Here we are, mere hours out from the holiday, and I still have about 14,576 things to do before we host our first (!!!) Christmas Eve at our place.

When I was growing up, our Italian family always went with the Feast of the Seven Fishes for Christmas Eve dinner.

I have such fond memories from my childhood of big Christmas Eve parties at our grandparents’ house with all of my aunts and uncles and cousins, all the dishes set out on their dining room table–the baccala, fried smelts, calamari and more. When the kids get a little older I’d like to incorporate more of my own family’s traditions and recipes into our holidays, but for now, we had to keep it simple. Something tells me there wouldn’t be too many people going for the baccala at our extended family dinners these days! So this year we are keeping it a little more basic and doing a menu with brisket, veggies and other simpler stuff.

A couple Christmas Eve traditions we’ll be keeping, though?

Matching Christmas jammies (we got these this year!), chocolate ball cookies, and allowing the kids to open one gift on Christmas Eve night before Santa officially arrives.

We’ve also been more diligent with Elf on the Shelf this year than we have in years past, and Buddy has done a decent job of keeping the kids in check (when he’s not busy dangling from one of our chandeliers or getting perilously close to a boiling pot. Elf stew, anyone?).

I will say it again, just like I said it last year, being surrounded by the material gifts this holiday brings always makes me snap back to what matters most, and it’s never what’s under the Christmas tree, but who’s around it.

So I wish for you the best gift of all this Christmas–the gift of presence.

Take it all in, enjoy all those sweet moments, and from the bottom of my heart, thanks for being here with me as we all learn and grow on this crazy journey of parenthood.

Love, Sonni