Holiday Menus Planned

Ok... so now I just have to go grocery shopping.

Thursday, December 23: the first evening with Grma K and Grpa J.
Hamburgers with fixings (blue cheese, good mustard, tomatos, avocados, ketchup)
Salad (bag of lettuce, dried cranberries, grape tomatoes, blue cheese, carrots, crunchy chow mein noodles)
Chips

Cookie Plates for as long as they last.
Tasty Toffee Bites
Magic 7 Layer Cookies
Patti Shoenrock Cookies
Floyd Walbretch Fudge
Rum Balls
Sugar Cookies (because it seems a bit excessive for all the above cookies to contain chocolate)

Friday, December 24: Christmas Eve
Blue Cheese Ball with Crackers for an appetizer
Baked Potato Soup, Salad and Paninis (My parents' traditional meal for Christmas Eve was French Onion Soup and Ruben Sandwiches, so we've changed it a bit, but it's still the same idea. I didn't want to have salad, Jeff did. He didn't think we needed sandwiches. Compromise: both. The Paninis will be on Rosemary Olive Oil bread with turkey, salami, pesto, tomatos and fresh mozzerella, grilled and pressed on the George Foreman grill. Just little squares for everyone, not a huge sandwich.)
Cranberry Pudding (I discovered last year that it cooks up great in a tightly covered glass bowl in the crock pot with some water. So much more predicatble than the double boiler.)

Saturday, December 25: Christmas Day
For breakfast: Boschert traditional pull-apart bread and Massie traditional strada. And coffee!
For dinner: Grma K is in charge of this meal. I think it will be lasanga.

Sunday, Deceber 26: Grma M and Grpa T arrive today
Left overs or Chinese take-out or pizza or sandwiches.

Monday, December 27: Big Holiday Meal with the whole family
Fillet of Beef with Bearnaise sauce from the December issue of Real Simple magazine
Rainbow Jello (that Claire and Grma K will make together)
Roasted Potatos
Dilly Bread
Green Beans with Almonds
Minted Chocolate Mousse Bombe (because cranberry pudding, though delicious and traditional, is not chocolate, and it's my house and I want chocolate.)
Cranberry Pudding (because it's Jeff's house too.)

Several more days of meals for the rest of Grma M and Grpa T's visit to be planned later.

Pictures of the food and the stuffed bellies will be posted later. Well, maybe not the bellies...