1.
Best Childhood Memories: My favorite memories of Christmas as I look back is how our family always spent the holidays with our grandparents and extended family. My paternal grandparents hosted dinner for their 3 sons and their families and I have many fond memories of these dinners....the smell of the turkey, my grandmother's mashed carrots, the sounds of my Grandfather carving the turkey with an electric knife and the shouts of "Merry Christmas!" that rang through the house as each family arrived and the stomping of snow off of boots. And after our Christmas dinner with
my paternal grandparents, my parents would pack us up for an hour long drive to visit our maternal grandparents where we would spend the night and I would share a bed with my cousin Kelly. My maternal grandparents had 6 children....3 married and with families of their own......to pack into their house over the holidays which meant lots of noisy commotion and laughter. Warm memories and happy times. {as a side note: Don't you LOVE my dad's shirt (he is the man on the right).....it is
so vintage 1970's}.
2.
Best Childhood gift from Santa: My dolls. I absolutely loved DOLLS as a little girl. My very favorite doll for a long time was
Thumbelina. I also remember other dolls received for Christmas that I cherished: Baby Alive, Lazy Daisy and Baby This n That. I was never really a 'barbie girl' although I owned a few.
3. Favorite Christmas Cookie: Hands down: My mother's cut out sugar cookies.....warm from the oven.
4. Icky Christmas Memory: The year that me, my brother and my dad were all sick with pneumonia. I think we were all too sick to eat our turkey dinner and we missed a family sleigh ride....my mother was the only healthy person in the house that year.
5. It's not Christmas without: Our knitted Christmas stockings, homemade eggnog and English Trifle for dessert on Christmas Day.
6. Christmas Pet Peeve: Those who brag about how much they spend/buy for Christmas....as if that has anything to do with the Christmas spirit. We keep Christmas simple in this house: 1 gift from Santa and a stocking.
7. Our Church Service: Is usually the 4pm service. However, in the last few years we have not attended. I would love to attend Midnight Mass now that my family is a little older....if I could manage to stay up that late!
8. My Favorite Christmas CD: I enjoy the classics at Christmas...Bing Crosby is a must. The last few years I have been buying the Starbucks Christmas CD and we so LOVE the music on these cds. For instance, the first song on this year's CD is a duet with Willie Nelson and Norah Jones singing "Baby, it's Cold Outside". A fun combination, don't you think?
9.
Real or Fake: Although we did REAL for many years, we have now switched to fake. I do like the fact that there are no sticky needles tracked all over the house with a fake tree. But I still LOVE a fresh tree.
10.
I spend Christmas Eve: with my family. We enjoy staying home, having
hors 'deuves for dinner, sipping eggnog and putting on our Christmas
jammies early. I will usually read a Christmas story or two with the kids and then we leave out cookies and milk for Santa.After everyone has gone to bed....I turn out all the lights except for the Christmas tree lights and have a cup of hot tea and remember beloved family members that have passed on.....and then my thoughts turn to Baby Jesus.
This post was inspired by the lovely & talented Sarah over at
Clover Lane.
by the talents of the women in the blogging community. Blogging has become an unbelievable forum for creative hearts to share their projects. Look at this "altered" candy caddy. I can see myself making one of these in the near future...maybe Valentine's Day....it's just so darn cute! This project was made by Jess over at "The Macs".
The beautiful fabric scrapbook above was made by Cari Fennell and shown on her blog, "Me and My Mary Janes".
This fabulous apron made by Donna Downey who scrapbooks, paints and now sews. You can view her blog here. I was lucky enough to meet Donna at a scrapbook convention a few years ago and I was a teaching assistant for one of her classes.
Meet Space Boy and Robot. Camille over at "Simplify" made these for her little boys for Christmas. Aren't they the cutest? Camille is a talented quilter...to say the least. Her home is also beautiful!
It's Menu Plan Monday again...(except that it's Tuesday already!) and I took a peek through my freezer to see what could become this week's menu. Yesterday I found the package of 5 lbs. of chicken I got on sale for $6.73 at the local grocery store. The price works out to about $1.50 a pound, which is an extremely good price for chicken. I got out my stock pot and made a huge pot of homemade chicken soup. I keep my chicken soup very simple and classic..chicken, fine egg noodles and carrots. We ate soup for dinner last night and then it went into the kids' lunch today.