Skip to main content

Christmas Eve Brunch

By Pamela
We parents have a lot to juggle over the holiday season. Shopping, cooking, wrapping, decorating, juggling parents/in-laws/kids schedules, holiday parties, out of town guest. It can be very overwhelming.

But, we divorced parents juggle like only another divorced parent understands. We do all the same preparation stuff and more. We have to coordinate our schedules with someone else. Pick-up times. Coordinate gifts.  Holiday celebrations must be planned months in advance because they have to be shared.

Every year, I alternate the holiday season with my ex-husband. One year The Boy spends the time up to Christmas Eve with me and then the time from Christmas Eve to New Years with his dad. Then the next year, we flop it.  This year was my pre-Christmas time.

I use to be the only divorced person in my immediate family who had to juggle such a schedule. Now, my brother and sister-in-law are in the same boat.  We were fortunate enough that we all got our children for Christmas Eve. So, I planned a Christmas Eve brunch so the entire extended family could gather together.

I wanted to share some photos from my brunch as I am very proud of how it turned out.

Christmas Eve Brunch Menu

Honey Glazed Spiral Ham
Omelets to Order
Cheesy Potatoes
Asparagus
Hot Chocolate Bar
Papa's Pumpkin Bars
Homemade Key Lime Pie with Homemade Whipped Topping
Layered Peppermint Cheesecake Cake with White Chocolate Mousse Frosting
Various other Christmas Treats


Omelet's to Order: Using an old antique egg poaching pan as my display we had a variety of  ingredients to add to a basic egg omelet: sausage, bacon, red peppers, red onions, mushrooms, tomatoes, green chilies, jalapeno's, and cheese of course. 

Papa's Pumpkin Bars. I had to rename these pumpkin bars because my father-in-law LOVES these things. So I have now named them after him.


Miss Medical Student made a Key Lime Pie for our brunch. She is an amazing person to have in your kitchen. Food prep is one of her favorite things in life. She spent an hour or so grating the zest of the key limes. Then juicing the limes. And trust me, no store purchased whipped cream would be good enough for this pie!

A 5 layered Peppermint Cheesecake Cake. My  Christmas masterpiece!  Two layers of Peppermint Cheesecake in between three layers of Sour Cream Cake and frosted with White Chocolate Mousse Frosting decorated with Peppermint Meltaways and white chocolate shavings. If you include the 4+ hours it took to freeze the cheesecake layers, it took me over 9 hours to make this gorgeous cake! 



 The Hot Chocolate Bar! This part of the brunch was so much fun to put together!  We started off by deciding to NOT use any type of prepackaged hot chocolate mix. I do not care what anyone says, the homemade variety is simply yummy and can not be topped by anything premade. We put the homemade hot chocolate in my fancy coffee server (remember from this post, I got the server at a thrift store for $8.00!). My husband hates it when I purchase things and only use them once. So, I am happy to say, this is the second go round for this serving jar.

I am including the recipe we used to make homemade hot chocolate. Try it!


Classic Hot Cocoa
  • 1/2 cup sugar
  • 1/4-1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
  • 1/8 teaspoon salt
  • 1/3 cup half and half
  • 4 cups whole milk
  • Whipped Cream or Mini Marshmallows
  1. Stir together sugar, cocoa and salt in medium saucepan; add half and half.
  2. Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly, until mixture comes to a boil.
  3. Simmer 1-2 minutes, stirring constantly.
  4. Add milk; stirring constantly, heat to desired serving temperature. Do Not Boil.
  5. Remove cocoa from heat; whisk or beat until frothy. Top with whipped cream or marshmallows.

We got this recipe from Real Mom Kitchen but Miss Medical Student strongly believes you should increase the amount of milk to 6 or 8 cups of milk, depending on your preference.

I made marshmallow stirring sticks for the bar. I simply put marshmallows on the end of  stirring sticks, dipped them in dark chocolate and white chocolate and rolled them in crushed peppermints. They melted like heaven in the hot chocolate. Okay, and they were yummy to eat just off the stirring stick too!


Next, I put out a variety of toppings: Homemade whipped topping, chocolate syrup, strawberry syrup, caramel syrup, hard caramel candies, crushed candy canes, marshmallows, Nutella, Marshmallow Fluff, mini chocolate chips, mini Reese's Peanut Butter cups.



After brunch, we exchanged gifts, played with our presents, told stories, and played a game of Pictionary. The children left, one by one, heading off to share the holiday 

My brother and his girlfriend had the honor of eating first. They had to leave first to get my brother's little girl to her Momma's house on time. 

Merry Christmas Everyone! I hope your holiday's are full of great moments and memories.

Pamela 
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

My Weekend Project: A PVC Camping Lamp Post and Flag Holder

By Pamela
I have seen a few of these around campsites and I knew I would like to have one. The only problem that I had is The Husband. He already thinks we drag too much stuff with us when we go camping and if I had told him my desire to have a PVC Camping Light Pole he would have shut it down quickly! So, that leaves a girl with only one choice: Figure out how to do it by herself. I did some internet searching and found a few road maps on RV forums. They seemed easy enough! I visited the local hardware store for the supplies: An exterior post lantern light 2 inch PVC pipe (I used 5 feet but had to purchase a 10 foot piece) A 3 inch toilet flange A 3 inch to 2 inch Reducer PVC Glue A 12 foot electric cord kit 2 - 3/4 inch PVC Caps I also used a few supplies we already had on hand: White Spray Paint 3 1/2 foot - 3/4 inch PVC Pipe Drill Bits (1 inch and 1/2 inch) Tent Stakes The first step was preparing the lantern light. I could only find black i
20 comments
Read more

Liver Cheese: A Family Tradition

By Pamela
Today is an anniversary date. One of those dates you wish you did not have to remember but there is no way you can forget.  Fifteen years ago today,two days after his birthday, my father died of lung cancer. He was a lifelong smoker and his cancer was aggressive. His battle was short. He fought for six short months after his diagnosis. He knew the chemo was not working and that his time was limited. When he came to this realization he became the best dad in the world.                                                In the days before my father's passing, my family shared some memorable moments. One of those moments centers around the deli meat: Liver Cheese.I would not be surprised if you have never heard of it, or even never tasted it. But I was raised on it as it was one of my Dad's favorite things.  What is it? Well, it is a German food that is actually called Leberkase. It is bacon, corned beef, pork, and onion that is ground together and baked. It comes with a
17 comments
Read more

Tonsillectomy (Warning Photos!)

By Pamela
The Short Chic came down with a pretty nasty case of strep throat back in April. So, when The Boy started complaining about his throat hurting about 12 days later, I was pretty confident that he had inherited his sister's strep. Instead, The Boy was diagnosed with a peritonsillar abscess growing on his right tonsil.  We had to immediately see an ENT  Physician who took a needle and drained the abscess. He removed about 5.5 cc of puss from The Boys throat.and then told us that once you have a peritonsillar abscess you were high risk to keep getting them. The Boy's tonsils were now compromised and needed to be removed.  We were told to plan for a two week recovery so we worked a surgery into our summer plans. Between family vacations, summer sports, and the beginning of school The Boy had his second surgery. A tonsillectomy.  Pre-surgery prepping went well. It must be nice to be young and have healthy veins for an IV! The Boy had lots of pre-surgery visitors. My
1 comment
Read more