The holiday season was a special one for us this year, especially with the Seilers visiting from San Diego. It was great to see Christina, Chris, Jake and Gavin and to spend the holidays with them. Marco and Malena in particular enjoyed playing with their cousins, especially on Christmas day when they got to play with all their new presents together.
Mama Lombardo cooked up a great meal for us on Christmas Eve, with La Festa dei Sette Pesci (Feast of the Seven Fish). We actually filmed an episode of what this tradition is all about as part of
Cooking with Mama Lombardo-- check it out if you haven't already:
wp.me/p1gOC8-8e (By the way, be sure to subscribe to the Cooking with Mama Lombardo blog to make sure you don't miss any of the episodes!)
Also on Christmas Eve, we conducted the 3rd Annual Lombardo Family Bake-off. This was the year of the biscotti. We had 3 contestants, who submitted 5 biscotti in total. Leslie, Mama Lombardo and Christina all submitted yummy biscotti (the judges are the true benefactors of this contest!). This year went off relatively controversy-free (although Leslie tried stirring the pot), with Christina taking the prize for her pistachio biscotti. Christina will be sharing her recipe on an upcoming episode of Cooking with Mama Lombardo, so tune in if you'd like the recipe. Mama Lombardo finished second with her almond biscotti and Leslie in 3rd with her chocolate biscotti. It was a great contest, and we're already getting ideas submitted for next year's bake-off....
Christmas Day was a lot of fun, with the kids truly excited about what Santa left for them. They got up early and stormed into the living room, first checking out their stockings by the fireplace, then gifts under the tree. Santa also visits Mama Lombardo downstairs and leaves gifts for the kids there as well. So, it was a morning of endless gift unwrapping.
We spent the remainder of Christmas Day with the Mudgett's. Leslie brined a killer turkey, which we enjoyed with lots of laughs with the family. A highlight is always the Mudgett family swap, which this year was "Las Vegas" style, following the rules set up by Leslie's father. It's a Yankee swap, but with rules that allow for lots of "in play" swapping of gifts. We ended up with a Ninja blender, which will be great for making smoothies as well as Leslie's own gift of steak knives (great for slicing and dicing lots of meat and vegetables), along with a six pack of gourmet steaks.
We created a video of the Christmas festivities, which you can watch below. Be forewarned: it's not edited, so it's a bit long! We hope you enjoy and look forward to spending more time with family and friends in 2012!
