Simple Celebrations

We celebrated Christmas rather simply this year.

Christmas Eve was spent with my in-laws. We had a nice dinner and opened our presents. We also spent a lot of time just sitting at the kitchen table and talking. The kids even sat with us. It is amazing the power chips and dip can have over our kids. Even with piles of presents waiting for them in the other room, they were content to shovel food in their mouths while the adults talked.
We got home late enough on Christmas Eve that all of the kids fell asleep while we were driving. We woke them all up and helped them set out cookies and Pepsi for Santa. (Sorry, he doesn't drink milk at our house!) Then we turned off all the lights in the house, with the exception of the tree, and cuddled up to say prayers together. It was such a sweet, simple moment, but it's one I think I'll remember for a long time.

Christmas day was quiet but wonderful. We stayed home all day and didn't have any company come over. In fact, Eric and I stayed in our pajamas all day, just because we could!
The kids opened all of their presents then we had our traditional Christmas breakfast favorite of mini-blinis. This is a tradition I've carried over from my childhood and it will not be changed! Fortunately, Eric and the kids love the mini-blinis as much as I do.

I also made a ham and some potato pancakes later in the day. It wasn't much, and it wasn't fancy, but we still really enjoyed ourselves. The kids spent the day playing and it definitely felt like Christmas!

My parents buy a nice, big ham for us every year as one of our Christmas gifts and we still have a lot leftover. I'm excited to package it all up for the freezer. I think leftover ham is one of my favorites, especially using the ham bone to make soup.

Did you have a big celebration or a simple celebration for Christmas? Which do you prefer? I've personally struggled with embracing a simpler Christmas, but it gets easier with each passing year. Plus, I still get to indulge in the big celebration every other year when we go to my parents' house.

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Christmas Tour of Homes at Our Home

When I first heard about the Christmas Tour of Homes that BooMama hosts every year, I was very excited to join in the fun.

Then, we put up all of our decorations and I hesitated a little bit. You see, our house is in transition this year since it is on the market. We began the process of painting, removing pictures, taking down drapes and curtains, etc. over the summer. So I felt the house didn't look as nice as I wanted it to because it was a little too sterile.

However, as I sat by the tree last night, I realized that our decorations were simple this year and a perfect reflection of our current stage of life. I want to share how our house looks right now, white walls and all, because it's ours. And if you were to ask our kids, there is no better decorated house anywhere! That's what's most important.

So...Welcome to our home!

Most of our decorations are concentrated in front of this window this year. It's grown on me over the past day.
The top of the cabinet holds many of our special decorations. See that empty space on the middle shelf there? That is where our Christmas cards are supposed to be displayed. But I guess the running and playing of 4 busy children means that they won't be standing up this year! The bottom shelf holds 2 of our 3 nativity scenes. I like the differences of each one, and displaying them together is a nice juxtaposition.I am very sentimental about this Santa. My grandfather hand-selected him for me while he was in the hospital shortly before he passed away.Every year my mom has a fantastic display of Dicken's houses that she sets up. One year, I decided I wanted to do the same thing. I've long since given up that idea and decided instead to let her keep the title of best display in the family. But, I still have my 3 houses that we put out every year.This ornament was given to me by the kids last year. It is my new favorite, of course.Isabelle chose these decorations from our stash to display in the kids' room this year. She painted that snowman 3 years ago.Because I spend so much time in the kitchen, especially this time of year, I always try to make it as festive as possible. These same decorations have gone above the stove for the past 4 years or so.A few of the Christmas cookbooks in my collection get displayed on the counter. They definitely count as art in my book!This is a plate of salt dough ornaments the kids and I made this weekend. We are going to paint them Monday or Tuesday this week. A few will go on our tree and a few may end up as Christmas gifts from the kids.Eric and I both love the simplicity of this picture. At the moment, it is on a bookshelf in our bedroom where it may or may not stay for the rest of this season.This quilt wall hanging is another favorite of ours. We are not sure where we are going to hang it this year. In previous years it has gone above our bed, but we are considering putting it on the wall in the family room this year. There is a lot of empty wall space and it would be nice to have some kind of decoration there. You may have noticed a snowman theme throughout our decorations. I have to give my mom all the credit for that. Every year she and my dad send us a package for St. Nicholas day. Along with a few toys and treats for the kids, she always includes a decoration of some kind for the house. Our family gets snowman decorations and my sister's family gets Santa Clause decorations. I think it is a great tradition, and I hope to do something like that when our kids are grown.

For now, I am busy getting ready for my turn hosting the Bloggy Progressive Dinner tomorrow night when I will be serving up lots of tasty appetizers. Stop by for drinks at Joy's today.

Thanks for visiting! Make sure you stop by BooMama's place to visit lots more homes on the Christmas Tour of Homes. Also visit Southern Hospitality for even more homes. Personally, I just can't get enough of seeing all the beautifully-decorated houses!

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Christmas Cookie Baking, Round 1 Day 2

I am glad to say that Round 1 of Christmas baking for this year is done! Whew. It feels so good to be done.

I scaled back my plans by one batch today but I still have tons of cookies to take to my family on Thursday. At last count, there were over 26 dozen made.

Eric, the kids and I have had our fair share along the way too. I usually crave something sweet, especially with my nightly coffee. But it's funny...whenever there is a huge surplus of sweets in our house, I crave salt instead. Oh well.

All of today's cookies were more labor-intensive, so even though I made less, I was still in the kitchen for most of the day.

First up were eggnog crescents drizzled with a maple glaze.

Then chocolate-dipped shortbread fingers.

