Christmas in the Kitchen

This weekend I spent a lot of time in the kitchen doing my holiday baking and making candies. While I worked I listened to Christmas music to really get me in the mood. I made something for everyone: fudge, Rice Krispies Treats (red and green), shortbread, applesauce cake, and a double batch of our favorite family Christmas candy. I also did make a recipe of "Loving Cups," which came from my sister. Too bad they didn't turn out very "loving" since they stuck to the mini muffin pans.  You have to use a knife to scrape out the cookie.

While making fudge I noticed that I'm a counter-clockwise stirrer.  Five minutes of stirring tends to make my mind wander and think of ridiculous things.

The fudge and Rice Krispies Treats recipes were right off of the packages of marshmallow creme ("Fantasy Fudge") and the Rice Krispies cereal box, respectively. The shortbread is a recipe of mine that I've made every year from the Good Housekeeping cookbook. The applesauce cake recipe came from my aunt and is in the family cookbook that my mom made for a family reunion many years ago. I didn't add the raisins, though, and left half the batch without nuts as well. The favorite Christmas candy recipe came from my mom via a woman that my dad worked for when Mom and Dad were dating.  Mom would make it every year but when I moved away I started making it myself.

One more week of school to go before the two-week winter break. I plan to visit my sister for a few days but after Christmas I want to clear out my pantry, clean the shelves, and paint them. I also need to do some touch-up painting around the house where dings have chipped off the paint. Not too exciting, but something that needs to be done.

Have a good week!

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Neat

'Tis the Season!

One thing I love about this time of year is getting out all of the boxes of Christmas decorations and decorating the house, inside and out. Each decoration has some kind of memory associated with it and each item has a special place. I do admit, I always seem to pick up a new ornament or a new decoration each year and so that adds to the collection. I can justify it since each year I find something broken. I'm still finding places to put things, although it is almost to the point where I might have to start choosing what to display!

This decorating process takes a whole weekend and many people involved. There's a color scheme with the house: blue and white. These are also the colors of the lights that we put on the tree with the exception of the multi-colored star topper that we've had for 16 years. 

Today was the special day that we got our tree and we always go to the same place in town: Delancey Street trees. I think we found today's tree in less than 10 minutes. This is amazing considering how long it used to take the family to find a tree back when we lived in California. My sister and I would always argue over which tree was better--the wider one or the taller one. Delancey Street always brings the prettiest trees from a farm up in Oregon somewhere. I also like that when we buy a tree from them, it is going to a wonderful cause. The foundation helps ex-substance abusers and ex-convicts  to turn their lives around and to become productive citizens. 

We started off the weekend with a wonderful Christmas party on Friday night that had such delicious food. There was ham, turkey pot pie, potato salad, and green salad. For dessert there were many fruit pies, a lemon cake, a Craisin cake, and a Death by Chocolate cake. The whiskey punch was especially good.

So now the holiday season has officially begun (or did it start with Thanksgiving?). I hope you have as much fun decorating and celebrating as I've had so far and plan to have in the weeks to come.

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Neat