A Very Merry Christmas to You!

 This is a little late, but I send you the merriest of Christmas Wishes to you all!

We’ve had a busy week. My kids have all been home for a week now and I have enjoyed every single minute that I have had with them. We’ve played games, watched movies, worked on jigsaw puzzles and stayed up entirely too late talking and laughing. It’s been wonderful!

We spent one day with my Mom. One entire day. We were thoroughly masked the entire time we were together, and we spent several hours laughing and catching up with her. It was a good day filled with great memories!

We have lost so many people we love  this year, and this has been a sorrowful season as we struggle to adapt to a different holiday season.

We are ending on a hopeful note. One of our children is engaged, and another one defended a PhD. The third is hoping to settle on a new house in the next few weeks. Husband and I are getting ready to undertake some extensive home renovations this next year. They are long overdue, and my in-laws, when they owned this house had talked about doing them. They lived here 30 years. We’ve been here for 16. It’s well past time to get them finished. 

I sincerely hope that you have found joy and peace in your memories this season.

Let’s all work to be kind and gentle with each other this season. We’ve had a difficult two years.

Christmas Movie of the Day

 The Santa Claus starring Tim Allen.

This movie was released in 1994. 

My favorite part of the movie? How they explained how Santa got up and down chimneys in the houses without a chimney or a fireplace.

Peanut Brittle

This was my Dad's favorite recipe.  I'm not as fond of the brittles as my Dad was.  I don't like how hard the nut brittles are.  I also vividly remember my Dad breaking teeth on a couple of occasions while eating peanut brittle.  So... consider yourself warned.  This is one of those recipes I made every year with my Aunts in the days after Thanksgiving.  I've made this recipe using cashews instead of peanuts.  It's still really hard, but I like cashews better, so I like the mix a little more.  I believe you can sub in any kind of nut that you want in place of the peanuts.

One last word of advice before you begin this recipe... once things move, they move fast.  Measure out all of the ingredients and keep them close by, ready to add in as you go,

Peanut Brittle
You will need a candy thermometer for this recipe.
1 1/2  tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt

1 1/2 cups sugar
1 tsp vanilla
1 cup water
1 cup light corn syrup
3 TBSP Nature's Balance vegan butter + extra for buttering the pans
1- 2 pound nuts (Chop them up if you want...)

1) Using the Nature's Balance, (but not the part you've measured out, but the extra), butter two cookie sheets.  Place the buttered cookie sheets in a 200* oven while you work.  The warmth of the oven will help the brittle spread when you add it.

2) Mix sugar, 1 cup water, vanilla and corn syrup into a large, heavy duty saucepan.  Stir frequently until the candy mix reaches 240* on the candy thermometer.  (soft ball stage)

3) Add in butter and peanuts, stirring constantly until the temperature reaches 300*. (Hard ball stage)
Remove from heat and add the baking soda and salt.  Stir until the mix is light and bubbly.  (This is the coolest reaction!)

4) Pour half the mixture onto each sheet.  Cool completely before removing from the sheets and breaking into pieces.  (Truly, you can lift the entire sheet out of the cookie sheet.  My Aunts would break up the mixture with meat mallets.  A true Marylander would break this recipe up using crab mallets!)

Felt Flowers

Our library branch is making a wreath to donate to Kennedy Krieger's Festival of Trees.  All of the money from this event goes to benefit the students at Kennedy Krieger. (It is held annually the weekend after Thanksgiving, and it is a spectacle that I can't describe.  Check out the link above, and you'll see what I mean!)

There are a group of us who volunteered to make things for the wreath.  We decided that we were going to make a Raven's themed wreath.  We've picked up some Raven's swag, but we also decided that we needed to make flowers.

We found this tutorial online to make felt flowers: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_fEX-uYsd5g

Somehow, something happened along the way, and my flowers turned out a little different than the ones in the video.  Mine ended up looking like this:

I think they're beautiful, but they're different than what's in the video!

