Just the Two of Us

December 27, 2012 By Leanne Vogel December 12, 2018

Get the recipe for Gluten-free Gingerbread House HERE

I think I’m still running on a sugar high from all of the candies I treated myself to over the last two days. But I know it’s not the sugar talking when I say that Kevin and I had a fabulous Christmas together.

We decided to celebrate a German Christmas by opening our gifts on the 24th instead of 25th, my favorite of the German traditions. Who wants to wait until Christmas morning to open presents? Not I!

I chose to open the largest present first because uh, who wouldn’t? Then proceeded to cry a bit at the sight of the unwrapped box that lay before me.

*insert singing Christmas angels here*

Santa had me FOOLED!

And he really blew our Christmas budget of $200.

But how can you be mad at a Santa for blowing the budget when he gets you the kitchen appliance you’ve dreamed of using since you were a little girl?

You don’t get mad, you make cookies.

At 10pm on Christmas eve.

And after the cookies are in the oven and all prep-work for your gluten-free gingerbread house is complete, you make muffins.

Then you go back to opening up the rest of your presents.

And pass out around 2am.

Needless to say, it was a slow start on Christmas morning.

I made us a batch of gingerbread protein pancakes and we headed out to Mount Royal for a walk around the park.

Wait, did I mention that it was a 5 minute walk around the park?

Ya, it was freezing on Christmas Day. I felt like my insides were going to crystallize at any moment and Pebbles didn’t look all that pleased at the weather conditions either.

So we all jumped back in the car and headed home to construct our gingerbread house!

I’ve made a bunch of royal icing in my day, but never with a handy dandy stand mixer. Wow, did it ever make a difference. I formed peaks in my egg whites like peaks I’ve never seen before! Mwahahaha.

Our original plan for the house was to make it 100% out of gingerbread bricks, but we realized a bit too late in the day that we didn’t have enough dough and; with all the stores being closed, couldn’t run out to grab more ingredients. So, we made a pretty brick wall at the front and constructed the house of out sheets of gingerbread.

The house took us about 3 hours to put together. By the time we cleaned up the mess of icing and candies everywhere, it was time to start on dinner.

On the menu was a 13 pound turkey (stuffed with wedges of onion, apple and fresh thyme to keep moist), cranberry flax stuffing, mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce, steamed broccoli and homemade gravy.

We got the bird in the oven at 3pm, cuddled up on the couch to watch White Christmas, and were enjoying the fruits of our turkey-stuffin’ labor by 7pm.

Our Christmas was quiet, relaxing and intimate – a huge step away from serving dinner to 30+ family members, Christmas tunes blaring and dirty dishes coming out of our ears. While we’ve missed our family like crazy over these last couple of days, it was nice to spend some time; just the two of us, being thankful for each other, reflecting on the changes we’ve experienced this year, and creating new traditions and memories that will be with us forever and always.

I’d love to know, how have you celebrated the holidays?

This entry was tagged: christmas, holiday baking, holidays