Linking up for Blogmas 2014…25 Days of Christmas. Because I LOVE Christmastime…still waiting for snow!! 🙂

I really do enjoy baking for the holidays, and my family looks forward to eating all of our favorites.  The kids do help with decorating them, and my youngest is the official taste tester, or as he calls himself the test taster.  Special thanks to my daughter, who took all these pictures.  She was getting into it after awhile wanting to capture the details and textures of the cookies.

Green Trees – Using a Mirro Cookie press.  Which is a silver gun like contraption that you fill with dough, and there is a tree stencil at the bottom, and you press out cookies from it.  This was my mom’s and we used it when we were little, the cookies are delicious.

Sugar Cookies – rolled out dough, and we use cookie cutters for the various shapes, and decorate them with sugars.  These can also be frosted.

Chocolate Filled Snowballs – A Hershey kiss covered in a flaky nut filled cookie, covered in powdered sugar.  These are by far my favorite.

Roshky – A polish cookie that is light and flaky and is filled with nut filling,  apricot or plum butter filling.  These take some time to make.  Also considered a Slovak cookie and also called Kolaczki.  I was only able to make the nut and apricot ones this year since I could not find the plum butter filling, which are my favorite.  I was questioning my ethnicity as I was making these, because the first couple of batches did not turn out like that should have.  You have to pinch the two corners together in the middle, and a lot of mine were popping open in the oven, UGH!!  They are edible, just not pretty to look at, lol.  But my Polish eventually kicked in, and the later batches were much better.

Peanut Butter Blossoms – peanut butter cookie with a chocolate star in the middle.  Usually this recipe uses Hershey kisses, but this year I thought the chocolate stars might be better, and I think they are.

Seven Layer Bars – Seven layers of sweet goodness:  butter, graham cracker crumbs, chocolate chips, butterscotch chips, coconut, walnuts and sweetened condensed milk.

This is what I baked this past weekend, and now I am all set for the holidays.  Every day my kids ask to eat just one, but I know how quickly one turns into two and so forth. But I admit to sneaking some for myself when they aren’t looking, lol.  I will probably let them have a few before the holidays, but they are mainly for cookie trays that we like to put out when we have family or friends over during the holiday season.

Linking up for Blogmas 2014…25 Days of Christmas. Because I LOVE Christmastime…still waiting for snow!! 🙂

Being that I live right off of Lake Michigan, winters can be very cold…even in the house, lol.  Last year when it was really cold, I had to go somewhere and I saw that my oldest son was not wearing his fur lined hoodie, so I put it on.  It was the warmest thing I ever wore, slightly big, but warm nonetheless.  I thought to myself I have to get me one of these!!  So this fall, as the temperatures slowly began to fall, I began searching for one for myself, and I found the perfect Sherpa lined hoodie.  I actually purchased two, the cream one and one in gray.  I almost didn’t get both of them, but I was taking advantage of a 40% off sale PLUS free shipping…you can’t beat that with a stick!!  Yes…I’m an avid online shopper, if I can avoid shopping in stores, I do by all means.

I am so glad that I bought both.  These are more sweater than sweatshirt, so that is another reason why I like them so much.  So basically this is something I cannot live without from now on, since I just bought them this year. 🙂

Linking up for Blogmas 2014…25 Days of Christmas. Because I LOVE Christmastime…still waiting for snow!! 🙂

Kindle Paperwhite

When these first came out, I didn’t think I would ever get on board, said it wasn’t the same as holding a book in your hands.  I am such a book lover, but I have found that I really just love to read.  So, yes, I now want one of these.

Prize Candle

I found this online.  It’s a candle that has a ring buried in the wax.  As you burn the candle the ring is revealed (wrapped up of course to protect it).  Once you dig out your ring you go to the site and enter in the code that is included, and then they let you know what the ring is worth.  It could be from $10 up to $5000.  I’m sure most of them are $10, but hey….it’s a candle and jewelry all in one…strange but yet clever, lol.

Linking up for Blogmas 2014…25 Days of Christmas. Because I LOVE Christmastime…still waiting for snow!! 🙂

I haven’t done any handmade Christmas things in awhile.  When the kids were younger we made ornaments out of Popsicle sticks, painted them and added glitter.  Those are my favorites.  My mom actually still has the ones that I made when I was younger hanging on her tree.

When I was younger, I received the best handmade gift ever.  My mom made a stuffed Chimp for me.  I always wanted a real Chimpanzee, being the youngest of 4, I thought that would be the best companion for me.  I could dress him in overalls, play checkers with him, and learn how to communicate with him and tell him all my secrets.  Obviously something I saw on TV.  When I was bored, with no one to play with, I would then tell my mom, “if only I had a chimp to play with.”

It was the Christmas that I turned 12.  I remember that year pretty well, because that was actually the first year I didn’t put out milk and cookies for Santa.  I had known for some years that it was my dad that I was actually leaving those for, but to admit it and not actually do it that year, was somewhat sad for me.  At that age, all you do is dream of growing up and being a teenager, and how great life is going to be…the life of a teenager.  But here I was on the threshold of crossing over, and it wasn’t so easy to do.  I went to bed with just a little less excitement and anticipation…because that was for kids.

We all got up on Christmas morning and began to open our presents.  I had a fairly large box, thinking that it was something small stuck inside a larger one.  But as I tore off the paper, it was a box for a Beverage Brewer…oooookaaaay, this growing up thing was real.  But of course it was just the box.  I opened the box and saw a brownish-red furry clump of something stuffed in the box.  As I pulled it out, I could see that it was a stuffed chimp, and someone told me that my mom had actually made it.  It was the most unexpected gift, and the coolest, cutest thing I ever saw.  Then my mom went on to tell me how she worked on it whenever she could in the dinette on the table that we ate on every night.  So she had to clean it up after she was done, and the red fur got everywhere.  That explained the night that I was complaining, because I found a red hair on my plate, and I blamed it on my brother (who has red hair).  Of course everyone else knew about the chimp.  This made it even more special to me, because I knew how busy my mom was, working, driving us everywhere, and preparing for Christmas.  As I looked at that chimp, I realized growing up might not be so bad, and that I had plenty of time to do it.

Linking up for Blogmas 2014…25 Days of Christmas. Because I LOVE Christmastime…now if it would only snow!! 🙂

I don’t put presents out under the tree until Christmas Eve, usually when my daughter and I do all the wrapping, which is my favorite thing to do!!  Even then I don’t put out all of them yet, I’ll leave a few to put out once the kids are asleep.  So we open our presents on Christmas Morning…early…Christmas Morning.

My kids know to wake me up, and just let me head to the kitchen for my cup of coffee. 🙂  We don’t open presents right away, we read the Christmas story from the Bible, and then say a short prayer and thank God for another blessed year.  While my two youngest pass out the presents, Nat King Cole plays in the background.  Once everyone has a small pile in front of them, we take turns opening the gifts starting from the youngest to the oldest.  Once the presents are all opened, we get the screwdrivers and wire cutters out to actually get the toys from their boxes, and start to clean up all the wrapping paper, it’s at this point that my middle son will exclaim, “This is the BEST Christmas Ever!!”

It’s funny how something that took so long to prepare for, seems to be over in an instant, once the presents are opened.  But it’s all well worth it as I look around and see the smiles on everyone’s faces…the kids are having fun and actually getting along…everyone is happy….ahhhh….peace on earth!! 🙂