A Very Southern Christmas

Merry day after Christmas from me and my two beautiful, sweet girls!

I hope everyone enjoyed a lovely day of loved ones and celebration. I traveled to my grandmother’s house in Georgia on Christmas Eve with these two and a car full of gifts. It was…an experience…but we made it and that’s all that matters.

I arrived in Georgia around 6:30 p.m. and was greeted by the amazing smell of homemade pizza.

Due to a lot of circumstances that kind of put a rush on arriving at my grandmother’s for both my parents and me, I convinced my dad to keep it simple and do homemade pizza for our Christmas Eve dinner instead of our traditional prime rib, popovers and twice-baked potatoes. It was a very welcome change of pace! I made a massaged kale salad with pomegranates, goat cheese, pecans, apples and dried cranberries to add a little something green and festive.

And my dad made one pepperoni and two sausage pizzas. They were incredible.

I awoke at the glorious hour of 9 a.m. on Christmas day to the smell of homemade cinnamon rolls. My sweet dad stayed up until like midnight on Christmas Eve prepping the dough for these. What a treat!

I spent the next three hours in the kitchen with my dad baking desserts and getting some side dishes ready for dinner later in the day. I broke around noon to go for a run. The running conditions were perfect. 55 and sunny!

I ran through downtown Milledgeville and down to the Oconnee River Greenway. I covered about 4.5 miles.

We all enjoyed the sunshine after my run. This is what I love about Christmas in the south! Shorts and a tank top on Christmas Day.

A few hours later everyone arrived for gifts and food.

I opened my stocking first. My grandmother and I have been exchanging that gift bag on the top for the last 10+ years. We alternate who takes it home every year! 🙂

Christmas is so much fun with little ones around!

I received some great gifts. I’ll share some of the more special ones in another post but I really loved this monkey hat.

After gifts my dad and I got dinner ready. We had the ULTIMATE southern feast.

My dad baked an entire 20 pound ham for 7.5 hours. It was so good. On the side we had mac and cheese, sweet potato casserole, collards, green bean casserole (my grandmother’s special request was old fashioned green bean casserole!), homemade biscuits, deviled eggs and a holiday “salad” with pistachio pudding, pineapple, marshmallows and cool whip. The fact that we call this a salad in the south is the best thing everrrrrrr. And of course I put my ham in my biscuit to make a ham biscuit.

Desserts were holiday red velvet with a green and red layer. My dad makes this cake homemade every year. His red velvet is awesome!

I made two pies. One was chocolate with a pastry crust.

And the other was eggnog pie with graham cracker crust.

So grateful for this special time with my grandmother and my entire family!

Tell me about your Christmas Day breakfast/brunch or dinner!