new traditions

this will actually be the third christmas andrew and i are spending together. believe it or not, we first spent a lot of time together on christmas night of 2005... and i think that's when we really fell for each other. last year, we were dating but not yet engaged, and this year is our first as a married couple. our little family (can't forget about lillie and bailey) is making new traditions together.

generally speaking, christmas is the time that we tend to do all the running around from family to family from downtown raleigh to durham/chapel hill, to north raleigh and back. tomorrow we'll go to my parents' around 10am, and then andrew's mom is going to join us at my aunt's for dinner around 4pm. doing extended family stuff takes pretty much the whole day. and of my three weeks of vacation, i have yet to begin relaxing until today.

so our new traditions include: christmas eve day being "our" day without friends over or family visits, just the four of us. also, we woke up and made big hearty omelettes and homemade hash browns (and by we i meant i). they were pretty good despite the fact that i don't know how to use our new fancy omelette pans, and they fell into a heap of mush instead of a nice crescent shape.

then i addressed "holiday" cards - perfect to be used for christmas and new years, so they can't be "late". then there was some cleaning. we put on music and candles, and i made some pecan-pumpkin squares (which were exceptionally good despite my aversion to pumpkin!). then andrew made stir-fry with veggies and chicken, and i made some sticky rice with teriyaki. with our dinner, we enjoyed a nice bottle of gewurtztrameiner, a white, sweet, bubbly, german wine - one of my new favorites.

so i guess our new traditions include being lazy, sleeping in, making omelettes and hash browns, making baked-goods, and cooking dinner together while enjoying a good wine. i think this'll be a great christmas-eve-day-family-tradition for the korhonens!