We went to my brother Jed's house for Christmas Eve. He and his wife Joette have a great tradition of celebrating the foods and traditions of a different country on each Christmas Eve. When we lived in the UK, they did England. Russia and Italy are a few others I remember. This year we were invited to join them for Costa Rica, which is where Jed served his mission.
They were planning to have tamales for dinner, and since that's our own Christmas day tradition, we volunteered (or perhaps I volunteered Damon) to make them. He even looked up a traditional Costa Rican recipe (a little different from the Mexican tamales we usually make). Jed made gallo pinto, a beans and rice dish, and Joette made a yummy salad that wasn't traditional Costa Rican, but rather, as Jed put it, "traditional delicious." Oh, and don't forget the Salsa Lizano. We finished with dulce de leche. Yum.
We drove up to their place in the late afternoon and just enjoyed visiting with them, my brother Pete, and the full-time missionaries while the cousins all played together. Eventually, when the mayhem became a little too much, we settled them down with Mickey's Christmas Carol while we finished prepping dinner. Then, they were so content that we opted to eat in shifts: a quiet grown-up meal while the movie played, and then the kids.
They were planning to have tamales for dinner, and since that's our own Christmas day tradition, we volunteered (or perhaps I volunteered Damon) to make them. He even looked up a traditional Costa Rican recipe (a little different from the Mexican tamales we usually make). Jed made gallo pinto, a beans and rice dish, and Joette made a yummy salad that wasn't traditional Costa Rican, but rather, as Jed put it, "traditional delicious." Oh, and don't forget the Salsa Lizano. We finished with dulce de leche. Yum.
We drove up to their place in the late afternoon and just enjoyed visiting with them, my brother Pete, and the full-time missionaries while the cousins all played together. Eventually, when the mayhem became a little too much, we settled them down with Mickey's Christmas Carol while we finished prepping dinner. Then, they were so content that we opted to eat in shifts: a quiet grown-up meal while the movie played, and then the kids.
We finished the night opening the gifts from the JAWs to our family. My brothers and I do a gift exhange rotation, and Jed and Joette had us this year. Rather than sending us home to open them on Christmas morning, we did it under their tree on Christmas Eve. Tonight I'm cooking a recipe from the book that Joette gave me!
After we read about the night of Christ's birth in the scriptures and watched a small video of the nativity, we put kids in jammies and headed home. Sleepy kids went right to bed.
1 comment:
So fun! What recipe are you doing from the book?
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