I suppose I should put mine up, lol. We make cookies, lots of cookies, and we get requests now. DD's New Year's resolutions last year were to learn how to cook and sew and I promised that she would be able to make cookies by herself and the ability to make every dish by herself for Christmas dinner, though she obviously wouldn't be making it all...just have the ability to. The sewing thing we did some over the summer more and have focused on the cooking all fall. Today she has baked three batches of cookies all by herself, peanut butter, chocolate chip (for her dad of course as a surprise when coming in after working), and oatmeal raisin spice. Not bad for a girl who just turned eight. Right now she's putting together her third batch of cookies that have to be chilled overnight before going to bed. I promised our sons they could help out the with roll out recipes, though we've already done some sugar cookies with my mom, sister and her kids but they still like to get into it. They all have been really hands on, which is why we can do so much.
We did a treat exchange with my sister and mom as well. The kids and I (mostly the kids) contributed banana bread, chocolate mint bread, Oatmeal spice bread, chocolate covered pretzels, caramel popcorn balls, and peanut brittle. I don't think the heat has kicked in for a week, lol.
Here is the new recipe of the year thanks to my mother:
Enough saltine crackers to cover a cookie sheet.
Cook one cup of brown sugar with one cup of butter on medium heat; bring to boil and boil for three minutes.
Pour over crackers and make for 5 minutes at 400 degrees.
Melt a bag of chocolate chips and pour over the top.
Chill and break apart.
I've never had them before and was half afraid to try them. They were very toffee flavored and yummy. I then made two more batches a couple days ago and am all out already except the little bit I tucked away for Christmas for my treat tray.
We have done some donating, trading and sharing. I purge my entire house twice a year and once is right around Christmas. Every closet, very cubboard, every drawer, every box, bag, and tote is gone through and everything we have't looked at in a full year or the kids have grown out of gets thrown out...donated, ect. I grew up in a pack rat house so I'm very concerned about crowded anything, even if I don't have to look at it. The only exception is on our books. We homeschool so there can't be too many, even though we've also given a few of those away this year.
The children will be writting their annual Christmas story tomarrow night. (I'm hoping we can publish them once they get a little older and can put their own illustrations together). I make these HUGE gingerbread men and women, one girl and two boys, that the kids get on Christmas Eve morning for breakfast with a piece of fruit and a big, wide glass to dunk their cookie in. I decorate them with little gumdrops and candy eyes and icing. They love it. The younger two don't remember from last year so it will be a fun surprise all over again for them.
I teach the kids a new Christmas song each year, not the sing sony children's ones because they pick them up on their own but the vocally challenging ones. Oh Holy Night is this years.
DH's family comes over every Christmas, or we have gone there but currently we have the biggest house and the finacial means to host the whole crew. I really like to have them all over. No one buys gifts for anyone except children so it makes it easy, and each child only gets one gift...except last year everyone had either lost a mom, grandmother and an aunt/great aunt. Two heavy losses and the oldest gives everyone scrap book pages of them and we all cried.
This year I hope will be a little easier. Im just glad I made dang sure we all got together cause no one really wanted to.
I'm sending out boxes of goodies for relatives not close enough.
We went out pinecone picking. I almost forgot that one. So I had to wait for rifle season to end, though we still had some muzzleloaders out and about, there weren't too many. We got a few dozen pincones. Then we went home and the kids painted them, shook glitter on them before setting them aside to dry, then hot glued little bells and ribbons to the top. They made a dozen just for Grandma for Christmas so they are pretty excited to give them to her. And we have a few to hang from the ceiling.
Well I'm sure I missed some and I'm sure we'll do a lot more before the new year but thats a start anyhow.
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