Christmas 2012

The peach puffy sleeve dress takes the cake- nice job Aunt Kelly!

My favorite family tradition is our themed Christmas Eve dinner. We've done this for as long as I can remember. This year we stepped it up a notch by including costumes in our Anne of Green Gables themed festivities. For those not familiar, Anne of Green Gables is a novel (adapted into movies and mini-series) written by Canadian author Lucy Maud Montgomery. It takes place on Prince Edward Island and chronicles the adventures of Anne Shirley, an red-headed orphan girl who constantly gets into mischief despite very good intentions. It's a great book for kids of many ages.



A-L and Jason enjoying 312

 The novel was published in 1908, so you can imagine the costumes necessary to be true to the time. Turns out my cousin Anna-Lisa has a secret stash of old-timey dresses that we were able to dig into. I think my Aunt Kelly's taffeta dress took the cake! I must admit the dress I wore was actually one I wore to a high school dance. Ugh, what terrible taste I had! The dress was a bit of a tent on me even 4.5 months pregnant, so I can image how ridiculous it was when I was a skinny little thing in high school!

Test batch bison.

One of the traditional meals on Prince Edward Island is pot pies and Adam was put in charge of this task. He did an absolutely amazing job! There were three varieties- traditional chicken pot pie, an amazing seafood pot pie made with Canadian lobster, scallops and shrimp and a bison-bourguignon-turned-pot-pie. Each was even more amazing than the next. I was lucky enough to sample all the test runs in addition to eating a bit of all three on Christmas Eve! Adam spent 14 hours doing prep work the day before and he wouldn't even let me help!

Chicken pot-pie before the oven

Seafood pot pie post oven.

My favorite- the big bison-bourguignon pot pie!!

After dinner, everyone was handed an Anne of Green Gables quote hand chosen for them. Some of my favorites:

"Red hair is my life long sorrow" (read by the only family red head, Anna-Lisa)

"But really, Marilla, one can't stay sad very long in such an interesting world, can one?"

Anne: "Have you ever noticed one encouraging thing about me, Marilla? I have never made the same mistake twice."
Marilla: "I don't know as that's much benefit when you're always making new ones."

My Grandma and Grandpa Monson had actually been to the Anne of Green Gables house years ago and my Mom still had a post-card they sent us from their visit, which was so cool!

Grandpa and Grandma Monson, me, Grandma Nelson. All in hats!

Babybison got gifts!

Between the 4 days off from work, no one in the family sick, and the big baby announcement, this was one of the best Christmases I remember having as an adult. It was great to see my family, even if our visit was too short!

We're considering themes for next year....Gone with the Wind is on the list as folks had lots of fun with the dresses. Any other thoughts?