Welcome to the last day of the Virtual Cookie Exchange and Blog Hop, hosted by the fabulous Carol of Just Let Me Quilt. And also welcome to my day, and my part of the world! I've included the whole schedule below in case you haven't had a chance to check it out yet.
I have always loved Christmas, celebrating Jesus' birthday. I love the decorations, I love the songs, I love making cookies and giving them to family and friends. And I love gifting my family and friends.
In my Christmases growing up, I remember getting in our stockings an apple, orange and nuts with shells on them. My mother started me making the Christmas cookies from the time I was about 14-15. She had me make them and then gave them to friends.
In my life now, Christmas begins right after Thanksgiving. For the past number of years I have had my older grandchildren come over and help me get my Christmas stuff out. A large part of my decorations I have made, including cloth dolls, ceramic dolls, painting ceramics and Christmas quilts. I have a quantity of my Christmas decorations stored upstairs, and my husband no longer wants me going upstairs by myself and bringing the large totes down.
First out come the nutcrackers. And last Christmas I got these 3 large ones.
Next out comes the Nativity Scene my dear Mother-In-Law painted for us over 40 years ago right after we were married. We also have a set of musical angels I set out with them.
I have my grandsons help me set up my village. They are particularly helpful plugging things in under the tables! I have a section of nautical related shops, and boats and people, and I have another section with shops and houses. It's really hard to get a good picture of that with poor lighting.
We then decorate the front room with tree and all the dolls, artwork and quilts. Our granddaughter Kyleigh did the nutcracker when she was about 4 or so and I watercolored the wreath long ago.
These gnome guys are not ones I made, whereas most of the others dolls I have. These guys mostly were obtained at the Harvest Festival years ago.I have them standing next to the door to greet you as you come inside.
I was thrilled this year to have finished my Nutcracker Suite quilt which was a BOM through
Shabby Fabrics late last year/early this year.
This was one of my very first quilts called Plaza Trees
After all the decorating is done, I get out my Christmas Cookie book. I have collected recipes over the years, and I basically put them in a scrapbook. I haven't done that recently, just slipped new ones in the pocket, but I usually make 9-10 types of cookies that we give out at Christmas. I made my list for this year, and went to get the ingredients.
I have two recipes to share. The first is Crunchy Peanut Bark. The recipe is
here, and it is printable. This is one recipe I have to do every year, or the natives would revolt around here. Everyone loves it. I made up a batch yesterday. It is easy and quick, basically melting the candy coating, mixing in the peanut butter, then pouring over the Rice Krispies, marshmallows, and peanuts. Then just drop onto waxed paper.
The second recipe I have to share was a new one, though I apparently have had the recipe since 2004. It was from a Woman's World magazine. I tried to get it pulled up online, but there is no reference to it.
Two things I learned from making these reindeer. It is not easy to break up your pretzels so they can look like antlers. The other thing is, I am lousy at using a bag to decorate. I had icing squeezing out the back end, and I was holding the back closed!
I had hoped to have a couple of projects to show finished but radiology contacted me this morning and asked if I could come in and get my test done this afternoon from 4-6 So I figured I would finish my post in case I didn't feel like it when I came home. I did get the redwork done though.
The darker one I plan to make into a mug rug. The other is going to go in a fancy frame for my sister.
Thanks so much for stopping by, and be sure and visit the others on this blog hop. I have found so many new recipes. I'm excited to try a few. Thanks again to
Carol of Just Let Me Quilt for organizing this, I have thoroughly enjoyed it!
December 2nd
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December 6th
