Holidays

Christmas Cookies for Breakfast!  Yuuummmm — it truly IS the most wonderful time of the year.

The house is all quiet now — SweetiePie and the boys haven’t arrived yet, and TheManoftheHouse is out running Christmas errands, so I thought I’d sneak in a quick visit here in ThimbleannaLand.  We only managed to get four of our standard Christmas Cookies baked this year — Lemon Gems, Raisin Filled, Grandma Hill’s Browned Butter, and the we-can’t-live-without-cookie, Angel Slices.   MyDadLovesMeBestSister is baking the cut-out sugar cookies as we speak and we’ll decorate them tonight.   I’m hoping to sneak in some quick shortbread cookies tomorrow morning — just in time for Santa.

And, guess what else we’ll be doing tonight?

Yipee — the annual Family Gingerbread House Competition!  The teams have been drawn and there’s been some advanced planning.  Late last night, while sitting in the glow of the Spaceship Christmas Tree, I was reading over the gingerbread competition re-cap from last year.  It’s hard to see how we’ll top the last few years, but I’m really excited to see what everyone dreams up!

Ok, time’s up!   Wishing you the Very Merriest Christmas!  I hope you all have a holiday filled with family and friends, love and laughter, and LOTS of magic!

XOXO,
Anna

Ahhh. We’re finally starting to show some Christmas progress around here. The baking has officially begun with a small batch of caramels. I used the recipe for Fleur De Sel Caramels from Ms. Humble.

This recipe is a keeper – it’s fabulous.  I love that little bit of salt with the buttery sweetness. Packed into cellophane bags, they’ll make a nice little gift for friends.

The rest of the weekend was spent wrapping up the Christmas decor. I finally finished the big tree in our family room. Every year we have trouble with the lights and TheManoftheHouse has to fiddle with them and find out which little bulbs are causing a malfunction here or there. So this year, while he was out shopping, he called and said he’d found a good price for LED lights.  Oh Yay.

So, now the tree is all done and here I sit in the spaceship glow of LED Christmas lights. I. Hate. Them. Everytime I walk into the room, I have to resist the urge to throw my arms in the air and scream “Take Me To Your Leader!” Here are the top three reasons why LED lights suck (you know, aside from the whole alien thing):

• The lights are spaced almost twice as closely together as regular lights. Which means, you’ll have roughly twice as many lights on your tree as you would have with regular lights.  No wonder the tree is glowing.
• There are twice as many yellow and red lights as green and blue. That’s ’cause LED lights are “cool” lights, not “warm” lights. I’m betting they could put three or four times as many yellow and red lights and there would still be a blue hue to the tree.
• They’re fugly. Fuh. glee. They might be ok on a little one-string tree, but on a big tree, it’s not pretty. And I can’t even put a paper bag over it.
   

My favorite thing to do during the holidays is sit in front of the Christmas tree, late at night when everything is quiet and peaceful.  I can’t do that this year though — I’m afraid I’ll end up on Mars.  Which actually, fits right in with the week ahead.  Brace yourselves … we’re about to hit warp speed heading to the weekend!

XOXO,
Anna

I hope your weekend is filled with bunnies, eggs and lots of chocolate!

XOXO,
Anna