Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas from Mars!

This year, we began our holiday celebration on Christmas Eve, spending the afternoon making dumplings from a recipe in a cookbook Mother O'Brien sent us (I cheated and opened it early!).  

We began by making the filling -- spinach puree, bok choi, carrots, tofu, ginger, rice noodles, and scallions in sesame oil:

That was the easy part. Next the dough for the wrappers, dyed green with water squeezed from the spinach puree. It wasn't hard, but just a little tricky to get the liquid-to-flour ratio right.

Kneading:

Rolling and cutting:

Then attempting to roll these little nuggets into perfect 2-3" circles:

Hm. Not easy, but a lot of fun.

After rolling the wrappers, we stuffed 'em. Not bad for our first time out!

And who cares if they look like a herd of lumpy stegosauruses, when they taste this good!

It was such a nice way to spend the afternoon, it has been decreed that every Christmas Eve day shall henceforth be celebrated as Dumpling Day. 

AJ insists that I add here that in addition to being fun and tasty, this is also a great way to keep me from hanging around the Christmas tree shaking my presents all day. 

Ok, fair.

Christmas Day has been very relaxed. We enjoyed our friend Brian's orange-cranberry bread with coffee with orange zest, and opened presents surrounded by our festive decorations.

Our stockings:

Plus, stockings we had made for Pickles and the mice a few years ago:

Momma Arave's sparkly bough:

And, of course, our Christmas tree:

Even Lolo was feeling festive today, sporting the Christmasy red and green plaid kerchief that Aunt Jennifer and Uncle Paddy sent:

After breakfast and presents, we all settled in to enjoy our new toys and books. Lolo decided she wanted to get cozy, and put on her new sweater, lovingly knit by AJ:

Merry Christmas, everyone, and Happy New Year!