The Rasmussen Family: All over...

...for another year.

Once again it has been a lovely Christmas. We spent Christmas Eve down at Kristian´s brother´s house. There were 14 of us gathered together to celebrate, not as many as usual but still it was a really cosy evening.

There was time to relax and see the final episode of "The Christmas Calendar" on TV,

My sister-in.law was busy in the kitchen.

The table was all set.

There was time to talk to Kristian´s sister Hanne and husband Flemming who were spending Christmas Eve in Panama. they are visiting Aunt Edel (Kristian´s aunt) who lives there. We usually spend every Christmas Eve with Hanne and Flemming so we were missing them. It was great to get to talk to them through Skype.

There was time for hugs and time to take loads of photos with friends and family.

There was time to play wii....

Time for our yearly family photo.....

While we were having all this fun the Mother-in-law kept a check on everything in the kitchen....

I had to make the dessert - Risalamande.

My first time for making it and I was feeling rather nervous about it all.....

I love the photo below. My mother-in-law is tasting to see if everything is as it should be!!! Will she give me her approvement?! I look so scared as I await her judgement! haha

Phew - she is laughing, she must have liked it!! It actually tasted really good. I couldn´t believe it! Everyone loved it! In some ways that´s a bit of a bummer because I will probably get the job of making it next year again! I hate making the stuff! You have to stand over the rice pudding stirring it for ages!

The food was delicious!

Kristian actually found the almond that is hidden in the dessert. He won the prize, but since he already knew what the prize was, he decided to be a good big brother and give the almond and the prize to his wee brother!

We had some fun with Sara and Philip. They played a game of hitting each other on the head with a wooden spoon which they had in their mouth. You can´t hit hard with it, but whenever Philip was going to hit Sara, Andrew was the actual one who hit her over the head with the spoon. He was sitting behind her. She thought it was Philip and just could not understand how he could hit her so hard, when she couldn´t hit him hard with the spoon in her mouth.

After loads of fun and a Christmas quiz, the Christmas Tree lights were lit....

We sang carols while walking around the tree...

Finally it was time for the presents. After all that we still managed to fit in a game of Bingo! We had great fun with that. It was 1.30am when we arrived home, tired but full and content. Another wonderful Christmas Eve.

This morning (Christmas day) we slept long - really long. I woke at 10.15am. Kristian and I were actually up waiting on the kids to wake up. Finally at about 10.45am they came crawling out of their beds (one advantage of having big kids, they sleep long on Christmas morning!)

We had a lovely morning opening presents. Then we went over to Laura and Mia in our PJs to say Merry Christmas to them. We didn´t stay long. It was then home to make the ham and turkey. We had the most wonderful Chrsitmas dinner. The rest of the afternoon was spent being lazy. (Well, after all the mess in the kitchen got cleared up).