Preparing and Celebrating

Over the past few days I have been preparing for our Christmas celebrations.  One of the big ways I have been getting ready is by baking all our cookies within a 48 time period, something I normally do over multiple weekends.

Today we had our first Christmas celebration.  We will be getting together with different groups of family members over the next few days.  I hosted today's group.  Our feast consisted of:

Brisket in a tomato, white wine reduction

Smashed potatoes and parsnips

Roasted Brussel Sprouts

We rounded out the evening with a rousing game of Jenga.

Cranberry Chutney

It's beginning to smell a lot like Christmas in our house!  This weekend I started doing my first holiday cooking by making my yearly batch of cranberry chutney.

The smell of the chutney in the house screams Christmas.  I always make enough to enjoy on Christmas and freeze a bit for later in the year as a quick go to item when I need something to take to a party.

We enjoy it the most on crackers as part of a cheese plate.

Christmas Gifts

Merry Christmas!

Every year by Thanksgiving I get asked what I would like for Christmas by family members.  As a child I knew exactly what I wanted and I was audacious enough to show my disappointment when I didn't get exactly what I thought I should get.  As I have gotten older I always have a few things on my list but I have wanted less and less.  Christmas has become less about the gifts and more about what really matters: family and the reason for the season. 

Now don't get me wrong, I still enjoy receiving and I love giving.  But this year when I was asked what I wanted I left it open ended for most everyone.  And I have been pleasantly surprised by the amazing gifts that I could not have imagined up.  It turns out the best gifts are the ones I never knew I wanted or needed and came from the hearts of loved ones.

My sister found this idea on pinterest.  I love it and can't wait to put it in my classroom!

My best friend Lauren found these adorable bee labels on etsy, I am looking forward to putting them on our honey and bee products.  She also gave me soap for the gardening nerd that I am and some fun pins just for teachers.

These were the gifts that I got before Christmas.  I can't wait to find out what fun gifts Santa might bring me today!

Lessons From The Cookie Jar

Years ago I decided I wanted to start baking lots of holiday cookies and give them away.  Why?  I have no idea, I just like to.  I started when I was single, in grad school, and had plenty of free time during my holiday vacations.  I had complicated cookies that were just for looks but also plenty that were delicious.  I wanted to have these over flowing baskets of glorious baked goods that sparkled, amazed and would make people ooh & ahhh and think that Martha Stewart had nothing on me. 

Now I am married, have a full time job and responsibilities that have made it impossible to stay sane and keep up the illusion.  So in response I have cut the complicated but beautifully realistic peppermint candy canes that tasted mediocre at best to make only the delicious crowd favorites.  In the past by New Years we were packing them in to keep from wasting them or throwing the extras away.  So I have cut back from making the copious quantities to just enough for everyone to have a taste.

This year I was inspired to try gingerbread because it is a classic that I have never made.  In the past I have had brick hard gingerbread that I did not enjoy.  I learned that I actually like well made gingerbread and have decided that it will become a new staple in my repertoire.  I am also going to throw out the sugar cookie snowflakes next year.  They are buttery, delicious and gorgeous, but not worth it.  Many puff up during baking and break when coming off the cookie sheet.  The gingerbread recipe makes enough that I will have plenty to decorate as snowflakes in addition to the other shapes.

 These are show stoppers but they aren't going to make the cut next year.

Cranberry Chutney

I make cranberry chutney every year around the holidays.  Cranberries are in season and it is a great relish for any holiday cheese plate.  It is also delicious with meat, in sandwiches or spread on crackers.  It is super simple to make and I freeze it in small batches to pull out and use throughout the year.  I am sure you could can it easily based on the amount of vinegar that is in the recipe but this time of year I just don't have the time to can and freezing it is easy.

1 12oz bag of cranberries
1 cup of each of the following ingredients: raisins, chopped onions, granny smith apples peeled and diced, sugar and white vinegar.
3/4 cup of both chopped celery and water
2 tsp cinnamon
1 1/2 tsp ground ginger
1/4 tsp cloves

Put it all in a pan and simmer away until the most of the cranberries burst, the raisins plump and it is hard to tell all the different bits apart.  This normally takes 45 minutes to an hour.  You can do multiple batches at the same time in one pot.  I have done a quadruple batch in one pot before.  It just takes longer to cook than a single batch.  I estimate about 45 minutes per batch in the pot and know it's done when it reaches the right look and consistency.

