Years ago I started a tradition. I would make cookies for people who helped me throughout the year and on Christmas Eve I would go around delivering them. I missed a few years, but not many. When I got married, hubby continued that tradition with me. This year was no different. This year I made sugar cookies and spent a week decorating them so that they’d be ready to plate up and deliver on Christmas Eve. We then piled in the little red “sled” (aka hubby’s truck) and off to deliver cookies we went. And out of all the plates we delivered, we only spoke with 2 of the recipients. All the rest weren’t home so I left them in the normal places I have in the past and off to the next place we went.
I had an epiphany the other day… They want to call it a holiday tree so that it is less offensive. Well holiday is all inclusive: Christmas, New Years, 4th of July, Valentine’s Day, etc… So does that mean we get to leave our Holiday trees up all year round? Just a thought…..
In other news…. So a lot of people won’t put up Christmas trees with toddlers around. Say it’s too much of a hassle or an inconvenience. I don’t agree. I think it helps teach them to love the season and respect the season and learn patience, which sometimes I still need to learn… just saying. I’m happy to report we only had one casualty when it came to Christmas presents. Abug got sooooo darn excited that Thursday of last week she opened a present. I laughed so hard because she was so proud of herself. It happened to be my present from my parents and I also knew what it was. No harm, no foul, but next time, open something I don’t know what it is so I don’t have to wait so long to know, okay kid 😂😜.
Earlier this month my dad was reading the Big Nickel newspaper and saw that the Christmas train happened this last weekend. One day it was from Seligman, MO to Rogers, AR and I don’t remember the other day. I don’t remember because we were planning on the Saturday trip, we had plans for that Sunday. We were excited because it happened to be a Tbug weekend so we bought our tickets and made plans to ride the Christmas Train.
I really wasn’t sure what to expect and it wasn’t quite what I thought I might expect, but it was a lot of fun either day.
Every year I have the best of intentions and every year I fail when it comes to making a Ginger Bread House… until this year. Truthfully I think last year was the first year I really attempted to even try, usually I mention that we should but we run out of time. Last year I actually made the house pieces although they were horrible and we didn’t wind up putting it together so at the end of the season on clearance I bought a kit. Then I forgot I did that… sorta.
So jump forward to this year and while we were in Ft. Worth I found this really cool kit that had all the cutters and everything you’d need for making a ginger bread house (not the actual pieces, oh no, recipes to make your own!). We bought it and away I went making the dough… The dough was easy to make… SCORE! and for the most part it all worked out good. I had a few hiccups along the way, but isn’t that to be expected the first time out of the gate?
Ah, the yearly pilgrimage to Ft. Worth, Texas. Every year is different, obviously. This year as I was playing on Facebook during the 7 hour drive I saw where you ask Siri “What are you doing for Christmas?” This was her answer.
If you play in Snapchat any at all I’m sure that you’ve seen you get the ‘Tis the season from the different states you’re in. I should have taken one from Missouri before I left but didn’t think about it. I can also tell you when you get right inside the Texas border, it doesn’t show up yet. So I feel bad for those people… I forget which town I was trying it in. It took getting closer to McKinney before it showed up.
We made great time. Usually we make good time but somehow we made great time. When we got into Ft. Worth we decided to go on and eat. We decided on Hoffbrau’s. YUM!
It’s snowing outside if you can believe that. We’re supposed to get less than 1 inch accumulation, I almost think we’ve succeeded that though. Where am I you might ask? Well I’m sitting on the fireplace. No no no… not burning my rear… that shelf in front of it that is bricks and my back is up against the door handles. I love fireplaces like this!
Anyway… I thought this would be the perfect time to tell you about the perfect “gift” I bought the other day that I “got in trouble” for buying. Walk with me, or sit and read, whichever!
Years ago, and maybe I’ve told you this story, but years ago when I was about 10 years old, one Christmas I told my grandma that I wanted to collect something. She asked me what I wanted to collect and I told her I didn’t know but I wanted to collect something.
My grandma was an avid reader of magazines and the newspaper, and one magazine article in particular that happened around that time of me telling her that was about a lady who collected Mr. and Mrs. Clause Salt and Pepper Shakers. My grandma showed me the article and this lady had been collecting them for like 30 years or something and had an entire room in her house dedicated to them. Grandma asked if this was something I’d be interested in? I told her I don’t know, maybe. And so it started.
That year for Christmas my grandma bought me my first set of Mr. and Mrs. Clause Salt and Pepper shakers.
Sadly at the age of 10 years old I wasn’t real impressed with the gift. I know I know, I told her that I wanted to collect something and she was helping me out, but at that time I didn’t really treasure what had been given to me.
What have we been up to lately? Well decorating for Christmas. We actually had a bucket truck at our house to work on our Arena lights for my dad, so while it was there, we quickly hung lights on the front of the barn.
Yup, it was a conspiracy and I was involved. In fact, I may or may not have been the original culprit and recruited helpers. What exactly did I do? Well…. this….
Hello Thanksgiving! Truth be told my favorite time of year is between Thanksgiving and New Years. I love the food of Thanksgiving, the fun and reasons for Christmas, the joys that come over the New Year, and then bam, January hits. I’m not a huge fan of January, sorry January, nothing against you and we can still be friends 😀.
Anyway, this year after I have a new found love of decorating sugar cookies, I thought I’d take my stab at Thanksgiving Sugar Cookies. I had no idea what I was going to do with them once they were baked/decorated, but by golly that wasn’t going to stop me. I sent them with my dad to work. He said his co-workers loved them and one even took what was left at the end of the day home. Yey :). Don’t worry, I ate 1 1/2 cookies. They were good 😁.
For Thanksgiving dessert, I chose a Cherry Pie. That was my initial thought even though we don’t have any cherries from our old Cherry tree, but then I found them, Sour (aka tart) Cherries at the store. I bought 4 packages. I only needed 1 but put the other 3 in the freezer for a rainy day. And that is a turkey on the top of my pie, not a Chicken. Just clarifying!
After selling our house and moving in with my parents, I’m back to using my mom’s stove for cooking. Her stove only has 2 burners (normal ovens have 4) so I decided to make our Green Bean Casserole the night before, then just reheat it in the oven day of. We don’t normally have Green Bean Casserole but we’re kind of on a healthy kick here at my house and I thought, well we needed a vegetable and we’ve eaten a lot of green beans so I went on the hunt for a “healthy” green bean casserole to change it up a bit. The one I found didn’t let us down!!
