Christmas 2015

We had a holly, jolly Christmas, and we hope you did, too! In lieu of listing presents and activities, I thought my Christmas post this year would feature some food photos. :-) Andrew got a new camera a month or two ago, and he took some food pictures this year, in addition to the usual mix of kids and gifts and Christmas tree shots. I think they turned out pretty well and deserved to be featured, in order to make you all hungry!

But first, an interesting observation...

Andrew and I have celebrated eight Christmases together, in a variety of locations:

2008 - My parents' house in Olympia, Washington

2009 - Andrew's parents' house in Arch Cape, Oregon

2010 - Our Mwisenge house in Musoma, Tanzania

2011 - Our Makoko house in Musoma, Tanzania

2012 - Andrew's sister's house in Warrenton, Oregon

2013 - Our Makoko house in Musoma, Tanzania

2014 - Our house in Indiana, Pennsylvania

2015 - Our house in Indiana, Pennsylvania

As you can see, being in the same place two years in a row is rather out of the ordinary for us!

Breakfast

Way back when Andrew and I were children, we both had cinnamon rolls every year for Christmas breakfast. Upon getting married, it was easy to figure out what we were going to have as our family's Christmas breakfast tradition! We have had cinnamon rolls for every Christmas breakfast since we got married. There were also some accompaniments of eggs, sausage (for Andrew), and winter fruit compote (what you see the remnants of on my plate). Andrew said that my fruit compote looked like something a monkey vomited up, or something like that, and declined eating it. I think sausage smells like a pig who got too close to a hot frying pan, and declined eating that, so we were even.

Dinner

Dinner was seafood soup, made by Andrew. It had mussels, shrimp, and cod in it, and it was pretty good. We liked it enough to want to tweak it a bit and have it again. Since we had clam chowder last year for Christmas dinner and seafood soup this year, it seems that we're starting a seafood tradition for Christmas.

Dessert

Dessert was Pumpkin Cranberry Cake. There are also pecans and raisins inside, and it's pretty good stuff! Maybe it's earned a spot as a Sandeen holiday classic, too. This was my and Zarya's first time to make it, and we are still enjoying it days later.