Christmas Lights, Name Calling & Cheesy Tortellini

Why do all kids love this so much?

So we tackled the tree last night. It was not quite the Norman Rockwell Christmas scene but we had fun in our own weird non-traditional  way. There was lots of name calling... butt face, stupid head and the like. Lots of ridiculing like... you're not doing it right or Mom, he's touching me or she's not fluffing the branches right. I repeatedly had to say"shut it, zip it, shutty.... and just be nice to each other.... this is a special family tradition that  you will cherish someday dammit!!!!" I don't know who does these rituals all sweet and nice like in the movies but we did have Christmas music on so there was that. We have an ancient fake tree that someone gave us about 5 years ago. We were so broke that Christmas we didn't want to waste money on a real tree and now we kind of have a soft spot for this old pain in the ass tree that comes in 500 pieces. I bought all new LED lights this year and I actually think they look really pretty. I am a colored lights girl. I think it's a northern thing, and I thought these were so pretty. And they have purple... gotta have either pink or purple... hard to find. I even tricked all of my kids into getting under the tree to "straighten it out and work together" for a funny photo haha... even the dog got in on the action, you can see his tail on the left next to the wall. Fooled them.

We got all the lights on successfully , no one cried or lost an eye and will do ornaments next. There is only so much togetherness we can take in one evening. She still looks pretty to me though, even just with lights.

After that we sat down to eat our late dinner out of the crock pot with no conversation. It was an all technology dinner cause we had all had just about enough of each others voices. That and the meal was so good we were too busy stuffing our faces. So here is the easiest weeknight meal ever for a chilly winter evening.

Crock Pot Cheese Tortellini

Ingredients

• 1 bag of frozen tortellini
• 1 small bag of spinach
• 2 cans of Italian style diced tomatoes
• 1 box or 4 cups of chicken broth
• 1 block of cream cheese or neufchatel
• 1 package of chicken sausage cut up, or whatever you like

Instructions

1. Slice the sausage, cut the cream cheese in chunks, and put all ingredients into crock pot.
2. Cook on low 5-6 Hours.
3. Delicious!
4. 
   

Stay tuned for the actual trimming of the tree. If I can make it to the store for my traditional  bourbon egg nog we will be undertaking it this evening! 

Ho Ho Ho!