I made both black and purple flowers.  The wreath is currently under construction.  I'll share pictures of it when we finish it.  It's going to be beautiful!

In the meantime, I've decided that the flowers were beautiful, so I bought some red felt to make red poinsettias.  I'm making a couple of wreaths of my own to donate to the church for the bazaar later this month.  I think I'll make one with red flowers, and highlight it with some nifty little seasonable baubles.  I'm going to make another one that will be purple and black, and filled with my own take on a Raven's wreath.


I've got a little over a week to decorate these wreaths.  Do you have any ideas on what to add to help splash these up and add a little glam to them?  Suggestions are appreciated!

Christmas Photos

I hope you had a Merry Christmas!  We had a great weekend, lots of fun with family, lots of together time, and lots of laughs.  I have a few pictures from this weekend to share with you.  I hope that you had a wonderful weekend and enjoyed wonderful times with the people you love.  Thanks for stopping by and sharing a few memories with me!

The boys made a cake.  Don't you love how the icing covers the entire plate?

Luna was really into the Grinch.

Sunset on Christmas Eve.

Time for Christmas Eve services!

Jigsaw Puzzle - a family Christmas tradition!

My Mother in Law decided to bring over a few things for Christmas dinner.

We had a white-ish Christmas!  The gof lifted around noon.

We went to see Star Wars.  This was showing in another theater.

A Pinterest success story!  Graduation Tassel in a clear glass ornament.

Advent Photo of the Day

Rebuild

Tailor's Buttons

Many years ago, when middle child was in second grade, he was in a "literature enhancement group" at school.  They read a series of books together, and then at the end of the series, the children had a large celebration party.  We were to send in something for the kids to eat that was related to the stories that they had read.  One of the books they read was a story about a tailor. As son and I tried to figure out what to make, I began to fixate on these things.  I'd had them before, but I couldn't remember what they were called.  Desperate for something quick and easy, we decided to call these things "Tailors Buttons".  The premise is very simple.  A pretzel, topped with a Hershey Kiss, topped with an M & M.  When I made them years ago, I used the circular pretzels, so that they would look more like buttons than this iteration does.  I still vividly recall the frustration involved with figuring out how high to set the oven, and how long to put these things into the oven.  I destroyed a full bag of Kisses before I finally struck upon the magic combination of time and temperature required to make these wonderful little concoctions.  They have become a family favorite!

Tailor's Buttons

Ingredients:

1 Bag of Pretzels

1 Bag of Hershey Kisses

1 Small Bag of M&M's

Step 1: Pre-Heat oven to 350*.  Place pretzels in an even layer across the bottom of a cookie sheet sprayed with non-stick cooking spray.

Step 2: Unwrap all the Kisses and place each one on a pretzel.

 

Step 3:  Put the cookie sheet into the pre-heated oven for 5 minutes.  Check after 3 minutes, and every minute there after.   If the Kisses are soft and beginning to melt, pull them out.  It's really, really, really easy to burn the Kisses - a minute or two can make a big difference.

Step 4: Working Quickly, push an M & M into the center of each Kiss.  Cool completely before storing.  Make sure the chocolate hardens up again before you remove these guys to a separate storage container.  Note - I put mine in the refrigerator for a while.

The hardest part of this project is cleaning up the wrappers!

Merry Christmas!

Poinsettias in the library!

Beautiful angel sitting outside of the church sanctuary. Hark!  I hear the angels sing!

Music from our cantata. This is from my favorite song!

My mom has given me these ornaments over the years.  They are from the White House Historical Society. The barn that they are sitting in is made from wood salvaged from the barn on the family farm. 

The Christ Candle is lit!! Christ is born!

It's our Christmas tree!  There's a cat hiding under that tree, surrounded by boxes. 

Christmas Presents

We work very hard not to go overboard on the Christmas presents at our house.   Christmas is about the birth of Christ, not the lining of the pockets of various large corporations.

