Christmas Eve Treats

Holidays are always a time to relax, reflect, and be grateful. Christmas time for most is a time for sharing and spending quality time with family and friends. Being a full blooded Italian and coming from an all Italian family, the holidays for us means Mangia, Mangia, and boy do we Mangia in my family. The typical Christmas Eve for my family means going to my Aunt Lauri's house where the food is always great and the Italian heritage is flowing. The appetizers are the normal anti pasto, with all the Italian breads, cheese's, and meats. Along with that there is fish, shrimp cocktail, and crab dip (which by the way is off the hook.) Then, after that we go to the main course which is chicken (Marsala, Franchisee, or whatever kind gets cooked up), fried calamari, homemade meat balls, and of course pasta. The final course is where you have to be careful, that's the desserts, which are array of Italian pastries, cookies, and cakes. What I try to do is eat a little of all the appetizers, and hold off until dinner. Once dinner comes I eat a good amount of protein with minimal carbs to fill myself up and kill the cravings of all the desserts that follow. Of course, I have dessert I take a little taste of everything just to get my pallet wet. Although I'm 5'6 I have a HUGE appetite, I can slam down the food with no problem.
Tonight I ate pretty well, but just enough, I didn't go over board with eating. I ate enough for a cheat meal, which I am allowed 2 times a week, but 3 hours later after I got home from midnight mass, I was still able to eat my last 2 meals with a pretty good appetite. Got to give a shout out to my Aunt Laurie and Uncle Bill, there house is always the best of Christmas eve, we have a great time and the food there is phenomenal.
On a not so good holiday note, as you all know I have been having some major shoulder issues in my right shoulder since before my shows this year, but managed to battle through it. I got a x-ray and mri done in mid September showing a few things wrong in my shoulder. I have an anterior-exterior lebrehm tear, a sist formed due to the tear, and an impingement in my shoulder as well. I spoke with Dave the other day, and we both decided that getting my shoulder scoped now would benefit me more than if I waited. This injury is hurting my workouts especially my shoulder and chest workouts. Tonight I talked to my aunt whom is a Nurse Practitioner which means she does it all, from heart surgeries to orthopedic surgeries etc. She scheduled my surgery for next Friday since she will be the one doing the surgery on me, so I told her she better make sure she fixes me and my recovery time better be short....(Just kidding Aunt Laur, you're the best.) So I will keep you all posted on what is going on and how everything goes. Until tomorrow, go put the cookies out for Santa....Have a Hardcore Holiday (complements of EC)
Guy