Next I made my favorites - jam thumbprints. These are very similar to my childhood favorites of traditional Polish kolacky that my grandmothers both used to make. But these are not nearly as much work.I made strawberry and apricot jam cookies. The apricot ones are my grandma's favorite, so I packed a whole bag full for her. I finished out the day with chocolate crinkles. I had to hide these almost instantly before the kiddos devoured them all.And now I'm done! At least with the cookies.

Tomorrow I'll make 2 pies, wrap presents, finish laundry, iron clothes, pack clothes, pack miscellaneous stuff, clean the house, trims the kids' hair and give them baths. Anyone notice a trend here? These things have been on my to-do list since last Thursday. I have finally become so adept at procrastinating that I managed to squeeze at least 30 hours worth of work into a 24 hour day. What an accomplishment!

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Christmas Cookie Baking - Round 1, Day 1

Christmas just would not be Christmas for me without baking cookies and sharing them with our families. Since we are going to visit my family for Thanksgiving and will not see them again for Christmas, I have been spending the past few days baking cookies to take them.

I am not quite sure yet how I am going to like this system. Will the cookie burn-out wear off quickly enough in time for me to willingly tackle another round? It is nice to only have half the work right now though.

I started making the doughs last week and made 2 -3 batches a day. On Monday I began baking.

So far I have made 7 varieties. There are 3 more batches of dough in the refrigerator that I'll make tomorrow, as well as 2 more that I have to make the dough for and bake.

I made chocolate-chocolate chip cookies,

cranberry sandies,

snickerdoodles,Mexican wedding cookies,candy cane snowballs,

the rest of the maple-pecan cookies and candy cane cookies.

I don't know if you can tell from this picture, but I did something wrong when I was making the candy cane cookies. The dough didn't turn out like it usually does. I had a really hard time rolling it out into ropes to make the cookies. After baking them, they just didn't taste right either. (There is nothing wrong with the recipe, just the cook!) So I decided to not waste my time rolling out more candy canes and just plopped teaspoons of dough onto the cookie sheets. The kids and Eric are still enjoying them. They really taste fine but they are not my usual candy cane cookies.

Here are some pictures throughout the day.

My sister asked me to make her cookies that she can use for entertaining, so I am making sure that she gets at least a dozen of each variety. My grandma likes to freeze her cookies and snack on one or two a night until they are gone. My parents generally eat very healthy, but they do indulge in cookies on occasion, so I'm making sure I give them a small sampling of everything too.

Here is the finished product at the end of day 1 of baking. My plan is to finish up tomorrow so that I can focus on laundry, packing, cleaning and making an apple pie on Wednesday before we leave. Stop by 5 Minutes for Mom for Tackle-It Tuesday, Tammy's Recipes for Kitchen Tip Tuesday, and The Lazy Organizer for Talk About Tuesday.

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Candy Cane Snowballs

This is one of the cookie recipes that makes it onto my Christmas baking list year after year. They are so tasty, pretty and easy!

Candy Cane Snowballs

• 1 1/4 c. butter or margarine, softened
• 1 1/2 c. powdered sugar
• 1 t. vanilla extract
• 1 egg
  
• 3 c. flour
• 1 t. baking powder
• 1/4 t. salt
• 1/2 c. crushed candy canes
• 1/4 - 1/3 c. granulated sugar

1. Cream together butter or margarine and powdered sugar. Add vanilla and egg, mix well.
2. In a small bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder and salt. Slowly add to butter mixture and stir until combined. Fold in crushed candy cane pieces.3. For each cookie, roll about 1 t. dough into a ball then roll in granulated sugar to cover. Bake at 350 degrees for 10-12 minutes.

I know that there are other things I could do with these cookies, like a glaze or other decoration of some kind, but they taste wonderful just as they are. They look great too. Why spend extra money for extra ingredients that really aren't necessary for the overall enjoyment of the cookie?

Head over to Blessed With Grace for more Tempt My Tummy Tuesday.

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Let Them Make Ornaments!

My children love to get involved with all of the Christmas preparations and decorating. My oldest especially loves to come up with her own creative ideas for making decorations. Our house is going to be filled with paper chains, snowflakes, and drawn and colored Christmas pictures in just a few short days.

Because I know how much my kids love doing this kind of stuff (don't they all?), I always try to give them a constructive way to get involved and put their creativity to work. One of their favorite projects this time of year is salt dough ornaments.

Salt Dough Ornaments

• 1 c. salt
• 1 c. hot water
• 4 c. flour

1. Combine the salt and hot water in a large bowl. Stir and let sit for about 5 minutes, until some of the salt is dissolved. Add the flour a cup at a time. Knead the dough together until smooth and pliable, about 10 minutes. Cover dough well and let rest for at least 2 hours.
2. Roll out dough to desired thickness. (You can make thick or thin ornaments.) Cut out Christmas shapes using cookie cutters. Using a straw, cut out a hole in the top of each ornament. Place ornaments on a cookie sheet and place in a just warm oven. (Use the lowest possible setting on your oven.) Let dry in the oven, checking occasionally, for about 2 - 3 hours, until completely dried.
3. Once the ornaments are cooled completely, cover both sides with a layer of varnish or clear nail polish. Let dry. When dry, paint and decorate using whatever you have available.

I love these ornaments because the dough is so easy to work with. Also, they are super cheap to make yet look great when done.

Once you get used to the dough, it's hard not to get creative with it and make other decorations or even gift tags. I was thinking this year I might see if the kids and I could make a complete nativity set. That would be really neat!

What are some of your favorite frugal Christmas crafts. I'm not a naturally crafty person, so I could always use some good ideas!

For more Frugal Friday, head over to Crystal's blog.

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