Linking up for Blogmas 2014…25 Days of Christmas. Because I LOVE Christmastime…not even a flurry, yet!! 😐

I have already shared a couple of favorite memories, like going to Midnight Mass and the year I received the stuffed monkey/chimp.  I have soooo many good memories of Christmas growing up.  But I think my all time favorite is how we used to visit family or friends, or had people over to our house.

My dad kept in contact with a couple of friends that he grew up with, and as their families grew we would all get together with them a couple of times during the year.  Even after all of us kids grew up, they would still get together, from time to time.  In my pre-teen years, I would always look forward to the time we would have the two families over for Christmas.  (this may or may not have had anything to do with their good-looking sons 😉 ).  We would have the house all decorated, and my mom would have already baked all the cookies, so she could make trays of cookies.  I always knew she was preparing for company because when she returned from grocery shopping there would be extra bags of chips, and dip and several liters of pop.  This was a pretty big deal for us, because we ordinarily did not have pop in the house, only during the holidays.  My mom is really good at making things look nice…whether it’s decorating the house, or serving food for holidays, everything was placed just so.  This was all before you could learn from Martha Stewart or get ideas from Pinterest.  Maybe it’s a trait you can inherit, or else we just learned it by helping my mom, because my sister and I both have it, and I see it in my daughter as well.  Anniehow…Usually we would have our friends over in the evening, and just serve snacky foods and cookies.  It was usually a pretty late evening, as the grown-ups spent the evening reminiscing and catching up.  The kids and teens would be in the basement.  I was at that age where I wasn’t old enough to hang out with the teens, and too old for the younger kids. I usually got stuck with the younger kids, while the teens had fun listening to music, playing foosball, or just hanging out.  Still it was an enjoyable evening for all.

I also remember going to my Aunt’s house for the holidays.  This would be my dad’s sister.  We usually spent time with my mom’s family on Christmas Eve.  But one thing that stands out for me, is how we dressed when we went to visit someone or had company over to our house.  We didn’t dress in jeans and T-shirts, we wore our “good clothes.”  It wasn’t that they were extravagant or fancy, usually for my sister and I it was a pair of dress pants, and a nice sweater, or this cool green jumpsuit that my sister wore when they were oh so stylish in the 70s.  My brother’s would have on dress slacks and button shirts.  Of course we fussed about it, but we did it, and it was actually nice.  We would exchange small gifts with all our extended family as well.  I remember one year I received a Levi doll.  He was made of Levi jeans and had all the authentic Levi labeling.  Something I never heard of or even seen before, but it became one of my favorites.   This is a picture of one being sold on eBay.  My mom still has mine, but he is packed away. He is pretty worn, since I had  him with me whenever I could.  I think I was probably 6 or 7 when I got him.

Looking back, it seems things were so much simpler then, and yet still fun.

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

 My mom has always been the one to provide a Christmas countdown for the kids.  It’s been different things over the years, but always included small chocolate Christmas candy.  This year my youngest (9) was actually counting down to the countdown.

My sister found this for my mom a couple years ago and this is what we are using this year.  The train is all wood, and there are drawers on each side.  My mom has added a twist this year.  Only the two youngest are doing it.  Each drawer holds some change (money), and then she has an elf holding a small bag of candy that she hides throughout the house.  So far he’s been found in the Christmas tree, hanging on a wreath, and in the fridge.  🙂

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

I live in a small town on Lake Michigan, it is definitely winter here, but not a wonderland yet, that only happens when it snows, so I am going to share some pics of past Winter Wonderlands.  I have always loved snow, and ice skating.  When I was younger my dad would flood our back yard, so that we would have an ice skating rink.  It was some work, but the cold never bothered him.  Once we had a good solid rink, he would go out every couple of nights, and just spray it down with the garden hose to fill in any wholes and make it smooth again.  A Zamboni would have been sooo much easier.  My dad didn’t seem to mind the work because we enjoyed it and had a lot of fun.  As we got older, there were always rinks in the different parks in our town.

The one park on the lake has one large hill and we used to go sledding there.  I thought of this picture immediately, it is one of my favorites.  My brother and I went down the hill together, and we some how tipped over.  I always laugh at it, because my brother is completely laid out, like he’s unconscious or something, but I distinctively remember him landing on me first.

