Christmas Eve

Following tradition, we had to have Mexican food for Christmas Eve.  To go with the theme, we invited our Mexican friends, The P's, for the third year in a row.  Actually, only Roxanna is Mexican and a fake Mexican at that.  (This has been declared--by me--based on the fact that I know more about Mexican Christmas traditions than she does.  Plus, she thinks there's no such thing as Mexican Oatmeal Cake although clearly there is--we make it every time we go camping.  I mean, it has cinnamon in it for crying-out-fuerte!  Oh, and I suppose the kids are "half" if you want to split Mexicans hairs, but whatever.)

Anyway, the job of the P's was to make the homemade Tamales.  Yuuummmm...homemade tamales.  Mind you that is not the only reason we invited them.  I repeat, we are NOT using the P's for their tamale making skills!  (Though they are really, really good.)  No no, the tamales are just an added bonus.  And I suppose that means Roxie (she loves to be called Roxie) may have a little Mexican in her after all because she can make one mean tamale.  (And by "mean" I mean "nice".)

Our other guests were our Thai friend Jeena and her beautiful toddler Jane, (no relation to the theme, but we like them none-the-less) and Shannon-a friend from the dental clinic-and her adorable baby Anthony.  It was a fabulous group and I'm kicking myself for not taking any pictures before the little ones headed home!!!  (I'm going to have to try to get some photo's from them and add them later.)

Anyway, lets get to the important stuff:  The Menu!

I made two 9x13's of enchiladas, one vegetarian and one chicken, veggies, no salad, (forgot) Mexican Rice (thank you Goya) and Tres Leches for dessert.  Nothing too exciting, but edible at least.

Jeena brought some homemade spring rolls that were absolutely divine, and Roxanna brought the Tamales. Unfortunately, she misread the recipe.  She thought they needed to steam for one hour, but really they needed to steam for three hours.  Sooo--they were more like "Second Dinner".  Or maybe, Post-Dessert.  Or something.  Either way, they were absolutely DE-LI-CIOUS when we ate them around 9p.m.!  So yeah, dinner pretty much rocked.

After dinner and dessert (but before second dinner/post dessert,) we did our traditional Nativity program.  

Mark read the Christmas story from the scriptures while the kids (with direction from Doug) acted it out.

Gray was the very confused (and inappropriately dressed in baseball sweats) Baby Jesus. 

 (Still cute and sweet though...!)

 Little Q was the adorable angel:  "Glory to God!"

After the Nativity re-enactment,  Jeena and Shannon had to take their little ones home, and then it was time for jammies.  And tamales.  Ummmm.....tamales....yummmmmmmmy.


Gray would rather have paper any day though...so he did.

 Janelle and Baby Gray both got footie jammies and loved them.

We've decided that next year we're going to coordinate and get ALL the kids matching jammies.  Different continents and countries not withstanding.

Aren't they all adorable?

We love our friends and we love Christmas!

(and we love tamales.)