Our Christmas at Home

As you know, we decided to stay home for Christmas this year. I am so glad we did. Because, as you also know, I got really sick!

We did manage to celebrate Christmas, though. And I did manage to take a few pictures.
Mostly of food, of course.


We started the day with a breakfast casserole. I think this one turned out much better than the one I made last year for M's family. I can definitely tell cooking gets better with practice!

I popped this bad boy out of the oven at about Noon. Yeeeaaaahh. I'm pretty sure I slept in THE latest this Christmas than ever before in my life. Pardon my nasty sick/morning hair look.

We ate the casserole, some fruit and our traditional cranberry juice with champagne.
Then it was gift opening time!! :)


We did good. We both definitely went over our initial "spending limits," but not terribly. And we were both happy. So, that's good.


Now, the turkey.
Which, believe it or not, I did have several people ask me about!

Thankfully, it wasn't frozen, so I didn't have to thaw it.

I brined it Christmas Eve. I went with recipes partly from Cooks Illustrated and partly from Wegmans.

I slow roasted it. The time actually flew by because I was so busy making the other sides!

In the end, I wish it had turned out browner, but the internal temperature was right.

And the little thingy popped up! It did not ding, in case you're wondering.

We carved it together and set it out on what was originally going to be my beautiful Christmas table.

But, really it was just a place to set everything. Because we ended up eating in front of the TV on our trays. I was whooped!!

I got almost everything I wanted to make, made. I skipped the cider glazed carrots. I didn't have the energy to knead dough, so I made rolls out of a can, and I didn't make homemade gravy, I used a bag of Wegmans gravy. But it was still very good. As you can see, Brokaw was stoked!

I'm actually really glad I made this huge feast for just the two of us, because over the next full week, when I was sick, I didn't have to cook at all. We ate leftovers from this and leftover breakfast casserole for like 8 days!


Brokaw got to do his part, too. My little pre-rinse.

So, there you have it. Our first Christmas at home. In pictures. It was very nice. I enjoyed cooking. I enjoyed exchanging gifts in front of the tree and opening stockings with my Love.