Christmas Eve

We went to the Bates' house for a fun Christmas Eve appetizer party/dinner. They had their grandma visiting, and also invited a young couple who they knew when they lived in Louisiana. Jenny went all out on the appetizers...we had shrimp, brie cheese wrapped in puff pastry with a caramel/pecan sauce, hot crab dip, cheese and crackers, veggies and dip, etc. She's been baking for weeks and had an assortment of delicious cookies and bars for dessert. We brought meatballs, horseradish dip, and this cheese ball (Heidi's mother-in-law's recipe in our cookbook): Their friends from Louisiana read the funniest book (we're going to buy a copy for ourselves) called "Cajun Night Before Christmas." It was hilarious.

When we came home, we read our traditional Twas The Night Before Christmas and the Bible story of Christ's birth, then the girls went to bed. Landon and I made a french toast casserole to "marinate" overnight (we got the recipe from the Family Fun magazine. It has brown sugar, cinnamon, nuts, eggs, milk and vanilla poured over cubed french bread.) This is the cooked version that we ate Christmas morning:
We did our Santa Claus duty and went to bed. The older the girls get, the smaller the haul looks under the tree (especially with such a pathetic-looking tree).