A Toast with Wine Glasses and Bubbly!

The holiday champagne/wine glasses were set out, along with a finger food feast Saturday, December 2nd, for the whole family, children included! (Before you contact our local social service office to come investigate, read the blog.)

Four holiday wine glasses with the word "Noel" written on the stems were gifted to us from our friends Justin and Gi a few years ago. Travis and I aren't wine or champagne drinkers, but such beautiful glasses could not sit unused. We invented a reason to use them every year and, coincidentally, a new Davis holiday tradition was born!

Festive holiday snacking foods are so much fun, in my opinion. A delicious cheese ball recipe, wassail, peanut butter fudge, peanut brittle, summer sausage/cheese/crackers and Christmas holly are a few of the foods Mom used to fix my family.

Our tradition, the "finger foods meal," the kids fondly call it, began when we lived in Hutchinson during the 2005 Christmas season. I was in the mood for something festive, but simple to serve the night we were set to decorate the tree. The "Noel" wine glasses needed to be put to use as well. I fixed finger foods like I'd remembered growing up and made some mock champagne (apple juice and 7-Up) to drink. Madalynn was three that year, Justis two, and Dawson was too little to remember. The special meal was almost more fun than decorating the tree for us all!

Tree decorating day was approaching in 2006, when Madalynn repeatedly reminded me that it was time to get out the fancy glasses! The same recipes were made and, of course, mock champagne was served in the "Noel" glasses. The kids enjoyed the meal so much, they requested and encore for Christmas Eve, so we shared mock champagne with Travis's family, who was celebrating Christmas in Hugoton with us that year.

Bacon-wrapped little smokies, a cheese ball, stuffed mushrooms, chex mix, olives were washed down with the traditional mock champagne this year. Yum. The kids giggled as they raised their glasses for a toast celebrating Jesus's birth and the blessing of being together as a family.