With ALL that has been going on this past year I feel just plain lucky to be able to decorate.  So, when it came right down to it I decorated simply and am really happy about it.

I thought about this category a lot and decided that since we were still in transition in the HOUSE FROM HELL our pictures from last year were less than stellar. So I decided to share the pictures from 2014 with you.

These pictures from the  Festival of Lights we used to do each year is now over 20 years old and a great way to kick off the holiday season. It’s ALL Volunteer and NON-Profit.  It began as a fundraiser sponsored by the Rotary Club to help get the city out of debt and then took on a life of its own and now helps with scholarships and special projects. The festival runs every night from Thanksgiving to New Years.  You can drive your own car or take a horse drawn carriage ride through the displays.  They have also coordinated a local radio station to listen to as you view the displays.  The night we went through the fog was moving in early so a few of the pictures look a bit “smoky”.

As of 2014 they had the world’s tallest (41 feet, 16,000 pounds with  working jaw) nutcracker built by a local company, 500,00 lights, 90 animated displays, 3D displays, horse drawn carriage rides through the displays and a Holiday Village with Santa, hot cider with a bake sale and a synchronized light show in the courtyard.  The displays depict fairy tales, the military, patriotism, the local logging industry, local vineyards, local fishing and the traditional Christmas songs and scenes.  People come from all over to see it. Unfortunately for locals, it doesn’t change much, but is still fun every few years.

Three of my favorite munchkins from next door were coincidentally there the same night we were so had to snap a few pictures of the discussions with Santa.

Even the lights with errors turned out cute.  It was difficult to get great pictures or continuous pictures of the animated scenes since there were so many cars behind us.

This snowman is on a corner in our neighborhood hugging a light standard.

I’ve updated last year’s list.

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

So, a couple days before Christmas 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 for Christmas.

So we had our first Christmas dinner last weekend and long story short the prime rib was more medium than medium rare because my OLD meat thermometers, yes both of them were really old and one failed completely and the other one clouded so it could no longer be read and we ended up with meat cooked a bit more than we like.  The next day I ordered a new digital one from Amazon and last night I pulled it out to test the chicken I was cooking and hubby was like, “where did that come from?” I’m still LMBO, he had gone and bought one for my stocking the day before.

This year we are forgoing BIG gifts and doing stockings only since this house is eating up all our disposable cash so fast! We are planning a trip for late spring to compensate.

❄ Top 2 Winter Beauty Essentials

• A NICE HOT SHOWER to relax and clean out the pores.
• A super moisturizer to keep away dry skin!

❄ Top 2 Winter Fashion Essentials

• I’m with Sandra on this!  I wait ALL year for it to be cold enough to bring out the boots!
• Scarves and gloves.  I have color combos to match anything.

❄ Favorite Winter Accessory

• HATS!!!!

❄ Favorite Winter Nail Polish

• Red for Christmas, but normally a pinky mauve. I just have too much red in my complexion to pull off many colors.

❄ Hot Cocoa or Apple Cider?

• Homemade hot cocoa and MUST have marshmallows/

❄ Favorite Winter Candle?

• Apple and Cinnamon

❄ Snowboarding or Skiing?

• Neither, but hot cocoa or a hot toddy while watching others is good.

❄ Have you ever gone Ice Skating? Are you any good or do you FAIL miserably?

• I’ve been, but don’t like the single blade thing much.  I’m much better at roller skating.

❄ Does it snow where you live?

• Not really, we got one day of snow last year, or rather, one hour of snow and it didn’t stick at all. I can’t wait to be back somewhere it does though.

❄ Have you ever made a snowman?

• Absolutely!

WOW this is a HUGE category!  One of my new favorite recipes is from just this year.  Some friends took us to lunch at Jack Allen’s Kitchen when we were visiting in Round Rock this past summer and the food was SOOOOOOOOO good that I bought the cook book and have been experimenting ever since.

