Christmas 2008

After all our snow, the weather has finally warmed up a little. There was A LOT of rain around Christmas. A lot of rain on top of weeks' worth of snow and ice is a dangerous combination. The saturation can cause very heavy conditions on flat roofs and gutters. Several roofs in the area collapsed. Well on the Friday night after Christmas Robb and I woke up to a crash. We rushed to the living room and couldn't find anything. The family room looked fine too. So we went back to bed. Well the next morning Robb discovered the source of the noise. Right outside our bedroom window our gutter fell off the roof. I'm just thankful our roof didn't fall in, that would have really sucked. This just caused an inconvenience for the landlord who had to fix the thing. It's really interesting to live in a house, but only rent right now. We can see what types of things go wrong with houses, but don't have to deal with fixing them ourselves. It will prepare us for the future when we're finally ready to buy a house. We will have a better idea of what to expect in terms of house maintenance and repairs!

We initially weren't going to get a Christmas tree this year so that we could save a little money. But I just love Christmas so much and love decorating the tree. So we got a short tree this year. It was great little tree though. And I got to put up all my favorite Christmas ornaments. Most of our ornaments are from special places and mean something to us. I love my traditional and beautiful German ornaments. I bought most of them while I was in high school in Germany because I knew I'd want them on my own tree one day! And I love my ballet ornament because it reminds me of my dancing days. And Robb and I always try to buy ornaments when we visit fun places. We love pulling the ornaments out each year and reminiscing about the time we bought the ornament and what we were doing on that trip! So I'm very glad that we decided to get a tree this year and we got to do that again. It really is one of my favorite parts of Christmas. I think that's why I like decorating the tree so much. It's about the memories.

For me, Christmas Eve is more of the traditional family time and nice sit-down dinner. My Mom always made prime rib. While her prime rib is pretty good, I'm not generally a fan of prime rib. But I do like beef. So this year I looked on the Internet for the perfect beef recipe that was not a prime rib, but worthy of Christmas Eve dinner. I found an amazing recipe for Garlic Herb Crusted Beef Tenderloin. It sounded amazing, had great reviews, and didn't sound too difficult to create. Robb ordered the beef from Metropolitan Market (New York aged strip loin) and we got an incredible 5 pound piece of meat. That's right. 5 pounds. 2 people.

I can cook, but I've never made a true piece of meat before. Robb is the main cook in our family. But I really wanted to make this dinner on my own. However, I didn't want to screw up such an expensive piece of meat either. So while I consider the meat prepared and cooked by me, I did make sure that Robb supervised so I didn't screw it up. And success was obtained. It came out perfectly. I could not have asked for a tastier Christmas dinner. (Along with the tenderloin, we had roasted potatoes, fried corn, and garlic-lemon spinach...all made from scratch by me!) I was telling my friend Michelle about how proud I was of cooking this 5 pound piece of beef. And even though she's vegan, she recognized and pointed out to me that I should be proud because there's something special about being able to prepare a real expensive and large piece of meat on your own for an important meal. It's kind of a rite of passage to becoming an independent, adult woman. (At least in my mind it is.) So the beef was a success and I think it will become a Christmas Eve tradition in our house!

Christmas Day was a quiet affair at our house this year. We actually took showers in the morning and changed into clean PJs so we could hang out comfortably all day.We spent the day watching our favorite Christmas movies all day (I think we made it through 7) and talking to our families on the phone. Robb's family always had Christmas dinner on Christmas day, so even after the amazing food we had the night before, he made a ham on Christmas day. Even though it was raining that day, the rain was mixed with snow at some points, and there was still plenty of snow on the ground from our snow storms over the past two weeks. So we definitely had a white Christmas, which was nice!