Thursday, December 11, 2014

Getting Ready for Christmas: Part 1



    'Tis the season to start planning for Christmas, if that is indeed what you celebrate, and this will be our first Paleo Christmas. But I'm not as freaked out as I would have been if it hadn't been for such an awesome year of delicious Paleo food.

     You should have seen me at Easter. I was freaking out! I didn't know if the Easter Bunny could even find Paleo treats to bring to the kids.
He did!
Those are dark chocolate bunnies, dark chocolate eggs, pistachios, and pouches of almond butter, along with the rest of the fun stuff to play with and one of my favorite Paleo cookbooks: Paleo on a Budget by Elizabeth McGaw. I really don't remember what we ate when we got together with the family because it was just such a relief to have successfully planned and executed a Paleo holiday.

     So I'm trying to stay calm about Christmas, but I've downloaded several Paleo Christmas cookbooks, and it's weighing heavy on my mind. It doesn't help that Christmas is sort of shaky in our family when it comes to traditions, but that may be a good thing, since it's harder to change something that is more firmly established.

     When I was a kid, we had traditions. I would wake up around 3 or 4 am to see is Santa had come. I would wake up my mom and jump up and down in anticipation while she got the camera ready. I would gleefully open my presents, play for about an hour, then fall asleep, usually in the middle of my new toys. My dad would get up around 6, and my mom would make a big Southern breakfast of grits, eggs, bacon, and toast, and her parents would come over to see what I got before leaving to go to the next grandkids and see what they got. Then my dad's parents would come over for a lunch of dressing, turkey, ham, green beans, candied "yams," chicken pie, biscuits, lemon meringue pie, and chocolate layer cake. Then we would go down to my mom's parents' house for dinner with all of my aunts, uncles, and cousins and eat from a buffet of covered dishes brought by such a large family. My cousins and I would bring a new toy or two to show off, and we would all wait around for my dad to stop eating before we were allowed to open the presents under my grandparents' tree. I really miss those days, but all of my grandparents are dead, and my family just doesn't seem as tightly knit anymore since my aunts and uncles now have grandkids of their own.

     My husbands' family have their own traditions, but a big part of them includes traveling to Virginia from Alabama. I've been to a couple of their big Christmases in Virginia and they are crazy-busy. And the food - oh boy! Breakfast was like the best continental breakfast at the best hotel. There was biscuits and gravy, fruit and nut breads, a big plate of scrambled eggs, fruits, cheeses, crackers, spreads and dips, cereal, milk, juice, coffee, hot chocolate, and THE most artificial drink mix I've ever encountered that featured Tang as one of the ingredients. Christmas lunch was oyster stew with oyster crackers out of specific oyster stew bowls. And then the Christmas dinner! Some of the foods that we had are things I'd never even tried before, including a corn chowder that I fell hopelessly in love with. But even that is different now because my husband's mom's dad died a few years ago and his mom's mom is in a nursing home, but his parents still go to Virginia, and we haven't been since Lydia was a baby because we haven't been able to afford it.

     But I swear I gained about 10 pounds that first Christmas I spent there, and I don't think that's an exaggeration. The second Christmas wasn't as bad because Lydia was a baby, and I was breastfeeding.

     So here we are at Christmas with a bunch of broken traditions, non-Paleo feasts, and a slightly new protocol that was established at Thanksgiving. Did I mention the delicious Thanksgiving we just had? We had beet and carrot salad, a hen, sweet potato chips, Paleo cranberry jelly, cranberry aoli, Paleo sandwich bread, and a Paleo lemon meringue pie. Right now, I'm not even sure what I want to make, and budget will be a factor.  We will be at my parents' because part of our new tradition is to spend Christmas Eve night there. Santa knows that's where to bring the toys, and we just spend all day there hanging out, eating, napping, and playing.

     And being sick. It seems like almost every Christmas, either Ray or I have been sick, usually the flu. Last year, I inadvertently ate pecans, which I'm allergic to, and ended up getting really sick. I'm hoping to end that particular tradition since I hardly get sick any more now that we've switched to Paleo.

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