I hope everyone is enjoying a very Merry Christmas. Today started out obscenely early, but that's what Christmas morning with children is. Furtive whispers of, "Is it morning, yet?" coming from the kids' bedrooms and tiptoed feet on the stairs heading to check out the stockings on the mantel well before the sun has come up are par for the course when you have kids.
WD awoke at 2:45 and could not go back to sleep. He held off on checking out the stockings until 4. SB was up by 5. They were both whispering about what Santa had brought when I finally emerged from our bedroom signalling that it was officially morning and they could grab their stockings off the mantel and dump them out on the floor.
CG came out and started up a pot of coffee, and the present opening finally started. SB would crawl under the tree and grab a gift for WD and one for himself, announce who they were from, they'd open them, then SB would grab another 2 gifts. The last present was unwrapped by 6:15.
I made a berry strudel for breakfast. I didn't take pictures of the process, but I'll have to do a tutorial because it turned out so flaky and yummy. This was my first stab at gf puff pastry and it was a definite success. Puff pastry is a bit of a pain in the rump to make, but the results are so good it's worth the effort.
From Our Home to Yours
Have a Very Merry Christmas!
I cannot believe how early you guys got up! My family are complete night owls. The littles were up by seven. My preteen groaned, but got up. What a great photo of your son, surrounded by paper. The excitement on his face. Adorable! And the strudel looks delicious. I've never braved puff pastry. It's lumped in with soufflés on my "scary" list. Looking forward to reading your tutorial!
ReplyDeleteOh and merry Christmas to you and yours!
ReplyDeleteWe did 2 early mornings this year...One at 7:30 today for 'Santa gifts' and stockings and 1 last week at 6:30 for our "Fake Christmas" when our oldest was home to join in. We agree on the 'earliest' time before going to bed, with the goal of trying to open most of the gifts when it's still dark, or nearly so, while not having people up too too early. There seems to be something less special about sitting around the lit tree when the sun is fully up! My younger kids sure know about waiting for the less-eager older ones. Merry CHristmas!!
ReplyDeleteOh, I forgot why I was going to post...The strudel looks so yummy! Puff pastry is on my 'things to try' list.
ReplyDeleteI wish we had gone with an agreed upon time. The rule in the house has always been(not just at Christmas) that it isn't morning until mom is up. Since I'm an early riser, it seemed like that was a good cutoff for the kids as far as night vs morning. 5 is ok for me, but CG would prefer 9.
ReplyDeleteYou're both such accomplished bakers, you should definitely try the puff pastry. I'll make sure and do the tutorial in the next week. I'll put a strudel on the brunch table alongside Gena's eggnog french toast.
The berry strudel looks ah-mazing!
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