Doing Some Meal Planning

I'm working on some meal planning for Christmas and New Year's. The biggest thing right now is finding time to get to the grocery store before Christmas Eve! We decided, well, I decided a few years ago that I wanted to enjoy Christmas with everyone and didn't want to be stuck in the kitchen. So now we have our big, fancy Christmas meal on Christmas Eve before we go to church at 8:00. Christmas day is something easy that can be eaten whenever anyone gets hungry for lunch. For the past several years we've had chili, but I'm changing things up this year and everyone seems to be on board (helps that it's one of their favorite meals).

So Christmas Eve will be roast beef, scalloped or au gratin potatoes (a Pioneer Woman recipe) and green beans with wine or apple cider to drink and buche de Noel for dessert. Christmas morning breakfast will be some sort of egg casserole, probably not my favorite one, but one I've made recently that everyone seems to like. Food later will be mac and cheese and a new recipe for bacon and Brussels sprout salad. Hopefully I can make both ahead of time on either Sunday or Tuesday morning.

I was also thinking a bit today about New Year's Eve and day. I like my recipe for hoppin' John so we'll have that on the first, probably with a pork roast and maybe broccoli or a salad. For New Year's Eve, I was thinking of making burgers and baked potato casserole. I'm going to take a look at my apps & snacks board over on pinterest and see what I can find that looks good to make for the evening. Not sure what our plans are yet, but we might have a game night with snacks until midnight. After the ball falls, we'll all be heading to bed!