judyonthenet

Another winter, another holiday season with family and friends

January 13, 2010 By: Judy Category: Food, Life

(This post is a little late, but not as late as, say, the rest of my honeymoon posts!)

Before I met Kelvin, Christmas tended to be non-eventful for me. When I was child, my Taiwanese immigrant parents only celebrated Christmas for me as an American tradition. Once I became old enough where I was somewhat indifferent to the holidays, it was just a night to eat a nicer-than-usual meal. Even after I met Kelvin, Christmas was just an excuse to get my mom something nice every year outside of her birthday. I guess it doesn’t seem too strange when my mother is the only family I have in the US, but it seems like nothing when compared to the events American families plan out during the winter season. As usual, we had two family meals to go to, as Kelvin’s parents are divorced so there’s something going on for each side. I brought homemade stuff to both of them like I did with Thanksgiving; I guess 2009 was the year I decided to actually start contributing to these gettogethers.

The spread at Xmas Eve dinner

I didn’t try anything new for the Christmas Eve dinner with had with Kelvin’s father, but I made two quarts of ice cream I’ve made before (one each of honey pecan and oolong tea) since they were in need of desserts. We were fed well, considering the amount of hors d’oeuvres we had while waiting for dinner and the amount of food actually at dinner.

Hanabi (and her dress) having oolong tea ice cream

It’s tradition on Kelvin’s dad’s side to trade Christmas presents with family members on Christmas Eve. Before Xmas 2008, we would buy something for everybody in the family. That’s 5-6 people, not including the nieces. A couple Christmases back, we implemented a Secret Santa system where everyone (except the little girls) draws names at Thanksgiving, writes a wishlist of what they want, and buys presents for only one person, with a target $200 budget. People get one large item they want instead of a bunch of smaller items they might not want, and so far it’s worked really well. Last year, I got a nice apartment-sized breadmaker that I’ve unfortunately been underusing. This year, the item on my wishlist went out of stock, so I have to wait until January to get it. I’ve been refreshing the website that sells it everyday to see if/when it comes back in stock. (I want it so bad.) In the meantime, my Secret Santa (Kelvin’s stepmother Greer) gave me a sweet 4-book set of Williams-Sonoma books. I put Williams-Sonoma books on my wishlist since I’ve dug the ice cream one Anna gave me. The 4-book set I got has Pasta, Soup, Chicken, and Salad. I am especially excited about the Pasta and Soup ones.

Presents!

After dinner, I started on our assignment for the Christmas brunch, which was “appetizer”. What’s an appetizer for a brunch? I have no idea. Under Kelvin and Krang’s advice, I decided to go with mini-pigs-in-blankets. I also decided to be more hardcore and make the dough from scratch instead of using store-bought crescent roll dough. For the “blankets”, I used a dinner roll recipe from the bread machine book Kimi gave me as part of my Christmas present last year. The dough was kind of a pain to roll and cut into little triangles, but we managed. Unfortunately, something I ate in the last 24 hours didn’t agree with me, and I only got through 1/3rd of batch before going over to the couch and crashing in discomfort. Thankfully, Kelvin finished the rest of the batch for me. We had both accidentally napped after dinner, so it was like 1AM at this point. As much as I like the lack of store-bought dough flavor my dinner roll blankets had, next time I do these things last second, I’m just gonna buy the pre-made crescent roll dough. I did this for the Rock Band party, and it was SO MUCH faster and easier.

Kelvin ran out of dough for the last two weiners and
made some mutant-looking pigs-sharing-a-blanket

Christmas morning, we headed over to Kelvin’s aunt’s house for Christmas brunch with his mom’s side of the family. The mini-pigs-in-blankets were well-received, thankfully, and they tasted pretty good with sauces (mustard, ketchup, and some sort of wasabi mayo his aunt had). Kelvin’s aunt always offers up an impressive meal, and this brunch was no exception. Unfortunately, my appetite was still bad from the night before, and I think Pepto-Bismol ruined my taste buds because stuff was tasting strange (i.e. the nonalcoholic sparkling apple cider tasted alcoholic and yucky). I ate very little. After brunch and presents, we went straight home to nap and recover.

New Year’s had its share of events, too.New Year’s Eve, we went to Chris and Yoko’s for their party. I spent most of my time trying to beat Mario & Luigi 3, while everyone else partook in Rock Band and Words with Friends (yes, people were playing Words with Friends). We counted down the new year with an iPhone app and listen to Auld Lang Syne on Youtube (yes, we are this nerdy).

Words with Friends is like a disease

On New Year’s day, we went to my mom’s place for a hot pot dinner. I can always count on my mom for the least complicated of holiday events. We even got to say wish my grandparents in Taiwan a happy new year via Skype with webcams.