Merry Christmas! I hope you were able to find some time to rest and enjoy Jesus's Birthday. We start out our Christmas Day with reading the Christmas Story before we do anything else. Then they go through their stockings and this year got to open two presents each. Some years there are just stockings, some years just a present, the only tradition we have tied to the day is the reading of the Christmas Story. We do that on purpose. Over the years our circumstances at Christmas have varied quite a bit, some years better than others. By not having any hard and fast traditions surrounding gifts, we are able to save ourselves and our kids from expectations or "traditions" that we can't meet. That's also the reason we never did Santa for Christmas. The stress of having to provide an expensive gift from an imaginary man is the plot to a lot of Christmas movies! We decided early on that the less stress surrounding Christmas, the better, and let's us be so much more flexible with expectations that meet our situation at the time. Now before you think I must be some kind of stick in the mud, we did do the tooth fairy with our kids, we aren't totally unfun haha. But when I was a teenager, I worked in a grocery store as a cashier, and that first Christmas season I worked was an eye opener to the amount of stress people can find them selves under at the holidays. I remember a mom breaking down and crying at the register because she has to choose between real, nutritious food and candy and snacks for her kids stockings. I saw other's spend their whole week's budget on one meal and then have to go to a food pantry to get things just to keep up the illusion to their relatives that they could provide a "good Christmas dinner". It hurt my heart, and gave me an eye opening realization, shaping how I wanted to spend the holidays in the future.
After our Christmas potluck, to which I took mashed potatoes and homemade noodles, both of which are very inexpensive to make in large quantities, we brought back, half a pie, some turkey, stuffing, some creamed spinach and some green beans. So I am going to try to use these ingredients to stretch other meals as far as I can. There is also boneless, skinless chicken breasts on sale this week for $1.99/lb and I am excited to have one of my favorite meals this week, I went back through the blog and we hadn't had it in more than a year! Instead of just warming up the leftovers and getting one more meal out of them, I want to make them over into other meals to stretch out the turkey. We could all have a few bites of turkey, or I can make it into something else that takes the turkey flavor throughout the dish. So I plan to make Turkey Tetrazzini with a little creamed spinach stirred in, that way there is some turkey in every bite! I'm going to use the rest of the turkey, the green bean casserole and stuffing to make a sort of pot pie topped with stuffing, mmm.
Hope this week goes well!
Monday-
- Breakfast- Cereal, banana
- Lunch- Creamy Vegetable Soup, crackers
- Dinner- Turkey Tetrazzini, peas, garlic toast
Tuesday-
- Breakfast- Oatmeal, banana
- Lunch- Cheese and Bean Quesadillas, canned peaches
- Dinner- Turkey Pot Pie, bread and butter
Wednesday-
- Breakfast- Peanut butter toast, banana
- Lunch- leftovers, crackers, carrots and celery
- Dinner- Scalloped Potatoes, Ham, roasted frozen broccoli, biscuits
Thursday-
- Breakfast- Oatmeal, banana
- Lunch- Sandwiches, pretzels, canned pears
- Dinner- Stir fry with rice, pineapple
Friday-
- Breakfast- Peanut butter toast, banana
- Lunch- Sandwiches, crackers, fruit cocktail
- Dinner- Cilantro Lime Chicken & Rice (using regular rice, no jalapenos or corn, and chicken I cooked myself instead of frozen) this is one of those recipes that gives you a framework and you make it your own
Saturday-
- Brunch- Fried eggs, fried potatoes and onions, toast
- Dinner- Crockpot full of refried beans, and a buffet of ingredients to make nachos and tacos
Sunday-
- Brunch- Cinnamon rolls, eggs, bacon, mandarin oranges
- Dinner- Brats, saurkraut, potato salad, baked beans, veggie tray
Have a good week!
~ Sarah
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