones but N loves them. Usually I take a load of whatever I've baked with on Christmas eve to my in-laws, the kids love the cookies and tend to climb into them even before dinner.