Christmas Eve & Christmas Day Meals and Fun!

I hope you had a lovely Christmas! I sure did. As always, I drove to my hometown of Jonesboro, Arkansas on Christmas Eve to spend the night with my parents. When I arrived around 3:30 pm that day, my parents already had Christmas Eve dinner ready! We decided to do a Feliz Navidad theme this year with tacos, chips and guac/salsa, charro beans, and Spanish rice.

Mexican food is my mom's fave, so we think we're gonna keep this going as a new tradition. We've never really done the traditional Christmas meal with casseroles and ham or turkey. We used to always get Chinese takeout, but it's hard to find places open in Jonesboro on Christmas Eve. And then last year, when I was going through my "binge-watching The Sopranos" phase, we did an Italian Christmas Eve dinner. But this was our fave in recent years. Of course, we also had margaritas (with extra shots of tequila!).

After dinner, I got to open my stockings! My dad went on a Vegan Essentials shopping spree and got me a ton of vegan jerky, some vegan ranch corn chips, and caramel corn. And my mom threw in some unicorn chip clips.

Then we watched Merry Friggin' Christmas with Robin Williams and Christmas With the Kranks. Around 9 pm, I headed over to my BFF Sheridan's father-in-law's house to do our annual gift exchange. Sheridan lives in Little Rock but grew up in Jonesboro with me, and we're both always in town for Christmas. Here we are surrounded by our gifts to one another!

One of my Sheridan gifts is always her homemade Vegan Zucchini Bread. It's seriously the best zucchini bread I've ever had, and it just wouldn't be Christmas without it. I had a slice when I woke up on Christmas morning.

That held me over until Mama was done cooking Christmas breakfast, one of my fave meals of the year! We enjoyed breakfasts of Biscuits & Gravy, Tofu Scramble, Seitan Bacon, and Hash Browns. My dad had eggs though, but my mom and I shared the scramble.

After breakfast, it was present time! I got some great gifts — lots of clothes and new jeans, some new boots, two new purses (including this cat bag from ModCloth), new wooden blinds for my living room (!!!), a new cast iron skillet, new coffee press, and more!

Here's my mom with Maynard. She's wearing her new Harley hoodie from Paul. Paul does Christmas with his family in Nashville, but he always sends gifts for my parents. And they send me home with gifts for him.

After we finished up with our gifts, my mom and I drove over to my Me-Maw's house to exchange gifts with her. My Granny was out of town for the holiday, but Me-Maw was here! If you've ever wondered what I'll look like in my 80s, here ya go. I look more like Me-Maw than any other relative.

When we returned from Me-Maw's, my dad had prepared us a veggie snack! He made Roasted Veggie Foil Packets with brussels, sweet potato, white potato, onion, and squash. He's quite the cook!

Shortly after snack time, I drove back to Memphis. I like to get back and get my presents/luggage put up before it gets too late. I have a little Christmas tradition of getting Chinese takeout on Christmas night, so after I got everything put away, I went to Mulan for a pick-up order of Crispy Tofu — dry-fried salt and pepper tofu with hot peppers and veggies. 

Washed down with a Terrapin So Fresh So Green Green IPA in my beloved Memphis AF pint glass. Merry Christmas!