Christmas Eve at Bryan's House

With the Dearden Family in town, everyone gathered at Bryan's house for Christmas Eve dinner. We decided to make it a Mexican Buffet instead of our traditional pizza fest. Denise and Mom spent all morning making chile verde chicken enchiladas and red ground beef enchiladas. Bryan took care of setting the table and preparing the buffet. This first picture shows his house with the Christmas lights lit up. Seeing it in person is so much better! Click on these links:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pfeNUcz5qvQ (Santa's Symphony)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o28EdUHlfls (Jingle Bells Techno)

The Christmas light display in Bryan's front yard.

Across the street from Bryan's house: The soldiers stand guard.


The dinner table set in white, red, and green.

The lights are dimmed and the candles are lit.

Ray made a traditional Chile Relleno--it's still steaming!

The Mexican Buffet
Enchildadas, refried beans, rice, guacamole, salsa, tortilla chips, and "poppers". We had two kinds of hot wassail and sparkling apple cider to drink. There was See's candy, the gingerbread cookies, and cheesecake for dessert. We didn't even eat the peppermint and the mint chocolate chip ice cream with the brownies and whipped cream--we saved those for the next day!

We were greeted by Cocos (in red) and Pecos (in green).

(Bryan and Kyleigh smile for the picture, too.)

After dinner, we stepped outside on Bryan's back patio and took family pictures. This photo shows Dad and Mom Greenwood and Debi, Denise, Bryan, and Lisa.

Gary and Debi

The Dearden Family

Bryan and Ray

Lisa and Kyleigh

Bryan's backyard lights on his patio.

Bryan's backyard light display.

Making Gingerbread Cookies on Christmas Eve

The Dearden Family drove down from Utah on Monday, December 22nd and stopped off in Oak Hills to pick up "Aunt Debi". (Gary stayed home until Christmas Eve.) Debi had made some gingerbread cookie dough using an 1840's pioneer recipe from Nauvoo, and she had Gary bring the dough down to Dad and Mom Greenwood's home. On Christmas Eve (in the afternoon) we broke out the cookie cutters and made gingerbread cookies and decorated them. This picture shows Kyleigh rolling and cutting out the gingerbread dough.

Later that afternoon, Kyleigh enjoyed frosting and decorating the gingerbread men. She couldn't decide which color to use, so she is using two tubes of frosting in this picture.

Here's what Dad and Mom's Christmas tree looked like this year. 

(It looks the same as the tree they had last year!)

Danielle and Denise join in on the decorating of the gingerbread cookies.

Lisa decorates gingerbread cookies.

Taking a break from cookie decorating: Gary convinces Kyleigh to give him an "Eskimo Kiss" inside her cardboard box house that Grandpa made for her. Notice the "snow" that Grandpa incorporated on the top of the roof.

Debi and Kyleigh cut out the gingerbread cookies.

Mom helps decorate cookies.

Kyleigh discovers that holding your tongue just right will help when decorating cookies.

Dad even gets in on the cookie decorating!