My Christmas, Part One (& recipes, too)!

Hello sweet bloggies! Hope you've all had a wonderful Christmas.

Can you believe that it's already over? It's crazy how we build up something for so long and with a blink of an eye, it's over ...but what better event to build up anticipation to than Christmas, the day of our dear savior's birth!

On Christmas Eve, we prepared some fixings in the kitchen.  I made three hors d'oeuvres that I forgot to takes pictures of (Sorry guys! Thanks Google!):

1. Green Goddess Dip

Thanks, chefspecialties.com, for the pic!

 This was the first time I had made this dip.  I didn't know what to dip into it, so we just used the Rosemary/Olive Oil Triscuits.  I know now that I should have picked up some raw veggies to dip in this. Oh well, it was still amazing (If I do say so myself)!

Super quick recipe that I modge-podged together with the ingredients I had on hand:

Ingredients

1 (8oz) package reduced fat cream cheese, cut into little cubes

1/2 cup 1% milk

1/4 cup nonfat sour cream

2-4 tablespoons chives

2-4 tablespoons parsley

dash white cooking wine

dash lemon juice

Directions

In a microwave-safe bowl, nuke the cream cheese and milk for about two minutes (stir after first minute), or until smoothly mixed.  Add in the sour cream, chives, parsley, cooking wine, and lemon juice.  Stir. Refrigerate for a couple hours, at least.

2.  Fried Jalapeno Popper Dip

closetcooking.blogspot.com

This dip is so great and easy to make.  In case you haven't tried it, here is the recipe:

Ingredients

2 (8oz) packages reduced fat sour cream, softened

1 cup light mayo

1 (4oz) can green chillies

jalapenos, diced (4-8oz depending on how spicy you want it)

1 cup parmesan cheese, grated

1 cup bread crumbs

Directions

Stir all ingredients, except the bread crumbs, together.

Pour the mixture into a baking dish.

Spread the bread crumbs evenly across the top.

Bake for about 15 minutes at 350 degrees.

I added about three tablespoons of ranch mix (powder), some chives and parsley to the mixture for more seasoning.  It was served with Ritz crackers.  I would definitely recommend this dip because everyone loved it!

3.  Taco Dip

This dip can be customized in so many different ways.  I'm sure you've all seen some variation of this recipe, but here's how I made mine:

Ingredients

1 (8 ounce) package reduced fat cream cheese, softened
1 (16 ounce) container nonfat sour cream
1 (1.25 ounce) package taco seasoning mix
1/4 head iceberg lettuce - rinsed, dried, and shredded
1-2 cups shredded Cheddar cheese
2 chopped tomatoes

1/3 cup chives

2 tablespoons onion, diced (only on half for the onion lovers!)

Directions

In a mixing bowl, combine the cream cheese, sour cream, and seasoning mix.  Pour this mixture into a serving dish (I used a 13x9).  Layer the rest, ingredient by ingredient, evenly into the dish.  I put the lettuce down first (over the cream cheese/sour cream mix), then the cheese, then tomatoes, then the chives on top.  Served with tortilla chips.  Muy bueno!

My family (just Dad, Mom, brother, me) ate these along with some other finger foods on Christmas Eve.  The hors d'oeuvres have become a bit of a Christmas Eve tradition.  We like it because we end up snacking all evening!  We also made mudslide drinks, which weren't quite as good as expected, but satisfied my sweet tooth! (Mom's homemade fudge helped, too.)

We went to midnight mass, which was so wonderful.  My father is never, I repeat, never late to church, so we high tailed it to church at 10:45pm (allowing 30 minutes commute).  Being there early allowed us to enjoy the choir's Christmas hymns. The acoustics in the church are great (I say that not knowing a thing about music) and provided us with the musical sounds I often hear in the Catholic cathedral in Charleston. 

As mass started, and midnight struck, Dad turned to me and whispered, "Merry Christmas, Meg."  There was something very special about being in church at the moment Jesus' birthday began ...and with my family, nonetheless! 

We were a tired crew as we pulled in our driveway at 1:30am on Christmas morning.  But that didn't stop Dad from jumping on my bed at 8am to get me to come downstairs.  I swear, he is the child of our family a lot of the time!  But, you know, I had to do the same to my brother.  Soon enough, Mom was awake too.  We exchanged gifts, then made breakfast (and coffee, which was very much needed). 

I'll share a few pictures of special Christmas gifts on a post tomorrow, but I will share one present tonight.  I had all of our old baby tapes/home movies (on VHS-C) transferred to DVDs for my Dad's Christmas present.  He was so surprised and excited.  He takes so much pride (as my mother does, too) in those baby tapes and I knew it would make him happy. After breakfast, we all watched about 3 hours of recordings from previous Christmases (1990-1992).  We only got through four DVDs and have about 20 more to watch!

This gal has to wake up in six hours for church.  Happy Sunday, everyone!  Hope you all had the best Christmas, yet!