My House at Christmas!

(The tree, without any gifts! I'll be on that soon!)

Now that my house is all done up for Christmas I thought I would share with you what it looks like over here this time of the year. I'd have to say that Christmas decorating is one of my favorite types of decorating. I love all the rich colors and glitter and berries, and stockings, and getting to be a bit like a kid again. I start early, getting everything up mid November and leaving it up a couple of weeks into January. I mean, it is a lot of effort and why not really get to enjoy it right?

The bathroom

Out in the hall

In the front "foyer"

A couple of "candy" ornament bowls for the living room

The wreath on the outside door

The wreath in the hallway

A couple of ornaments for the bathroom as well

Of course a couple of plush decorations are always good too! (I made the mistake of putting them up there when Ollie was looking. He's been trying to get up there for the last three day!)

Of course the stockings and advent calendar

The center pieces for the dinning room table

Making Our Own Gingerbread House

So we decided this year we were going to try to make our own ginger bread house. We make one every year but we usually just get a kit and do it from there. I figured I'm a pretty crafty person, and I like baking so why not? So far I've made the dough, and cut everything out and it's in the oven. I'll give you some photos and play by play of the finished product but I thought I'd share the recipes and video I followed so you can get started too!

They make it look pretty easy and fun right? Not quite so easy, but still a lot of fun!

Gingerbread Recipe

1/2 cup butter, margarine or shortening
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup molasses
2 1/2 cups flour
1 teaspoons cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon cloves
1 teaspoons baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/3 cup water


In a large mixing bowl beat butter until softened. Add sugar and beat until fluffy - at least three minutes. Add molasses and beat well. Combine dry ingredients and add to the batter a little at a time, mixing in each addition. You will have to use your hands to work in the last additions (Bake at 350 for 12-15 minutes)

Note: This is enough for a small gingerbread house. Double the recipe if you want something bigger or you want the walls thicker



Royal Icing For Decorating Gingerbread House

1 lb. powdered sugar
1 tsp. cream of tartar
3 egg whites

Beat all ingredients until very stiff. Use as glue for assembling house. Icing will harden as it sits, so add a few drops of water as needed. Use assorted candies to decorate house

Our Christmas Traditions

I love Christmas (if you haven’t already noticed!) and I love all the traditions. When I was little we had all sorts of things we did together and I love carrying some of those over to now, being all grown up and having my own place. I know it’s more something you do when you have kids but it makes just as much sense to do it now, just me and Marshall, because really why not? Memories are memories, and why not have something to hold on to every year? Something to look forward to because you know it’s one of your traditions?! So, I thought -in case you don’t have a lot or any of your own, or if you’re looking for a few more- I would share ours!

Do a movie marathon (we have homemade baking, watch at least 5 movies and this year we’re ordering in Chinese food)

Spend a few nights doing a lot of Christmas baking (you’ve seen my list, it’s pretty long this year!)

Put up the tree and decorate the house (always in November so that we can enjoy it for as long as possible)

Come up with all sorts of stocking gifts and open those first (sometimes on Christmas Eve)

Watch at least one Christmas movie

Go to at least one Christmas service at Church (our church has special services all December)

See some sort of play or musical over the winter season (with my mom)

Go to the Festival of Trees & Lights

Check out the Gingerbread House Contest at The Forks

Drive around and see all the houses decorated

Make a gingerbread house or tree (with my mom)

Have at least one homemade traditional meal complete with turkey, stuffing, mash potatoes and all the other fixings

New tradition this year:

Buy a holiday hand soap from Bath & Body Works (we’re usually the all natural bar soap type of people but I got one from a girl friend and I have to say it is a really nice treat)

Do you have any special traditions? I’m looking to add a few more and I’d love to hear them!!

First Christmas Gift of the Year!!

My Co-worker brought this for me today! No real reason, just because someone had given it to her and she likes dark chocolate better and knows I'm into organic food! Pretty nice right? I'm so excited to try it!

BPA Free plastic wear at Dollarama

If you're like me and are trying to find better storage containers and don't like the idea of using plastic because you worry about all the leaching, but don't want to spend an arm and a leg replacing everything I just discovered (after I bought them) that Dollarama has BPA free "Tupperware". I needed some more containers for all my Christmas baking and this works out perfectly! Just thought I'd pass it on!

Whipped Shortbread Maraschino Cherry Cookies

Ok, so I found another recipe I'm adding to the Christmas baking list! But why not right? It's always nice to have a couple of new items in there, new treats each year!

