Bethlehem Dinner 2010

For the last 3 years we have had a "Bethlehem dinner" on Christmas eve. Our goal is not to be super authentic to the region or time period of Christ's birth but to try to think a little bit about how things might have been different for Mary & Joseph as travelers than we normally do things.

We have simple foods that can be eaten without silverware. We use wooden kabob skewers to select our food from the buffet and continue to use them to eat with or our fingers. We try to use as many wooden dishes as possible. I try to pick up a couple new ones every year that we can use. I found 3 large square wooden plates at DI several months ago and I think I'll look for some more of those. We just use paper plates to eat from as the theme is simple. After we fill our plates, we take them to the family room and sit together on a big blanket on the floor and just enjoy eating and talking. We don't really have a program at that point but just eat and have fun together.

We did do a couple things differently this year which we really enjoyed. We invited 8 more Boca's to join the party. Since they live a little ways away we started dinner a little earlier than we have in the past.

We had been given a sugar cured smoked Turkey as a Christmas gift from a friend so we served that in stead of our usual marinated chicken kabobs

Most of the kids decided that it tasted like ham instead of turkey. Whatever it tasted like it tasted really good!

Cucumbers and olives are always on our menu but the spinach dip was new. Carly requested it and made it as mine never seems to turn out right. She has the gift. It was terrific.

Cheese cubes are also another staple but we had pomegranates from my parent's trees in Southern Utah so that was a fun addition.

The last couple of years I have just purchased french bread but wanted to try something different this year so I found a recipe for Jewish Challah bread and it was wonderful. I made it earlier in the week to try it out and our family gobbled up 2 big loaves in about 30 minutes with a pot of soup. It is definitely a permanent addition.

Aunt Abby brought Salmon bites to bring in a little fishy flair. She got a lot of "what's thaaat" from the children but there were several who were willing to try it before spitting it in the trash. However, the ones who like Salmon were very happy. She also brought some Red velvet cookies... not so authentic but oh... so good. And while we're talking so good.. The piece de resistance was the baked brie with nuts and dried fruit. It was so good it made you want to cry.

serious tears.

buckets of tears.

Really. It was that good.

and we can't forget the grapes, always on the menu and in the category of

"so expensive in December you want to cry"

but it's once a year as Mark says, and we like to try to have some things that are sorta authentic...

Now that you've seen the spread here's a little peek at what they do with it!

The grape and cheese Kabob was big this year

Some favored the simpler grape only Kabob.

There was one propeller kabob.

I thought Ava's cuke/grape/bread kabob was the most interesting

hmmmm or maybe the grape/olive/cheese kabob

or it could be Samantha's "I'm just happy to be here kabob"

Whatever the kabob...

This year was the best ever, most versatile, loudest, funnest Bethlehem dinner ever!

p.s. I have no idea why 1/2 the text in this post is underlined and some is not. I tried to get it to stop and it wouldn't!!!!!!!