Our Christmas Weekend

I'm not entirely sure how I feel about Christmas falling on a Friday this year.

In theory it sounded perfect, but I'm sort of thinking it took away some of the "special feeling".

When it's mid-week, it really shakes up the monotony.

This year it simply felt like a really festive weekend.

A great weekend, that's for sure!

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After work on Friday (I am vowing never to work Christmas Eve again after this year), we headed over to my in-laws for their Christmas Eve party.

We exchanged gifts and had a wonderful night celebrating together.

 

This year I cheated with Christmas baking and used store bought sugar cookie dough and topped it with fresh rosemary.

And considering the effort, I'd say these cookies turned out fantastic.

(Thanks to April for the idea.)

I prepared sausage strata, K's family recipe, for our breakfast Christmas morning.

And I do want to say that for some reason cinnamon rolls taste a lot better baked in a cast iron skillet!

 

K and I exchanged gifts and enjoyed a cozy morning before heading over to my parents for the day.

I used this recipe for Country Living Three Cheese baked macaroni for my contribution to dinner. I think it turned out really well.

We were feeling very, um, festive after enjoying several glasses of my grandfather's famous "ambrosia punch".  This is really the only family photo I have from the day, dancing to Lady Gaga's Bad Romance.

This was before dinner, after a hearty meal and a walk with the dogs around the block all was calm and bright again.

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Oh, did I mention the weather here? My car said 82 on Christmas.

It sure is a beautiful summer we're having here in Charleston!

On Saturday we took Alfie to the beach.

It was super crowded, people were swimming!

Along with the heat, we've had a lot of fog here lately.

This picture is not in black and white.

Thank you to the really nice Australian man who stopped and asked if we wanted a family photo:

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Yesterday we debated whether or not to head out for a few exchanges, but ultimately chose to have an easy going Sunday instead.  We took Alfie down to the Barrel so that we could enjoy a beer or two while he played. 

 

It (surprisingly) wasn't very crowded there, but he still enjoyed taking in the scene:

Pizza from Paisano's rounded out our weekend,

I read somewhere that pizza is the most popular food in the days after Christmas.

So there you have it!

Our Christmas weekend.

How was yours?