Christmas Eve!!

How we spent our Christmas Eve :) 

I woke up and started on breakfast while the guys went to the appliance store. (sad note: our washer pump broke 45 minutes before we left on Saturday to go to the airport to pick up his parents) (good note: my father in love owns his own appliance repair business back in PHX) 

On the menu for today's breakfast was Bread Pudding, I've never been a fan of bread pudding before the hubbs and I tried this recipe a while back. My mother in love made sure to capture every moment of me making the glaze for the pudding since it was the first time I was using my new pans. Breakfast turned out great, everyone enjoyed it. Our washer was fixed in less than 5 minutes for free. Something that would have cost us $100.00+ for someone to come out and do it. 

I decided to go ahead and get my Christmas Dinner Desserts out of the way this morning as well. Hubby didn't help just gave his two since when he felt the need, got to love him!!!

First up was a Peppermint Cheese Cake. I absolutely LOVE any and all things peppermint. This Cheesecake is no exception. My mom used to make it all the time back home, even though she hates cheesecake, crazy lady, who doesn't like Cheesecake. This is simply  fabulous, yummy in my tummy!

Up next was Peanut Butter Fudge Brownies. These things are amazing, I found the recipe in one of my books while living in Hawaii. The dessert dish seems to find it's self at a lot of our Holiday get togethers. Its extremely rich and creamy and taste fabulous!!!

After our desserts were made the hubbs and his dad headed out to do a little shopping and his mom and I did the same. I showed her some of our local stores & boutiques that I've found here in the area. We picked up a few goodies for ourselves and maybe a gift or two as well. Just as we were heading back home the rain set in and the skies turned UGLY!!!! We met up at a local pizza place called The Pizza Joint for lunch and showed them how the New Yorkers make pizza. It's pretty good, but I still like my pizza place in New York that I go to better. 

Back home I started on a homemade stove top Potpourri, that made our house smell like Christmas. The smell quickly filled the house and had us all enjoying it. It almost had a apple cider scent to it. Not to mention it was pretty to look at to. 

Each year we normally do a Gingerbread house but this year we opted not to. I'd mentioned to the hubbs that I wanted to make / bake / decorate ginger bread people.  I'd been searching the dairy section at the commissary for ginger bread people cookie dough but never had any luck. When we were at Target the night before he found a ginger bread cookie mix that came with a cookie cutter. We decided we'd give it a try, we didn't have much to loose it was only $5 bucks. 

He insisted he did all the work, since I'd been in the kitchen baking and what not off and on all day. He did however leave the mess for me to clean up. How thought full of him. I turned around after doing something to see that he'd walked out and left the counter in a giant mess. Gosh I love that man, I really do. 

His Family Tradition growing up was to have Sandwiches for dinner on Christmas Eve. So we've carried that tradition out over the past 6 years now. Of course tonight was no different just even better because his parents were here. We went fancy and got deli ham, turkey and salami, sliced up some fresh veggies and even made our own bread. But the bread went south really quick. The hubbs is the bread maker out of the two of us, normally he does a really really good job but for some reason or another tonight he didn't have his game face on. Thankfully for us and HIM Walmart was still open so his mom and I rushed up there to grab a loaf of bread. Man the things we do for the men in our life. 

After dinner we did a little clean up,  prepared for tomorrow's big day. 

One of the Drill's that the hubbs works with invited us over for round two of dessert (with him and his wife) so we decided we'd go have a bite and do a little visiting. We got home super late and I was so tired, we had a good time but it had been a long long day. I can't believe that tomorrow really is Christmas Day, really were has the time gone. This will be our 2nd Christmas in the South.