Read Christmas Morning 2011 first.

Yesterday afternoon was spent preparing my 10 pound lasagna (literally….4 pounds of this lasagna is all chesse), showering, and packing up the car with enormous amounts of food…..all while Tater snoozed away during his afternoon nap.

At 4 o’clock, we all headed over to my sisters house for our family Christmas party. We started having these parties around 5 five years ago, and it seems that they are now becoming a tradition that everybody loves.

My oldest sister prepared very large quantities of food, and everything she made may or may not have been smothered in ALFREDO sauce. HOMEMADE alfredo sauce. Yeah.

My second oldest sister brought the biggest bowl of the most beautiful salad I’ve ever seen, and sadly, I forgot to grab me some to have as leftovers. SAD FACE. She also prepared a sheet pan of brownies, all covered in a gooey, delicious frosting.

Now, my WHOLE family is hard-core meat-eaters….and that’s fine. We were all raised that way. However, family functions that revolve mostly around eating can be problematic for a vegetarian. But, since my oldest sister is fully accepting and cool about my eating choices, she went out of her way to prepare not one, BUT TWO, vegetarian dishes just for me.

I know right.The awesomeness of this is just so awesome I can’t even.

In the pic is vegetarian spinach enchiladas and rigatoni alfredo prepared by sister number 1, and the salad prepared by sister number 2. It was SO good.

I nibbled on food until 11pm. Oh my.

I brought along my lasagna….(which contained 2.5 pounds of meat…one of my most favorite recipes pre-vegetarian days)…..

…the rest of the Hash Brown Casserole I had made for lunch…..

……the low-fat, sugar-free cheescake…..(which was surprisingly VERY good)….(I made 2 of these)

…….and two 9×13’s filled with Sopapilla Cheesecake…….

There are no words for the Sopapilla cheesecake.

But then again, cheesecake is my thing. I feel very passionately about it.

After eating dinner (but before dessert) we gathered everyone around for the yearly picture-taking, blind-everyone-with-built-in-flash session.

Here is one of my little fam…..

In case anyone was unsure before today….Spud is in fact a dork and one day Tater will fly away with those adorable ears.

Post-picture taking ceremony, we did the Dirty Santa gift exchange. Then dessert was consumed, and then we all embarrassed ourselves with Just Dance 3. Just so it’s all very clear clear here…..I beat both of my sisters and the Hub at this game. Clearly, I’m a freaking rockstar.

While the party was still in motion, I had to take a time-out to come home and check on my babies…..

And when I returned, we played the card game bullshit (I won a round….apparently my inner ROCKSTAR was totally in the “ON” position last night…ha) and then the game APPLES TO APPLES.

It is rather impossible for anyone to beat my mother at this game.

And then, well, that was it! We got home around midnight and we all crashed hard. Tater was miserably tired and fell right to sleep.

As I write this now, it’s December 26th, at 12:30 in the afternoon. I’m sitting on the couch and Tater is taking a nap on my lap. He’s still in recovery mode from Christmas. Also, my living room still has gift-opening debris strung everywhere. And toys…..so many toys. Spud is too busy with all his new toys and games to even eat any breakfast or lunch.

That’s about it, but first……

Here is some of my favorite pictures from this Christmas season…..

I’m off to play with my new Kindle Fire. The mess can wait.

Recipes coming soon.