My favorite night of the whole year

    Never have I felt more prepared for Christmas by noon on the Eve. The gifts are wrapped, tonight's feast is being prepared, and my contributions to tomorrow's extended family feast at Mom's, which will include our new step-family, are in-house. I'm thankful for the "small and large" of it - four of us tonight; over 35 of us tomorrow. And, very little traveling.
   This year, I'm forgoing the traditional but complicated Beef Wellington Christmas Eve feast for a wheat-less beef tenderloin dish and compensating with not one, but two potato dishes - whipped sweet potatoes and truffled mashed potatoes, because the two children have different tastes and, well, if you can't spoil your kids on Christmas....

My secret weapon. Two tablespoons of this in your mashers and they'll do anything for you, even the dishes.

 With a nice green salad, steamed artichokes and a bottle or two of the "good wine" the hubs keeps in the crawl space, we'll be mellow and primed for the traditional "watching of the wholesome family movie" picked out this year by my son. (Favorites from years past include, "Finding Nemo," "A Christmas Story," "Elf," "The Dish," and "The Godfather." (That was the year we went to the dark side.)
  Here's wishing you and yours the loveliest of celebrations, no matter how you enjoy each others' company.  Happy holidays!