Christmas Eve, Visitors and Meatballs :)

My parents came up to spend the holidays with us, and I was really excited that they were able to come up on Christmas Eve.  I remember being SO excited for Christmas Eve when I was a kid.  We used to go to my Grandparent's house, or maybe my Great Aunt & Great Uncle's house...wherever we were,  I always remember it being fun.  Sometimes, with just the 3 of us up here, it can get a bit lonely, so it's nice to have visitors, especially over the holidays.

We kinda made a little "rule" (well, I made the rule :) that if we're in America, then we're going to celebrate an American Christmas, which means opening presents on Christmas Day, with maybe one special gift to open on Christmas Eve.  So that Joacim didn't miss out TOTALLY on Swedish traditions, we decided to make a mini smorgasbord, including meatballs!

It has been stupid cold.  Seriously.  Just stupid cold.  The ONLY redeeming quality about this cold is the fact that I could literally freeze my balls outside :)

Oh my word...these were sooooooooooo gooooooood.  My mouth is watering just typing and thinking about them.........why can't meatballs be easier to make???

So great to have a family dinner....my dad even had a glass of wine!!!!

Izzy and Bri needed to work off some of their dinner with the Wii....

Here's a pic of our beautiful (first) real tree......

Izzy loves having her Aunti Bri around...I don't think she ever gets this much devoted attention :)

And then, to cap off a perfect Christmas Eve for me, I got to watch White Christmas.  This may have been the 25th time I've seen this, but it NEVER gets old, and I will do my best to make this my tradition forever.

I hope Izzy enjoyed it too