Just our little family of four were invited for Christmas dinner. We wanted to concentrate on our little nuclear family. No drama. And if you recall our Thanksgiving 2006, wow there was a lot of drama on that day, thanks to my mil. Ha ha ha. So, just the four of us. And that was plenty. We all ate in our sweatpants and comfy clothes and it was nice. Nice knowing we had nobody to impress except ourselves. Ha ha ha. Four tables setting? Well, we invited Noah to join us at the big table this year for Christmas, instead of his usual high chair. Ha ha.
Now, the rest of the year, or for the average Sunday dinner, I might just plop my meat on a nice glass dish and keep it rather plain and simple, which is normally just fine. Just meat on a ceramic dish and no dressing up the plate at all. But for Christmas, I had to make my ceramic platter and meats look a bit spiffier, since it's Christmas and all. Not just plain meats plopped on a plate for Christmas dinner, no way. I dressed up the platter with some green lettuce leaves and some bright cherry tomato halves for pretty. And it really made the meat look even more beautiful and yes for holidays such as Christmas, presentation of the foods is sometimes really important. Or at least that's my opinion, he he. I'm a nerd, what can I say! : )
From this side of the table, we have broccoli, mashed potatoes, salad, in my nice wooden Ikea salad bowl. The ham and 2 whole roasted garlic herb chickens that I prepared.
On this side of the table, we have stuffing, and I can see the spiral sliced ham really good from here. And the Costco dinner rolls are always so yummy but the color of the rolls, I find and again in my opinion, looks a bit pail for putting on the table for a Christmas meal, so I like to pop my dinner rolls into the toaster oven to get a bit warm and get a bit of color to them. That way the rolls don't have that anemic look. They look like warm and browned rolls and taste so much better like this.
My serving, what do we have here? Garlic herb roasted chicken, honey roasted ham, mashed potatoes and chicken gravy, stuffing and broccoli and a nice healthy salad, to round things out a bit.
Noboru had been looking forward to this meal all week long. Boy did he enjoy it! Cider were in our wine glasses, ha ha ha.
Branden stuffed himself silly, so did Noah! : )
Wow, what a whole bunch of food on this table. That's not even counting the homemade pumpkin pie or the jello I have chilling in the wine glasses in the fridge! And Noah loved getting to eat at the big table. : )
The flavor of this ham? Honestly, it was fantastic! So good to eat some American ham, we should have tried it years ago, we both loved ham in the states, we just never bothered looking for one in Japan but now we know, we will get this again. And the size of it was great! As you can see by this picture, we had a bunch of leftover ham afterwards. So we have eaten so many ham sandwiches this week! Noboru wants to order this every 2 month's he says. He really loves this ham, so do I.
A nice bright cheery festive dessert, some cherry jello in some wine glasses and some whip cream on top. Yumm! : )
Can you tell, I got the table all cleared off and everything packed in tupperware already? Man, was I fast or what? ha ha ha. Noboru went out to smoke a cigarette after supper. And so, I put the chicken in a tupperware, put the ham in a separate tupperware. Loaded the dirty dishes into the dishwasher, wiped the table down. Put the nice place mats away. Hey I didn't want cherry jello stains on my good place mats, ha ha ha. And I basically got everything put away really quickly, he came back in and was surprised it was already put away already. The hubby was like, "wow!" We all enjoyed our jello's.
Branden enjoyed his jello as much as Noah did. After about an hours rest on the couch watching TV. We managed to finish up our New Years cards. In Japan, it's really important to send your friends and family, New years cards. New years is really important in Japan. Also and especially for women, they clean the house *really* good before the New Year. : )
We made some cards just for Branden, with only his picture on it, so he could send some out, to his some of his good friends this year. Friends from school. And for our family, we sent out a picture of me and the boys when we were in Saipan last February on vacation. We wanted a picture of all four of us originally, but we couldn't find one that was taken within the year of 2007. Many pics of just the boys and I. And also many pics of just Noboru and the boys. I told Noboru to just put his pic and the boys. He said, no, it had to have the wife (me) in it. So, we had no choice but to use one then with just the boys and I. And originally I did not want to send a pic of me wearing my straw sun hat and swim suit and swim suit cover. Ha ha ha. But Noboru said the background was as important as the picture itself. Geeze, is it hard to find a pic for a New year's card or what? Ha ha ha. And so this was the only one that had a quote unquote happy background. My husband really is a stickler about all that stuff, the nerd. Ha ha ha. : ) So, me and the boys on vacation at the tropical resort PIC, is the pic Noboru chose. Originally I wasn't exactly very thrilled about sending a vacation pic out. But, I figured what the heck. I am young still, and while I complain about needing to get in shape, I am not so bad really. I am certainly not obese or anything. So, I really didn't care about sending the pic in the end, I guess. Grumble, grumble. : )
Branden's cards came out really great. We didn't buy any software to make our cards. They all came out glossy and nice, and we used free software Noboru found online. And the picture of the mouse looking thing is supposed to be a rat. Because it is the year of the rat coming up for 2008. Which makes Noboru and I both happy, since that is our zodiac year. So, we imagine we will have a very lucky year this coming year.
After the cards were finished. Boy we made a whole stack of them this year. We all sat and had some pumpkin pie. And then showers, baths and bed for the kids. Meanwhile Noboru ordered our TV and it is coming tomorrow. Wow, talk about fast! It'll be our family Christmas present this year, to ourselves. Ha ha ha : )
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