Holiday Outings

Over the weekend we went to the zoo's Festival of Lights.  We haven't been in a couple of years so it was nice to go.  But we didn't stay all that long because we just weren't up to dealing with the crowds.

Dressing Up Cans

I have been dressing up cans getting ready to gift them for the holidays.  My preferred way to make them look nice is to glue scrapbook paper to the lids and then tie ribbon around the bands.  This year I am trying labels from Ball that are supposed to dissolve off cleanly when washed so the can can be reused. 

Christmas Correspondence

 

It is that time of the year again to mail out Christmas cards.  Some people look at is as a chore but I enjoy it especially with a Christmas movie on.

Too Soon?

Every year I struggle with the tension between getting all the Christmas stuff out so that we can enjoy it for as long as possible but at the same time not getting it out too soon.  I like to have all my harvest/Fall decorations up for Thanksgiving but the day after it all gets taken down and Christmas goes up.

I am a Christmas Freak!  I love the season, the cheerfulness, the winter decor, the gatherings and all out good cheer.  I love Christmas.  I struggle with not listening to music before Thanksgiving.  My sister has a strict no Christmas music rule until after Thanksgiving.  However I have sneaked a few songs in, but on Friday it will be Christmas music all the time until December 31st.

I won't break out the tree, garland or poinsettias until Friday.  But this past weekend we went ahead and put up the lights outside.  It was quite comfortable Saturday and Thanksgiving weekend is always so busy with family, friends, and decorating inside that we thought it would be good to get a head start.  But now that they are up I want to turn them on at night, but we will wait as hard as that may be.

Andy decided he wants lights on the bushes below the window so we will be adding more next week.  But for the most part it is done and we can't wait to have them on at night!

Holiday Review In Pictures

Work Parties

Celebrations with My Family

 Notice Reagan with bright pink boots made by my sister!

Yahtzee on Christmas Day!

Michigan with Andy's Family

Racing Uncle Andy!

We had a wonderful holiday season and hope you did too!



Displaying Christmas Cards

I have been having trouble the last couple years with what to do with my Christmas cards.  I like to display them but don't want to put them all over a table top or mantle.  I have looked at card "trees" but never really want to shell the money out for one and don't have an empty spot to place one.  This year I found this Pinup Wreath on the Martha Stewart Website.  It is adorable and the perfect solution for me.  It was inexpensive and easy to make, I highly suggest it as a seasonal display for your Christmas Cards.

This is how mine turned out.  I bought a smaller wooden embroidery hoop because I didn't think we would get enough cards to fill out the big one.  Boy was I wrong I have cards stacked underneath each other.  I should have known not to go against Martha and buy a small hoop since it wouldn't have room on the inside for multiple cards, there is barely room for two on mine.  Next year I will tear this one apart and use a larger hoop to make room for all of our cards.  But I will say that I don't suggest alternating clips in and out as their instructions indicate.  I suggest doing one clip in and two out.  Even with a large hoop you will loose valuable card space if you alternate every other.

Christmas Surprise

The big surprise this year was a gift for Andy, a snow blower!  He started looking at them this Summer during August way before any signs of snow were coming.  But last Winter was a lesson in how much work shoveling our driveway really is and with his back issues this was something he really wanted.  We have been holding off because it is a big purchase.  I was talking to my Dad about Christmas after we had already given our families our gift ideas.  I told him that we should have picked a snow blower out at a specific store and then just asked for gift cards from everyone to go towards it.  Unknowingly I found out the my Dad had an extra snow blower given to him by another family member who no longer wanted theirs.  It was still in pristine condition and after a trip to the John Deere store to make sure it worked properly it found it's way under the tree for Andy!

He had no idea and was not expecting anything of the sort.  The snow blower wasn't actually wrapped, it was a picture of it taped to a gas can for the snow blower.  Needless to say he was surprised and thrilled!

Gardening Christmas Gift

Yay I got some gardening gifts for Christmas!  The kitchen garden is organized by month to help you stay on track of what needs to be done when.  The Vegetable Gardeners bible I have perused often and I decided I needed my own copy because it is such a great resource.  The Painted Garden Cookbook is a cookbook that has recipes organized by season so that you can cook with produce from your garden.  I am so excited to read each book!

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas!  I hope everyone has a wonderful day with friends or family remembering and rejoicing in the fact that today Jesus was born!