One of our favorite new recipes is for pimento cheese spread made from scratch.  I made some last week and wanted to use it for this past Saturday’s 1st Christmas dinner, but didn’t want the mess of a knife and cracker crumbs so I decided to try and make a fun new way to serve it.

I had some fresh pecans and decided to grind them fine.  Then I rolled the cheese spread into small balls and then rolled each one in the pecans.  I chilled them overnight and then used toothpicks for serving. Sorry I didn’t get a picture when they were on the pretty plate.

PIMIENTO CHEESE
8 ounces softened cream cheese
1/2 pound Monterey Jack cheese, grated
1/2 pound Medium Cheddar cheese, grated
1 cup Duke’s mayonnaise
1 large Red Bell Pepper, washed, seeded, roasted and chopped fine
1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
1 teaspoon Sherry Vinegar*
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt

• Mix together the cream cheese, mayonnaise, Worcestershire sauce, Vinegar and salt until smooth.
• Blend in the grated Monterey Jack cheese and grated Cheddar cheese.
• Fold in bell pepper until well distributed.
• Chill well.
• Serve with crackers.

*I didn’t have any so I used Golden Balsamic Vinegar

We also love to make VAMPIRE SLAYER ARTICHOKE BREAD and cut it into small bites for appetizers. OMG This appetizer replaces any entree – it’s ooey, gooey, cheesy and literally melts in your mouth all the while tantalizing your taste buds from the very first bite!

VAMPIRE SLAYER ARTICHOKE BREAD Adapted from Crumb
2 tablespoons butter
2 cloves garlic, minced fine

Another of our go to “PARTY” foods that I tend to only make at Christmas time is Cowgirl kisses.

COWGIRL KISSES
8 ounces cream cheese
2 tablespoons Foothill Salad Seasoning
1 slice bacon per pepper
Jalapeno Peppers
Raspberry Chipotle Sauce (see below)

• • Mix cream cheese and Foothill Salad Seasoning until well blended.

• • Clean and remove seeds from peppers.

• • Fill peppers.

• • Wrap each pepper with a slice of bacon.

• • Bake or grill over low heat until bacon is crisp.

• Serve with raspberry chipotle sauce. 

RASPBERRY CHIPOTLE SAUCE 
1 cup Raspberry Jam 
2 tablespoons diced chipotle peppers
2 tablespoons soy sauce
2 tablespoons apple cider or rice wine vinegar 

• • Whisk all ingredients until well blended.

• • Chill until ready to serve.  

• Warm before serving.

I LOVE advent calendars, but haven’t done one in many of years.  So I thought I’d give you a little history today on the advent calendar instead of showing you what I don’t have. Here are a couple of examples I found on google images.

Traditional advent calendars depict winter in general and feature manger scenes or Jolly old Saint Nick.  In today’s modern world though you can find them ranging in theme from sports to technology, from disposable to reusable. Some are window styled with each day being a pane of the window.  In some of the more elaborate calendars the pane opens into a box that holds a small toy trinket or a piece of candy. The windows often have a bible verse in each one.

Today’s prompt is Quiet Christmas or Family Filled Loud Party.  Once again this depends on the year, how much family is close by and such.  I would PREFER a large, loud family filled Christmas with lots of goodies and partying.

Stuffing stockings is one of my favorite things to do.  I’m always on the look out for special little items that I tuck away all year long waiting for just this day. Since the kids are grown, hubby gets my full attention and he hates it (sort of) because he isn’t as good at it, but he tries hard and is getting better every year. Again this year his will be full of ALL sorts of fun stuff again including some of his new favorite flavors of Dr. McGullicuddys! This is a picture from last year

This was last year:

• 2 new Wii U games (Amazon had an awesome Black Friday sale I could do from home in my PJ’s)
• fun snacks – M&Ms, cashews, pistachios and DILL peanuts.
• some camo carbiners
• some camo notepads
• an Army magnet
• new winter gloves
• Mason jar shot glasses so he’ll quit using my REAL mason jars
• a couple of additional watchband choices to accessorize one of his gifts from mom
• .50 caliber pocket knife
• lottery tickets