Christmas in Nebraska

It has pretty much become a Nebraska Christmas Eve tradition to order dinner from Valentino’s.  This is a tradition that I’m happy to keep going because I’ve always loved the pasta from this place!  I hit up Valentino’s every single time I go back home 🙂

My Christmas Eve meal consisted of:

Salad with creamy italian dressing (both my sister and I are obsessed with this dressing):

A plate full of italian food.  Pepperoni pizza, mostacholi with spicy sausage and spaghetti with marinara sauce:

After we all ate our weight in pasta we spent time bonding.  Solera had no shame in jumping in my nieces lap for a petting session:

Christmas Day

Breakfast

After stockings were un-stuffed and presents were open, breakfast was eaten.

Homemade cinnamon rolls (yum) provided by my sisters neighbor:

Dinner

Dinner was eaten around 3:00 pm.  We started off with one of the coolest bread baskets I’ve ever seen.  A ton of rolls in a basket made of bread:

My sister was a busy lady in the kitchen.  She made a smorgasbord of homemade foods:

  • Creamed corn
  • Green Bean casserole
  • Mashed potato with butter, cream cheese, sour cream and straight up cream
  • Plain mashed potatoes for Patrick
  • Gravy
  • Ham with pineapple (pineapple juice was spilled on Solera, he was sticky all day … 😆 )
  • Fried turkey
  • Stuffing

My plate consisted of a little bit of everything:

Washed down with a Woodchuck Draft Cider:

Dessert

Choice of homemade cookies.  My favorite was by far the peanut butter cookie with Hershey kisses:

Chocolate silk pie:

Fried Turkey (vegetarians might want to skip this part)

I’ve never had a fried turkey before so I was intrigued at how my brother-in-law was going to make it.

He started off by putting the bird on a stand and injecting it with a garlic butter:

Next up, he took it outside where he had the “frying machine” set-up:

Then the bird was slowly lowered into the oil:

Until it was all the way in:

about 30 minutes later we had a cooked bird:

I couldn’t believe how fast the turkey cooked by frying it.  I was also pleasantly surprised at how juicy and flavorful it was!  Best turkey ever!

I also need to mention that anyone attempting to fry a turkey should be very careful.  I’ve heard my fair share of horror stories of people being seriously injured because they didn’t know how to do it properly.  Lucky for us, my BIL is a pro!

Dog Christmas

Cappy and Solera had a great time hanging out with their cousin, Katie.  Usually we would find Cappy sleeping on the couch and Katie and Solera playing with each other in the living room.

However, on Christmas all 3 of them were in the kitchen just praying that some of the food would fall on the floor:

Once they discovered no food was to be had they decided to play with their Christmas presents.

Cappy with his candy cane bone:

Katie with her rope toy:

That she destroyed in no time at all:

I think it’s safe to say between the food, toys and cuddles; these dogs had a fantastic Christmas!

I hope all of you had a fantastic Holiday as well!

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