Christmas Eve

Had to get up early and put the baked beans on. I am using Aunt Hazel's authentic Boston Baked Beans recipe. One year my brother Rob & I went on vacation with my parents and visited where Mom grew up and met some of the relatives. Aunt Hazel being one of them. I think we went to her house for a picnic and she served these awesome beans. Mom got the recipe and started making them for Christmas day. She bought a real bean pot and everything. We're also having a glazed him, cheesy potatoes, some kind of veggies, salad and rolls. That is a far fetch from the Christmas Eve dinner of my childhood. Chinese - take out style. I'm sure my mom was taking a break from cooking. I often went with my dad to pick up the dinner at Moy's little take out joint. Christmas Eve was very special. I remember just loving it. All those kids! We would turn out all the lights and watch the tree lights sparkle. Then our parents would make us practice for the upcoming church program. (treat!) We always had this mix of Christmas hard candy including these huge chunks of ribbon candy. Someone always read the Christmas poem, the one about sugar plums. Then we opened 1 gift - pajamas or slippers. Then is was off to bed. I would try hard not to fall asleep, but that never worked very good. Oh yeah, I forgot we pinned up our stocking to either a couch or arm chair. That's were our pile of gifts would be the next morning, right under our stocking.
I love talking to people to find out how their families traditions are similar or different.