One of my traditions has become the cookie baskets I make to share with friends and family.

The beauty show always goes to the sugar cookie snowflake cutout because of the piped frosting and edible glitter.

Coca Cola Santa

On this Christmas Eve as the excitement of the big day is upon us I wanted to share my Christmas guilty pleasure.  It's Coca Cola Santa.  As a kid Coca Cola did an amazing marketing number on me with their commercials and advertisement for their Santa Packs, essentially just the packs of cans with Santa on it.  But I still can see the commercial in my head with the train chugging along and the jingle about Santa Packs are coming.  Something about that marketing made Coca Cola Santa nostalgic for me and I am forever hooked at Christmas time.  I don't even drink Coke but I buy a 2 liter at the holidays with the Santa on it to put in my fridge so I see it everyday.  Ridiculous?  Yes, I know, I just can't help.  Here is this years Coca Cola Santa commercial which still makes me smile.

Homemade Gift #4

My final homemade gift this year was one of the popular feathered headbands.  This is one item I have been noticing in stores and online.  I had a feeling that it was something I could make at a fraction of a price and personalized for the exact person.  I then saw directions for it on the Martha Stewart website and instantly knew I wanted to make one.  I am thrilled with the outcome and it is the perfect gift for a special friend who has fabulous style.  I can't pull this one off but love it so much that I am considering making myself a smaller more understated version.  For the directions on Martha Stewart's website you can go here go to get them.

 

 

Homemade Gift #3

Last year I cut my Rosemary plant back too far and it did not come back.  This year I was told the Rosemary would not survive.  My Rosemary plant currently is still thriving and I didn't want all of it to go to waste over the Winter so I decided I would try drying it and packaging it up to hand out at the holidays. 

This is probably only 15% of my rosemary plant, you can barely tell I cut any off.  I didn't want to experiment with too much of the plant, but I wanted enough that it if worked I wouldn't have to do a second batch.

Rosemary cleaned and stripped from the branches ready to dry in the dehydrator.  Next time I want to try to dry it on the branches and see how well that works because lots of my Rosemary fell through the grids on the trays.

Rosemary in the dehydrator ready to go.  I put all the trays on the dehydrator, but only put Rosemary in the top two trays to keep them away from the heat source and eliminate having to rotate the trays.  

This is an old dehydrator that my parents used when I was a kid and passed on to me.  Of course the manual was lost somewhere along the road and this was a test run in figuring out drying times.  I wasn't able to run the dehydrator straight through because if I had left it on overnight it would have burnt the rosemary.  I shut it off before we went to bed, it sat overnight and then I turned it back on the next day for a couple more hours.  I might have over dried the Rosemary and in the future I will have to play around with drying times, but overall I think the end product was good.

Final product packaged up and ready to hand out, Happy Holidays!

Homemade Gift #2

This summer Andy and I went blueberry picking.  I made jam from some of the berries and canned it.  At the time I had envisioned that some of the jars would end up as gifts.  To dress up the jars I traced decorative scrapbook paper with one of the lids and used a glue stick to adhere it, then tied a ribbon around the jar.  I had thought about making specific labels but I like the look of the decorative paper better.  I am really happy with the way this gift turned out and hope to make significantly more jam next Summer.

Homemade Gift #1

In the past I have made gifts that I couldn't find in the store, often these gifts are the best.  This year I decided to make some gifts because I couldn't determine what to buy the person and to help us tighten our holiday budget. 

The first and easiest gift was bath salts.  There was an article in the latest Organic Gardening about how to make bath salts.  It's really simple.  Pick your salt, scent, and additions.  I did a lavender version with Pink Himalayan salts, lavender oil, and dried lavender buds. 

I put them into a candle jar that I had completely burned and cleaned the jar thoroughly.  This was honestly the most economical choice seeing as it was something I had on hand.  But I like to pretend that I was doing my part for the environment and was repurposing the item.

Holiday Home Tour

On Sunday Andy, Suzanne (my mother in law), and I went to a local Historic Holiday Home Tour.  The idea was to go inside historic homes and see them all decked out for the holidays.  It was fun to see how some people decorate for the holidays.  On top of it all it snowed and snowed the whole time making it even more festive.

Me and Suzanne bundled up for the weather but still attempting to be festive.

Andy however had only one thing on his mind, warmth.