Christmas time

I love Christmas time, Christmas eve to be exact. You see thats the day my family (as in my extended family, the Lindhardts) has Christmas. Thats the way the Danes do it. Christmas day for us is rather boring. We open all our presents on Christmas Eve and do all our festivities and traditions. When we were younger we still opened most of our presents on Christmas day. We were allowed to open one present from our parents, that'd we'd bring with us to our big extended family Christmas party, (as long as my mom ok'd it, she didnt want us to pick one of our big presents) mind you this would not be pajamas. Actually I dont think i ever got pj's for Christmas until after my mom passed away. The other presents we were allowed to open were the ones we got at the party. The rest we opened Christmas day. But now that we're all grown up and moved out, we open all of them on Christmas Eve. We have a huge Danish Christmas meal, with all the yummy yummy danish treats. (and yes, we make them all. Thank you mom, bedstemor, and aunts for teaching us how to make them all) I absolutely love this day of the year. The past few years it has just been my immediate family, but this year some of the extended family is joining us again. The bigger the better if you ask me. I love all the people, the mingling, hearing all the Danish, dancing around the Christmas tree while singing American and Danish Christmas songs, opening the presents and watching others (especially the kids) open all their gifts. And now this year, we have our own child. I'm so excited for him to have his first Christmas. I know he won't remember it, and won't really care too much about the presents(actually I think he's going to like the wrapping paper more than any gift we give him) But I'll remember it, and I'm so excited to see him experience it all.

Ok now that I've ranted about my Christmas traditions, doesn't it just make you wish you could join us? I don't blame you, I'd want in on the fun too.

So growing up, my mom always had these cookies in the house around Christmas time...remember these?

My favorite was all the one in the middle in the picture above. The sugar crystals on top were too hard for me. Anyways, this is what my mom always did to them to make them a little more fun to eat.....

so yummy! Chocolate makes everything so much better. If you've never tried this, I suggest you give it a whirl. So worth it.

Here's a picture of my Christmas tree. I decided I want a Danish tree from now on. (I love adding the Danish traditions to our American ones) It's a little plain because I don't have all the little things that are supposed to go on it, but it's a start. Plus I'm missing the star that goes on the top. It somehow disappeared, along with a few of my other decorations. So I'm having to do without until I can find a new one.The string of red and white is a string of the Danish flag, and in the red and white hearts are cookies! Such a smart idea the Danes had on that one right! Why didn't we think of putting treats on our trees?! For now, I just have the Danish butter cookies (not dipped in chocolate). The ones I'm supposed to make to put in them, will go hard way too fast. Plus Jon won't really eat them(he tends to be really picky, or maybe it's just him being skeptical, with a lot of the Danish treats), so I figure I'll hold off on those.

In the very center of the tree is my favorite ornament. It was given to me by my grandma the Christmas after my mom passed away. It is an ornament with her picture on it. I'll need to get an upclose picture of it. I love that I can incorporate my mom into Christmas.

I hope you all have a Merry Christmas!