Taking a break from cooking. Why is our Christmas Eve the best Christmas Eve? Because it’s filled with hors d’oeuvres! It’s a family tradition of ours to make and eat a bunch of hors d’oeuvres for Christmas Eve dinner. I just made the Chicken Liver Mousse. Mmmmm. Also up are the Basil Leaves with Goat Cheese, the yogurt-tahini dip I made for Gingerbreadfest that I’m not sure anyone liked but me, and the icebox crackers that I was supposed to make for Gingerbread but I was too tired and annoyed with the failure of the toasted pepita dip to do so. We’ve also got a bunch of cheese and crackers and crostinis and vegetables and such. Yay!

In case you’re wondering, our other Christmas traditions are: bagels and lox for breakfast Christmas morning, lasagna for dinner, and clues on gifts- the recipient has to work out what’s inside the box before they can open it. It stretches gift time out a lot. I suck at writing and guessing clues, so I’ve been trying some different tacks- charades was kind of a failure last year. I’m thinking about doing a Pictionary-like thing this year for my clues.