a quirky christmas eve!

sure hope you had a merry christmas! ours was swell.

it's tradition on christmas eve to invite my in-laws over. this year, we did things differently. instead of a traditional dinner.... i homemade different size pizza's and different flavors: garlic chicken, pepperoni and hamburger. served with a salad.

instead of a matching, traditional table setting with matching linens... i used my collection of thrift store souvenir state plates and mis-matched vintage linen napkins, that i've picked up along the way.

i made a non-traditional centerpiece using shabby chic cups and dishes, with various candles! i just love the mini dessert candles (above)... my mother-in-law liked them too, and suggested i not burn them.... save them... so i did.


each person (there were five of us) had their very own souvenir plate and souvenir salad plate, to eat from... i tried to match the plates to their personalities. above: my father-in-law likes to visit florida every winter. my son: mammoth cave. my husband: washington d.c. since he is a political junky and my mother in law loves the holland, michigan tulip festival so her plate was holland, michigan. mine was just an illinois plate because it worked out that way.

our iced tea drinks were poured in canning jars! and, one of the pizza's was served on my the pizza pan my grandma and i used to make homemade pizza on (chef boy r dee).

after an easy clean-up, we played a couple card games of 7's. and then headed to our church's christmas eve service. i was thrilled, since my in-laws are not religious, nor do they belong to a church.... it made my heart happy when i saw them singing and taking communion. we headed back to the in-laws for pumpkin pie.

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smile, wink, nod.