To this end, our goal has always been to have Christmas week together, as a family, spending that most precious gift of all - TIME.

We go to church and have our big Christmas Dinner on Christmas Eve.

We make at least one present for each person.

Anything we buy, we buy from a small local business.  I have fewer problems supporting our locally owned businesses than I do with, say, Wal-Mart.

We spend a lot of time together.

We go into Washington DC to visit the museums, the Kennedy Center (for the free performances), and visit the national tree after dark.

(We come home exhausted, too.)

We play very long games of Monopoly, and Spades, and Uno.

We plan a movie marathon.  (This year, it will be the Hobbit movies before we go see the Battle of the Five Armies in the theater.)

We laugh a lot.

We spend time with extended family.  Maybe not on Christmas Day, but sometime between now and New Year's Day, we will spend time with all of our extended local family.

We drive around and look at Christmas Lights.

This year, I splurged and bought tickets for a play over break.  It will be a great chance to get dressed up, head into the city, and spend time supporting the arts. We're meeting up with friends while we're there, and we are going to go out together for dinner after.

Our kids will still get presents.  There's a pile under the tree, consisting of books, clothes, and kitchen stuff for the kid who will be moving out into his own apartment this year.

But the memories of the time spent together.  NOTHING can replace that!

Are You Ready for Christmas?

This phrase has been repeated to me thousands of times over the last week.  I finally had enough last week and mouthed off to someone "Christmas is going to happen whether I'm ready for it or not".

Seriously, exactly what is it that we are preparing for?  The birth of the Christ child?  The celebration of the birth of the Christ child?  Or the annual gift grab that so many families engage in?

We have a birthday party at our house on Christmas day, and have ever since the birth of our first child.  Cake and ice cream.  I wanted the kids to equate Christmas with a birthday party.  Just like their annual birthday party, we have lots of family over.  Before the birthday party begins, we ice the cake, and I let the kids decorate the cake with sprinkles.  Lots of sprinkles.  When the kids were still under the age of 10, it was my contention that the sprinkles on that cake alone were enough to induce a diabetic coma.

After dinner, we always have cake and ice cream.  We put candles on the cake, and we light the candles and sing happy birthday to Jesus. 

My goal, since the beginning, has been to have the kids realize that first and foremost, Christmas is a celebration of Jesus' birth.  We do the same things at our Christmas celebration that we do at our family parties.  Lots of family, and lots of talking, lots of fun.

The presents have always been one of the last things we do.  And, we've always made a point of handing out the presents one at a time and everyone watching while each person opens a gift.  It's never been a grab.  We've never wanted the kids to race down first thing in the morning, rip the paper off, and then race off again.  Within an hour of getting up they'd ask "What do we do now?"  or worse, "I'm bored".

A few years ago, we decided to spin things a little bit more.  Just as the Wise Men hunted for the baby Jesus after his birth, we now hunt for our Christmas presents.  (Keep in mind... our children are 18, 16, and 14.  We didn't start this until the youngest was 12!)   We leave a clue out for the children to find, and we hide more clues all over town.  It's the ultimate treasure hunt.  If you've ever been geo-caching, you know what I'm talking about.  Our clues are fairly well hidden, written in rhyme, and do take a while to find.  Usually, the presents are hidden somewhere around the house or yard, but the kids do enjoy the search, and the time we spend together.

But, when I'm asked "Are you ready for Christmas?"  I am saddened.  I see people rushing, rushing, rushing, but never taking the time to stop, listen, and be thankful just for the ultimate gift that we were given so many years ago.  Christmas isn't something that's wrapped in a bag, or tied up with string. 
And it's definitely not something tangible.

Christmas is about that wonderful gift, so freely given to us all.

In these last few days before Christmas, I invite you to stop, sit down, and spend some time with your loved ones.  It doesn't matter if everything is done "just right".  What matters is that you are able to spend time together, play some games together, and make memories that will last for a lifetime.