Hello my friends! I hope most of you are still enjoying a nice long break right now! I’m planning to keep up with email and blogging this week, but today is the only day I’m meeting with AnneTheRD nutrition clients. Looking forward to a fun holiday week!
We had a really nice, relaxing Christmas here in the DC area with my family.
We do our big feast on Christmas Eve instead of Christmas day, which I love because then Christmas day is really relaxing!
Here’s what was on the menu:
- Kale salad! Thank you for your recipe recommendations – I ended up doing what some of you suggested which was topping the kale with pomegranate arils, walnuts, and feta cheese! But I went with baby kale (instead of regular kale), since I thought it would be more accepted by my audience.
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I dressed it with a simple homemade balsamic vinaigrette (<—that recipe minus the garlic). It was a big hit – not a bite was left!
- Turkey – obviously! My mom baked a turkey and Matt fried one in our new oil-less turkey fryer, which worked really well – highly recommend!
- Cranberry sauce. I whipped up a batch of my easy homemade cranberry sauce, minus the rosemary since we didn’t have any on hand. It came out perfectly – and the leftovers are really good on top of my Perfect Microwave Banana Oatmeal, or stirred in with plain yogurt or cottage cheese!
- Mashed potatoes (my brother whipped these up) and string beans (one of the only veggies I enjoy simply steamed, so that’s how I made them – keeping it classic). My mom also made a homemade gravy – I loveeeee gravy.
All together now (minus the salad, which we ate first)!
Does anyone else smush their mashed potatoes into a cup of sorts to put the gravy in? 
For dessert, we had pie, of course! Pecan pie + apple pie. Yum, yum! I had a small slice of each. 
Such a delicious night, and fun to spend time with my extended family, too! We also enjoyed some Prosecco (obviously, I’m obsessed) before dinner, and, with dinner, this really good Sterling Vineyards Cabernet Sauvignon.
After dinner, we all hung out for awhile and attempted to get a cute picture of me, Matt, and Zara, but this is what happened. Lol! She does not love being picked up – she’ll tolerate it briefly but that’s about it. Her eyes in the first picture crack me up – oh, Zara!
Ha! We eventually gave up (and also decided flash was a better idea) and took this one instead.
What a fun day! We opened all our gifts the next morning, on Christmas Day. Here are a couple gift highlights:
- A scooter so I can get to and from the metro more quickly! I’m going to be the coolest person ever on a scooter in my business attire – no shame. Any other scooter fans out there? I’ve seen a lot of adults commuting around on them lately! I need to practice before I go anywhere remotely hilly on it – it’s been a loooong time since I was on a scooter! I just bought myself this scooter-specific lock so I can lock it up at the metro, too!
- These amazing yoga pants. I’m obsessed – so comfortable! They will be perfect for going to/from hot yoga classes (to wear over my small shorts), relaxing at home, hiking… etc!
- This beautiful sweater – super soft!
- This vest – so cute.
Matt and I also got some new Sonos wireless speakers to put around our house (they are awesome and I love listening to music while cooking and working), I got two beautiful scarves, we got some new cocktail/highball glasses (I got Matt some cool stone chilling cubes to go with them) and cutting boards, and my brother got me (and set up for me – amazing) a little external server storage unit so if my computer dies (a distinct possibility, since my laptop is really old) I won’t lose all my files. Hizzah!
Time to get caught up on emails before my client meetings! Matt and I want to squeeze in a run too before we head off this afternoon for a big adventure. Stay tuned to see what we’re up to.
I’ll be back tomorrow to share more of the eats and exercise we’ve gotten into since I last checked in with you guys. Until then – hope you all had a great holiday!
What was the best thing you ate this holiday so far? Mine was probably turkey and gravy… my fave! We’ve been loving the leftovers, too – more on that tomorrow!
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Christmas 2015 Recap originally appeared on fANNEtastic food | Registered Dietitian Blog | Recipes + Healthy Living + Fitness on December 28, 2015.
The post Christmas 2015 Recap appeared first on fANNEtastic food | Registered Dietitian Blog | Recipes + Healthy Living + Fitness.