To day that this season has been a little busy would be a bit of an understatement. We've traveled, had company, had a lovely cold that has taken its sweet time passing from person to person, two basketball seasons (men and boys) and have I mentioned that we have a puppy? Yeah. It hasn't exactly been the calm, peaceful Christmas season that I idolize in my dreams and if I'm honest I've had more than one mini-breakdown about all of the ways we're not celebrating this year (we're about nine days behind in our "nightly" advent reading, for example). So when Jenny-Lynn suggested outsourcing our tradition Christmas Eve fancy meal it made my heart soar. I went from wondering when in the world we were going to get it planned, shopped for and prepared (and then cleaned up), to eagerly anticipating the luxury of being served delicious food at one of our favorite holiday places, The Grove Park Inn. We've made a tradition of going there each December to look at all of the entries in the annual Gingerbread House competition, so making that trip on Christmas Eve and enjoying their amazing Christmas buffet was a genius idea.

On the way there I was explaining to the kids that this was no Golden Corral buffet (sorry, Dad) and that since it was Christmas there were no rules as to what they needed to eat other than that they enjoy every bite and eat as much dessert as they wanted. They were happy to comply. Showing up to a fancy restaurant with nine kids, ten and under can give even the most proficient servers a panic attack, but Cee Cee was a dream. She helped kids into their chairs (a few times), called each of them by name and went extra-fancy on their hot chocolates. And she didn't even seem to notice when they got a little restless during the grown-up coffee time and started their own little dance party (three cheers for a late reservation and a near-empty dining room!).

While I do love cooking up a huge feast for our holiday celebrations and I'm not sure that I'm ready to give that up every year, it really was the perfect way to celebrate this year and I'm so thankful for a flexible family! And, truth be told, I don't think it would be hard to talk me into it again next year.

Fancy Christmas Eve joy...

(photo of the Inn taken from the Grove Park Inn website)