Category: MISC

Funny story here – I had herb savers on my Amazon Christmas list for the past 2 years.  So this year I decided to buy myself a Christmas present and get the herb keepers so I could quit using a glass covered with a plastic bag.

So, a couple days ago, hubby holds up one of the new herb keepers and asks, what’s this?  So I begin explaining what an herb keeper is and he’s like, “No why did you buy them?”  Long story short he was getting them for me this year for Christmas.

Over the years I have made everything, and I do mean everything at one time or another to create a handmade Christmas. I’ve made rolls and rolls of butcher paper into wrapping paper, cut grocery bags into handmade tags, made enough fudge, candies and cookies to feed a small country, as well as jams, jellies, soup mixes and Snowman soup!

My award winning jams were requested one year at the Church Christmas Boutique and I ended up selling for another 10 years before we moved.  Now I make just enough for gifts for neighbors and family.  I started making Snowman Soup about 20 years ago for the girl scouts and it was a HUGE seller at our gift wrap days and later for the Church Boutique.

Last year I missed the big Christmas Crafts Festival at the fairgrounds because of an ice storm, but this year I made it!  For the things I didn’t make myself, I at least bought from local crafters.

As for receiving, I love ANYTHING handmade.  I’m a BIG believer that it’s the thought that counts and that caring action ALWAYS touches my heart though I’m partial to cotton crocheted dishcloths, my brothers photographs, my mom’s quilted totes and ANYTHING food.

This is another easy topic.  The one thing I am noticing as I type each entry is that by doing this, I am remembering so many silly stories and anecdotes about aunts, uncles, cousins and such that keep bringing a smile to my face.  These memories are part of what this season is all about to me.

I’d like to say that our table looked just like the one in the picture. Well Christmas day was close, but Christmas Eve was much more casual.

One of my earlier memories is of a very warm Christmas Day, a backed up sink/garbage disposal (I don’t think we ever had a holiday in that house where the garbage disposal didn’t have an issue of some sort) and having to transport all the prepared food from my parent’s house to my granparent’s house via my  grandmother’s RED (kind of like a Christmas sleigh) Chevy station wagon (remember those?) while my uncle and I sat in the back keeping the food from toppling over.

CHRISTMAS EVE – Served Buffet style since this was the night we did most of the present opening and the adults didn’t want to spend all their time in the kitchen – in later years we would have it catered (so to speak – they prepared the food, we picked it up and displayed it) from Rattler’s BBQ.  We also began to use “FINE CHINA” as hubs calls it aka as decorated paper.

• Sandwich makings – roast beef, ham, cheeses
• Potato Salad
• See’s Candy boxes
• Wintergreen ribbon candy
• Chocolate covered cherries

CHRISTMAS DAY – This is where we dug out the REAL fine china and crystal as well as the silver.  I loved setting the table for this meal. There were always enough people that we had a KID’S table too.  I hated the kid’s table – all the good stuff was sitting at the grown-up’s table.

• Roast Turkey
• Daddy’s Stuffing – now recreated from scratch to taste virtually the same as my Oatnut Sourdough Herb Dressing
• Mashed Potatoes from scratch – it was these potato peels that were one of the biggest garbage disposal problems
• Giblet Gravy
• Cranberry Sauce – they used Ocean Spray from a can but we now use one of these 2 homemade recipes – Cranberry or Cranberry Pomegranate Tangerine
• Baked Ham – in later years it was always HONEYBAKED HAM and I loved making Split Pea soup with the left over bone.
• Glazed Carrots
• Green Bean Casserole
• Gran’s cranberry salad – she’d make two, one for mom and aunt Liz and one for everone else.
• Rolls and butter
• Traditional pies like pumpkin, Cherry and as well as Cherry Pineapple Dump Cake.

When we go to my SIL’s family for Christmas (or any other big family get together)  we do Hor’deouvres style.   The family is so big that over the years we have found that if each person brings an hor’deouvres to feed 10+ people that we can make a HUGE feast.  We just serve it buffet style and mingle and play – it is ALWAYS the best time.  

More entries over at Diary of a Stay at Home Mom’s BLOGMAS.

• Silent Night
• White Christmas
• Jingle Bell Rock
• Winter Wonderland
• Frosty the Snowman
• Little Drummer Boy
• The twelve days of Christmas
• Deck the Halls
• Come All Ye Faithful
• It Came upon a Midnight Clear
• We three Kings of Orient 
• Joy to the World
• Rudolph the Reindeer
• Do You Hear What I Hear
• The Most Wonderful Time of Year
• It’s Beginning to Look a lot like Christmas
• Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer

Christmas is the most important holiday to me and not because Santa comes, though that is pretty important to the kiddos, but more importantly, it’s a caring spirit, a sharing feeling, an attitude that I try to practice all year long.  I truly feel good about giving – whether it’s the Angel trees I select gifts for or the smile from the Salvation Army bell ringer as you put your money in their red bucket and wish them Merry Christmas.

For 10 years I chaired an Angel Tree Program for FISH and I loved doing it! I prepared for it every year and I truly believe each year got better and better.  The night before we distributed the gifts I would go shopping for the teenage girls.  We were ALWAYS lacking in gifts for the teen girls no matter what we tried to boost things up for them.  So now when I choose the angels from the trees in the community I seek out the teenage girls specifically.

Christmas means lots and lots of memories of family, some no longer with us, but always in my heart when I hang an ornament they made especially for me like my cousin Beth who we lost in October or a recipe that they always prepared like my dad’s Oatnut Sourdough Herb Dressing or Gram’s Christmas box full of goodies picked out just for each one of us or…

One of the things I try to practice is to make at least one homemade gift each year – nothing extravagant, but just something that says “I MADE THIS with LOVE JUST FOR YOU”.

The years that I host Christmas include a lot of family recipes.  LOL coming up on the 10th I’ll share an anecdote about crazy Aunt Louise and her recipe that truly became a family favorite among us kids.  They were addicting and one year she made them for me as a Christmas in July at the 4th of July pool party she hosted.

This year I’m making Tangerine Pineapple Apple Sauce to include with each person’s gift.

But most importantly, Christmas is the spirit of Love and Giving and it must be felt and shared. Christmas is a gift from above and each year as I grow older I realize more and more that Christmas is about Love, Peace, Sharing, Caring and just being together.

More entries over at Diary of a Stay at Home Mom’s BLOGMAS. BLOGMAS 2014 DAY 2