Christmas Eve

Russia was our country for Christmas Eve this year.  We all donned fur hats and posed for the annual theme picture. 

We were cracking ourselves up with the hats.  My dad was channeling Sean Connery from "Hunt for Red October" and my mom the character Lara from "Dr. Zhivago."

Ryan says that I am keeping our house so cold these days that he is going to sleep in his new Russian hat.  It even has ear flaps that drop down for extra warmth.  This will be the only winter I don't complain about the cold since Baby Boy is keeping me so toasty warm.   

My parents did a fantastic job with the menu.  We all had a taste of caviar.  I don't know who protested the caviar more, Tessa or Gampa.  Even though I covered Tessa's bite in cream cheese, she needed lots of encouragement to try this delicacy.    

 

We had an appetizer of borscht, a beet soup, that I personally found very tasty. 

For the main course we had Chicken Kiev over buckwheat groats with veggies.  The chicken was pounded thin, rolled around garlic herb butter, breaded and then baked.  It was delicious!  As was the Russian black bread that my mom made from scratch.  I love learning new foods from different countries each year.

And, of course, there was vodka because nothing says Russia like vodka.

Tessa painted her very own Babushka dolls for G&G.  She loves crafts and this was a fun project for us before Christmas.  They turned out pretty darn cute.

Tessa's gifts were Russian themed too with an Anastasia doll and games.  She also received the new Disney Princess Anna costume.  Technically, Anna and Elsa are from Norway, but with a title like "Frozen" we could easily borrow them for Russian Christmas.     

In honor of the occasion, we chose Russian names for Baby Boy.  All night we called him things like Dimitri, Vladamir and Nikolai.  Somehow I don't think any of those names are really going to work.  We made guesses on when Dimitri (my personal fav of the Russian names) would make his appearance.  Everyone, except for Ryan, predicts that he will be late and big.  We shall see.  It was a very merry Christmas Eve.