A Very Nice Christmas (& a touch of Naughty. . )

Christmas in the Tracy Household was AWESOME 🙂 As promised, I prepared a Paleo Christmas Feast, and actually found that I enjoyed every minute of it! Every single item on my Christmas Menu was 100% Paleo and 100% made from scratch – the only cans/bottle I opened were the Coconut Milk and the jar of Raw Honey . . . I drew the line at cracking coconuts and extracting honey from bumblebees!!

Anyway, to say that I was proud of myself would be a massive understatement . . . I’m sure that my facebook friends are all sick of seeing pictures of my Christmas Food – but this is the first time that I have ever in my life prepared such a feast from scratch, and I really was glowing with pride! You know how they say that people who have jobs where they work with their hands and actually produce things often have a high rate of job satisfaction because they get a real sense of accomplishment from creating tangible things . . .well I can totally see that now! The sense of accomplishment while sitting down and devouring my Christmas Eve Dinner was one of the best natural “highs” I’ve felt in a very long time (Yes, even better than a PR on “Fran”!)

Here’s a picture of the Proud Paleo Princess Herself (No Makeup, Still Sweating from working in a hot kitchen, but Glowing with Pride LOL):

My Final Christmas Menu included a Pastured Turkey (brined for 24 hours), Sweet & Salty Broccoli Salad, Southern Style Farmer’s Market Green Beans, Mashed Cauliflower, Whole30 Cranberry Sauce, Cranberry Apple Waldorf Salad, Sweet Potato Casserole (Ah-MA-Zing!!), Pumpkin Cupcakes w/ Cinnamon Icing, and a Paleo Pumpkin Pie.

I also cooked a Ham for my hubby, and I saved the Ham Bone to use in my Green Beans before I glazed it (okay – to be honest – before HE glazed it . . . LOL – I couldn’t bring myself to dump a sugary glaze all over that beautiful ham!)

So it looks good, right? But the real question is how did it TASTE!?! – I can honestly say that my taste buds have never been so thrilled. I couldn’t have been happier with the way each one of the dishes turned out. My husband liked the Turkey, Broccoli Salad, and Green Beans. He wouldn’t try the Sweet Potato Cassarole or the Waldorf Salad because he said that it just wasn’t “right” to make these dishes w/o Marshmallows. As for the Mashed Cauliflower, well, he wasn’t a fan – but that’s okay – I thought it was awesome 🙂 I guess if you’re used to creamy mashed potatoes with gravy though the Mashed Cauliflower must have tasted a little “sad” – haha!

I prepared this meal on Christmas Eve Morning, and we our main Feast early afternoon on Christmas Eve . . and then I ate leftovers for dinner, and Breakfast and Lunch on Christmas day. We went to a friends house for Christmas Dinner, and I took some of my Waldorf Salad and Pumpkin cupcakes to share 🙂

My Entire Christmas Eve, and up until about 8pm on Christmas Day, I stayed 100% Paleo Compliant with no issues whatsoever. I HONESTLY didn’t even want a bite of Mashed Potatoes or Gravy or Stuffing or anything else that would traditionally mark “Christmas Dinner”. . . . . . that is until they broke out the desserts on Christmas Evening. . .

And then there was Naughty. . . .

But more on that in the next post – to be titled “The Hostage Negotiation of Christmas 2010”

For now, I’ll leave you w/ a Pic of my sweet Buster on Christmas Evening – He wore himself out playing w/ the toy that Santa brought him!