‘Tis the Season

Christmas Dinner

We had a very nice Christmas at home with our families yesterday.  Ed’s parents were nice enough to get us chairs to go with the table that Ed built, and my parents are keeping us and the baby warm paying for our next tank of heating oil and giving Ed and me new winter coats (I outgrew mine and Ed’s was well-worn).  Both very useful and appreciated gifts, and our parents are overly generous, as usual!

Our new chairs around the dining table

Dinner was a group effort, accomplished by us girls.  We had lots of appetizers, beef tenderloin, salmon, mashed potatoes, creamed spinach, dinner rolls, jello salad, roasted vegetables, a green salad.  For dessert, we enjoyed Ed’s mom’s Christmas cookies and my mom’s cheesecake.

Hope you had a joyful celebration!

Trimming the Tree

We’ve had our tree up for a while now, but I wanted to write about some of my favorite ornaments.  Our ornaments are ecclectic, consisting of a combination of Ed’s and my ornaments from childhood.  I’m sure as our family grows, our tree will evolve with homemade and milestone ornaments.  For now, from our childhoods, dating and married life, these are my favorites:

• Ice skates, which make me think of childhood skating on the pond
• Ballet slippers, from my many dance classes
• Apples, since my parents’ tree has always had lots of apples on it
• Horses and tractors
• Homemade beaded candy canes
• Red truck, that looks just like the one Ed restored while in high school
• The pickle, a German tradition, that Mema gave me
• The silver hinged ornament that Ed used to propose to me

What are your favorite ornaments?

How-To Craft: Santa Gourds

This is a fun craft that was inspired by some of my mom-in-law’s ornaments.  Last year, I posted pictures and some folks asked for a how-to post.  Well, all this time later, I actually got around to making some more and taking pictures.

First, you need some dried gourds.  They lose color and may look rotten, but if they’re not mushy or moldy, they’re not bad.  You can even take your chances by painting some gourds that haven’t dried yet, in hopes that they will dry.  If you didn’t plan ahead and save your gourds from your fall decorations, you can buy them.  Local Harvest has a nice selection.

If your gourds have shellac on them, it will start to peel off as they dry.  Lightly sand them with some fine sand paper to remove the flakes.  I like old-fashioned Santas that wear maroon or dark green, so I use those colors.  Paint half of the gourd in your color of choice for Santa’s clothes; this will be the back.

You’ll probably need to put on two coats of paint.  When it dries, the back is done.  Then turn the gourd over and paint the top part, which will be Santa’s hat.  You can put white on the end for the puffy ball, but I forgot this time!

Next, paint on a face using skin-tone paint.  Remember, the bottom half of his face will be a beard, so you only have to do the top part.

Next, use white paint to add a beard, hair and the fuzzy part of Santa’s hat.

Finally, add on some eyes and a mouth, and your Santa is done.  Mine are pretty rustic, but if you’re a talented artist, I can imagine beautiful Santas!

All done!

Snowball Cookies

Yesterday I mentioned that we might get some snow overnight and might possibly even have a delay.  I was surprised to look out the window this morning to see more snow than expected, and even get the call that school had been cancelled!

It’s no secret that I love snow days.  I’m like a little kid again every time there’s a storm in the forcast.  I obsessively check the weather all day, making predictions that the storm won’t come, since I don’t want to get my hopes up.  I stay up to watch the weather on the 10 o’clock news, later than normal for me.  I wake up several times throughout the night to check the status of the storm.  Then, I wake up at least an hour earlier than normal and wait for the phone call.  By the time the call comes in, I’m wide awake and so excited to have a SNOW DAY!

This time was not different, and I’ve decided to bake some snowball cookies to celebrate, and as my first contribution to my Christmas Cookie Recipe Swap.  Yes, I posted these last year, too, but they’re my all-time favorite cookies!

Snowball Cookies

• 3/4 cup pecans
• 3/4 cup (1 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter, cut into small cubes and softened
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 1/2 tsp vanilla
• 1 2/3 cup flour
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 1/2 cup confectioner sugar

Pulse pecans in a food processor until finely ground.  Add butter and process until smooth, about 1 minute.  Add sugar and vanilla, and pulse to combine.  Add flour and salt and pulse until a soft dough forms.  Turn dough out onto foil or plastic wrap and shape into a log, about 1 1/2 inches wide.  Wrap and refrigerate 30 minutes.

Preheat oven to 325°F.  Slice log into about 24 disks, then roll into balls.  Bake for 15 minutes until slightly golden.  Dump confectioner’s sugar into a pie plate.  Briefly cool cookies on a rack, then roll in confectioner’s sugar.  Return cookies to rack and cool completely.  Roll in confectioner’s sugar again.

Just a note from personal experience, it’s impossible to sneak one of these cookies, since powdered sugar ends up everywhere.  Consider yourself warned.

If you would like to participate in the Christmas Cookie Recipe Swap, just post a recipe for cookies and send me the link! Leave a comment or email, and I’ll link to your recipe in the side bar.

Christmas Meme

I stole this from Lisa at Retro Housewife Goes Green.

1.) Have you started your Christmas shopping? I’ve done a little bit here and there.

2.) Tell me about one of your special traditions.  I like to put up my Christmas village the day after Thanksgiving.  My parents have a Christmas village that my great-grandfather made, and I’ve always loved them since setting up that one.

3.) When do you put up your tree? Usually mid-December. Our family sells trees, and there have been years that we didn’t get one put up until Christmas Eve (the cobbler’s kids have no shoes!).

4.) Are you a Black Friday shopper? Nope, that’s when I set up my village!

5.) Do you travel at Christmas or stay home? We stay around here, visiting family that’s close by.

6.) What is your funniest Christmas memory? Being embarrassed that I gave Ed a welding helmet the year he proposed and built a bed for us.  I felt like his present to me was WAY better than the one I gave him.  But to this day, Ed says that welding helmet was the best present I ever gave him.

7.) What is your favorite Christmas movie of all time? Christmas Vacation and A Christmas Story

8.) Do you do your own Christmas baking? What’s your favorite treat? I like to bake cookies, but I feel no pressure to do it because Ed’s mom makes amazing cookies! I love snowball cookies the best. 

9.) Fake or Real Tree? Always real.  Growing up, my mom hated colored lights and tinsel, so my brothers and I would go cut our own little tree from somewhere on the farm and decorate it as gaudy as possible.  That way, my mom could have her elegant tree, and we could have our colorful, flashy tree.  Now, my tree looks a lot like my mom’s.

10.) What day (as a Mom) does the actual panic set in to get it all done? I’m not a mom, but I’d say the day before Christmas Eve

11.) Are you still wrapping presents on Christmas Eve? Haha, usually just starting

12.) What is your favorite family fun time at Christmas? I love relaxing at home on Christmas night after all the parties are overwith. It’s too early to start cleaning up, so we just relax. 

13.) What Christmas craft do you like the best? I like making Santa gourds, and I worked on some of them today.  I’ll post a how-to soon!

14.) Christmas music? Yes or No. And if yes, What is your favorite song? I like Christmas music, and still like Jingle Bells the best! I can’t stand the Chipmunks, though.

15.) When do you plan to finish all your shopping? LOL, hopefully before Christmas eve.

Any blogger is welcome to participate in this meme, even if you haven’t been tagged yet. Just simply copy and paste the questions into your blog, and then answer them. Then tag 5 or more of your favorite blogs, and leave them a comment telling them they’ve been tagged. (I’m not tagging anyone, play along if you want!)

When you post your blog, please spread some Christmas cheer, and leave a link back to Heather’s Top Ten Christmas Blog, and the blog that you were tagged by.