Nobody really likes the name "Christmas Eve Eve" do they? And I somehow disapprove of my girls funnily calling it "Christmas Adam" (tsk tsk). The Danes have a perfect solution: Christmas Eve for the 24th and "Little Christmas Eve" for the 23rd. I always forget to deploy this useful terminology in my everyday interactions but one of these years I'm going to do it!
Anyway, our butterscotch roll party was on Lille Juleaften this year because of the 24th being Sunday. It seems But Yesterday this happened before, but apparently the girls were…this little?? I like it. It's nice to have a buffer day in between the busy-ness of the party and the busy-ness of Christmas. Although, I guess I don't like it enough to do it that way every year, or why don't I?
There was a complication this year: two days before the party, our top oven stopped working! Horrors! It caused me great worry and dismay. Of course, when we called to see if we could get a repairman, there was not a single one in the greater Salt Lake Valley available. I generally make 27 dozen rolls for this party and you can bet I use both ovens! My even greater fear, however, was that the other oven would go out as well (it was an overheating error we were getting, which is always alarming…we discovered it when Seb took a pan of cookies out after the usual 9 minutes and they were COMPLETELY CHARRED BLACK). Of course everyone is already invited, not to mention all those people to whom we've said "Don't wait for an invitation! Just plan on it every year!"
After much thought and prayer I finally decided to just make a triple batch of the dough the night before…let it rise overnight…and start making rolls immediately in the morning (rather than have time for mixing and first rise of all 3 triple batches in the morning as I usually do), hoping to get a big reserve of them out before the party and then just keep up one pan at a time during the party. And we instructed all of our kids to pray mightily for the bottom oven!
Thankfully, this combination of preparation and prayer seemed to work and our party went great! There were a few times there were only 3 or 4 rolls out for people to eat, which is less than I'd like…I always want people to feel like there are plenty and they can eat all they want…but those times never lasted more than about 10 minutes. And the bottom oven performed faithfully from 6 am to 1 pm or so!
I've been realizing just how much I rely on these two ovens for the past several days since then! The good thing is that having no repairmen available forced Sam to do research about the problem online and see that he could probably repair the part himself! He just ordered it in the mail and fixed it this morning…and, so far it's working! Hooray!
I had lots of good helpers in the children this year and I needed them! We estimated we had 120-150 people show up. It is so happy to have so many friends talking, laughing, getting to know each other, or renewing old friendships. Feels like the best part of Christmas.
The pretty sky after the party as we collapsed on the porch swing to rest!
And that night…fun times at the Joseph Smith Birthday Party at my mom's. (Don't worry, there is an actual cake under that box with all the candles!)
A few more pictures from the actual Christmas Eve the next day:
Church Girls
Trying to restrain one of the church girls
Candlelight Dinner
"Straw" in the "manger" for baby Jesus, each piece representing a kind or obedient act by one of the children during the month. I think this was the first year we got all the straw in! I don't know if the kids were actually more Christ-like or if I just remembered to notice them more often…I guess either way is good?
Abe joining in from his mission
Somewhere in between here Clementine lost her dress and her hat…??
Ziggy with new husky stuffed animal from Daisy
Clementine with a monkey from Seb. Seb decided to crochet Clementine a hat for Christmas but when he got it done it was inexplicably tiny; way too tiny for her! So he put the hat on one of his old monkeys and gave that to her instead. She promptly named it "Hat Monkey" (and both the monkey and the hat appear to bear that name—whenever the hat falls off she says sadly "Where hat monkey's hat monkey?")
Teddy with the football Gus gave him
Final preparations—Baby Jesus finally gets put out in all the nativities!
I love the Christmas tree with all the presents waiting under it, once I've finally finished wrapping and everyone else is in bed!
Your ability to make parties happen is most decidedly a gift. When you write that 120-150 people coming to your house brings you joy, I realize what a gift it is you have.
ReplyDeleteI do not have that gift.
At all.
I admire it in you, though!