
DAY 21 – BLOGMAS 2017 – OPEN OPEN OPEN

Then on Christmas Day we did Christmas morning and “Santa” with just the immediate family and then we would do a BIG turkey with all the trimmings including my dad’s stuffing and giblet gravy with ALL the family as well as extended family, which included crazy Aunt Louise (the corn flake wreath maker) and Uncle Herb who always brought us each a silver dollar.
I thought about this category a lot and decided that since we were still in transition in the HOUSE FROM HELL and our pictures from last year were less than stellar 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.
There are 3 recipes that come to mind here. The first is my OATNUT SOURDOUGH HERB DRESSING, a recreation of my dad’s cornbread dressing. Several years ago my brother asked me to try and reproduce the recipe as a scratch recipe and VOILA’, I did it! This wasn’t easy since daddy started with a box of Mrs. Cubbinson’s cornbread dressing cubes and then started winging it from there.
The second is crazy aunt Lousie’s Corn Flake Wreaths.
HOLIDAY WREATHS
(these are better when they are made a few days ahead)
30 large marshmallows (or 1 jar marshmallow cream)
1/2 cup butter
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 teaspoon green food color
3 1/2 cups cornflakes
Red Hots
The third is a fairly recent one for my Marinated Prime Rib.
MARINATED and SEASONED PRIME RIB
5 pound boneless beef rib roast
3/4 cup Mad Housewife Merlot wine
1 small Vidalia onion, sliced thin
1/4 cup water
1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
Avocado oil
*2 tablespoons Savory Spice Shop Hidden Cove Lemon Garlic Blend
*2 tablespoons Penzey’s English Prime Rib Rub
*1 teaspoon Penzey’s OR Savory Spice Shop’s Horseradish powder
*If you want a thicker rub add more spices making sure to keep these proportions.
CARAMEL BUTTERSCOTCH FUDGE
1 1/4 cup milk chocolate chips
1 1/4 cup butterscotch chips
1/2 cup Kraft caramel bits
1 can Eagle-Brand sweetened condensed milk
1/3 cup Fisher’s Cinnamon Pecans
This is Cinnamon Roll day too – YUMMY! One of my favorite days of the year. The recipe originally came from one of my favorite aunts who taught me a lot about art, cooking and just plain being creative. I have made a few minor updates to suit our tastes, but this recipe was ALL her and a secret that my cousin and I kept until the day she died.
ROLLS OF SHARON aka CINNAMON RAISIN BUNS
ROLLS
2 packages Fleischman’s Rapid Rise Yeast
1/2 cup + 2 teaspoons sugar
1/2 cup WARM water
1 cup scalded milk (2 minutes in the microwave)
1/2 cup Crisco stick
5 cups flour, divided
2 large eggs, well beaten
1 teaspoon salt
FILLING
1 stick melted butter
1 cup sugar
2 tablespoons cinnamon
1 teaspoon Pumpkin pie spice
1 cup golden raisins
ICING
1 stick butter, softened
3 3/4 cups powdered sugar
1 tablespoon powdered vanilla
4-6 tablespoons milk
When re-heating rolls, put a pad of butter on top of roll before microwaving.
These freeze really well.
I much prefer the recipe below. Shhhh, don’t tell anyone, but I have been known to eat a whole batch by myself. In my defense it was while I wasn’t feeling good and had a sore throat.
HOLIDAY SALAD
1 package (3 ounces) cherry Jell-o
1 package (3 ounces) black cherry Jell-o
1 1/2 cups boiling water
1 can (14 ounces) whole berry cranberry sauce
1 can (20 ounces) crushed pineapple, undrained
2 cups seedless green grapes, quartered
chopped pecans (optional)
Now on to the REALLY yummy stuff!
CHUNKY MONKEYS
3 cups crushed pretzels
1/2 cup sugar
scant 1 cup butter, melted
1/2 cup butter
1/2 cup whipping cream
1/4 cup packed brown sugar
11 ounce package caramel baking bits (or 14 ounce vanilla caramels, unwrapped)
2 cups honey roasted peanuts
1/2 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips
1/2 cup milk chocolate chips
1/2 cup peanut butter chips
1/2 cup butterscotch chips
3/4 cup Heath milk chocolate toffee bits
BUTTERFINGER COOKIES
Ritz crackers
creamy peanut butter
almond bark
sprinkles
A few more favorites are:
A few of the “things” I keep on hand (with a festive ribbon already tied to them) for those occasions are:
Here are a couple of recipes I make most years that are great to have around and NEVER EVER go to waste whether they are givien as gifts or eaten in house LOL.
CHOCOLATE PEANUT BUTTER FUDGE
1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips
1 cup peanut butter chips
1 cup milk chocolate chips
1 can Eagle-Brand sweetened condensed milk
1/3 cup Crushed Honey Roasted Peanuts
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.
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.
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.