Ingredients

• 1 cup butter
• 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1/2 cup confectioners' sugar
• 12 maraschino cherries

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (180 degrees C.)
2. Combine butter or margarine, flour and confectioner's sugar and beat for 10 minutes.
3. Drop from teaspoon onto cookie sheet. Decorate with maraschino cherry pieces.
4. Bake in preheated oven for 15 to 18 minutes, or until bottoms are lightly browned.

(One thing I'm going to add though is a little chocolate drizzle on top. I think chocolate and cherries are just meant to be together so why keep them apart!)

Christmas Score

For those of you that were wondering, here is how I made out over Christmas with my Wish List...


The London Fog jacket I wanted (from my dad)

Wall-e (From Marshall)

A knife sharpener (From Marshall)


A food processor (from the in laws)


2 amazon gift cards! (one from my sister, and one from my brother in law) and I ordered the cooking book I wanted!

Metal bowls (from my mom)

This really nice heap cream & necklace (from my sister)



AND we bought ourselves a Macbook Pro!!

Baking Blitz: Chocolate Chip Cookies All The Way From Oz

When I lived in Australia a friend of mine there gave me this recipe. I don’t know why but I’ve always had a hard time getting the basic chocolate chip cookie right- not to soft, not too hard, but oh so good.

With this recipe I never have trouble and I end up with some soft (if I want them that way) oh so tasty cookies!

1 cup Butter
¾ cup Sugar
¾ cup Brown Sugar
2 Eggs
1 tsp Baking Soda (dissolved in 1 tsp Hot Water)
1 tsp Salt
Vanilla
1 cup Oats
2 ½ cup Flour
1 cup Chocolate Chips

Heat oven to 350. Cream together butter and both sugars. Add eggs, baking soda, and vanilla. Add the flour, mix until smooth. Add the oat and chocolate chips.

Tip: I usually add cinnamon to my cookie mix; it adds a nice subtle flavour.

Have any good ideas, or substitutes for this....share them, leave a comment, I’d love to hear from you!!

4th Annual Movie Marathon

My husband and I have a movie marathon every year for Christmas. It’s a tradition we started when we started dating and we’ve done it now for four years.

Throughout the year we write down movies when they come up that we want to see, or old movies that we want to see again. We pick 5-6 movies and spend a whole day watching. This year we upped the excitement a bit and opened a gift each and got a little more serious and had appetizers and Sucre A Crème & Skor Fruit Dip with apples (I’ll be posting that recipe soon!).

So I figured I would share our picks, and some great options for holidays appetizers

We watched this one last year too, and Marshall really liked it. I liked it but really didn’t feel like watching it again so Marshall (because he usually wakes up earlier then me either when we sleep in) watched it first thing without me, which I was totally ok with.

Marshall loves animated movies and cars, so there really was no fighting this one. www.pixar.com/featurefilms/cars

We saw the Broadway show of this and loved it! www.lesmis.com Marshall hasn’t even seen the movie so it was a “must” for the list this year, and I had forgotten how good it is!!

I was told this movie was super funny, but honesty, I didn’t find it that funny. I don’t see kids beating up adults and vice versa really funny (I know, I’m taking a joke too seriously, but I really don’t like the message of it you know?) www.fourchristmasesmovie.com

Can’t say I loved this movie, it moved sort of slow to me and it was gory in a mean sort of way, but I guess that was the point?

I didn’t realize that this movie was more like a documentary but I still really liked it and I would highly recommend the sound track! www.oncesoundtrack.com

And of course the appetizers!! We got then all from Superstore. Normally I’m not one for frozen appetizers, I find they can be a little sketchy, but these were really good! www.pc.ca

What If Our Houses Were Really Made Of Gingerbread?

Every year my family makes a gingerbread house. When we were in Califorinia one year we couldn’t find a house kit so we made a tree! It was still pretty cool.

I just recently learnt that the white house has a tradition of doing a gingerbread house each year, so I thought I would include one of those!

This year we are going to make a train...not sure how well we will do. (I think this might even be the one my mom bought!)

This is the house we made last year...not the best every but we’re working our way up, better and better each year.

For those of you that were really curious what it would be like if our houses were readying made of gingerbread this was the closest example I could find.

AND if you really love gingerbread get yourself one of these candles and you’ll have the wonderful spiced smell for hours!! You can find this at www.etsy.com/shop/blisscandles