I always love a good blizzard.  Just preparing for it, and anticipating it, and knowing that things will slow down for awhile once it hits.  Being that I love snow, and have a snowman collection, one Christmas my kids bought me this snowman, and he has been our winter weather guy ever since, we named him Frostbite.  This was the year we really didn’t have any snow until January, and Frostbite was ready for it.

We also had a little help that year from a couple of Clone Troopers with shoveling snow.  I like to get out there with the kids and shovel snow, especially when it is still lightly falling, and it’s the first snow of the season.  After that, I just consider it my workout for the day, lol.

Last year was a bit ridiculous with the snow, we had 80 inches total for the winter.  The 3rd snowiest winter for our area.  After awhile we were like, yea….another snow storm 😐 (add sarcasm).   But again, Frostbite loved it, and was enjoying his new home.

When it snows and it gets cold, we can easily find ourselves caught up in a winter wonderland here.  This is a pic that my dad had taken some years ago.  This is from the waves crashing against the shore.

This is a beautiful sunset over the lake, taken by my daughter.

So yes…I am looking forward to the snow.  I always enjoy a white Christmas, but it isn’t always guaranteed.

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

Usually I do a repeat of Thanksgiving Dinner.  If we decide to visit family on Christmas day, I’ll do it on another day.  My family starts talking about Thanksgiving dinner starting in September, lol.  So they suggested that I do it all over again at Christmas, so I have been doing that for a couple of years now.  This past Thanksgiving my oldest son (19), came up to me after we ate and just hugged me and in a voice like he was crying said, “Mommy, dinner was so good…it was beautiful…what do you need me to do?….I’ll do what ever you ask me to do.” #goofball.

Since my husband’s parents are from the south, I had to learn how to make some of the southern dishes he grew up with.  A couple of years ago, I added home made Mac n Cheese to the menu.  When I first heard that Mac n Cheese was included in Thanksgiving dinner, I was a like what? I was picturing the blue box from Kraft, lol.  This is the all time favorite of the kids.  But here is what I cook, I don’t have pics to include, but I think we are all recovering from our sugar coma from reading about all the delicious cookies from yesterday’s posts, lol.

Turkey – not stuffed.  I cook mine in an electric roaster, takes a little longer, but it’s worth it.  If I do use the oven, I will use a cooking bag, can’t go wrong with a bag.

Ham – with pineapples and brown sugar glaze.  This I do the day before then I re-heat it in the crock pot with the glaze that it was cooked in.  Also my kids’ favorite.  I also do this in the electric roaster, and I pour Ginger Ale over the ham, attach the pineapple slices with toothpicks all over it.  Then I mix the pineapple juice with the brown sugar and pour it over the ham to cook, such a good flavor!!

Dressing – not stuffing.  This is what my husband is used to.  It is baked in the oven in a square pan.  The ingredients are, green pepper, celery, green onion, corn meal, bread cubes, hard boiled eggs (diced), chicken broth, seasoned with poultry seasoning.  The green pepper, onion and celery are boiled in the chicken broth until soft, then you add all the other ingredients and mix together, then put in a pan and put in the oven until lightly browned.  Served with cranberry sauce.

Two Veggies – Corn and Green Beans with Bacon.

Real Mashed Potatoes – One of my favorites.

Home Made Mac N Cheese – This actually has 3 kinds of cheese in it, including Velveeta (not sure if that’s real cheese or not, lol), Cheddar and Mozzarella.  I make one big pan, and it’s the first to go 🙂

Brown and Serve Dinner Rolls, and Hawiian Sweet Dinner Rolls.

I cannot believe how much work goes into such a big dinner, and to think years ago, people cooked most of their meals like this, with home made dishes.  I am not by any means a good cook, not my thing.  I have to have a recipe, I wish I could just throw things together and it turn out to be something, but I’m not that girl.  But what I have learned over the years makes my family happy, and I enjoy seeing the smiles on their faces, and notice they move a little slower when going for seconds. 🙂 Not to mention my middle son (13) saying, “This is the BEST meal ever.” Lol.

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.