Merry Christmas to One and All

Our schedules for the month of December are always packed with concerts, rehearsals and church activities which means there is little time for baking until the last few days before Christmas.  As soon as school lets out for the holidays, Chris, Sarah and Jonathan usually begin their culinary treats.  This year Chris made his mother's fudge and tried a new white chocolate bark with cranberries and pecans (one of my new favorites).  The kids continued the family tradition by making their grandmother's chocolate-covered peanut butter balls (one of my old favorites).

Christmas Eve morning we hit the ground running.  On the agenda were pies, dips, cheese balls and a congealed salad my mother always made at Christmas.  A ham needed to bake and some other prep work to do ... plus, 6:00pm and 10:30pm Christmas Eve services to attend and sing for which meant some practice time should also fit into the day somewhere.

And you know what?  Although the day could have been a frantic mess, everything was done and with time to spare.  Both Christmas Eve services were packed, we sang and visited with dear friends, heard a wonderful message, made a 1:00am stop at the local Waffle House (a new tradition), and arrived back home so Santa could do his thing.  Bedtime didn't happen until about 2:30am but we were able to catch up on the shut eye last night.

Christmas night was just us ... children played with their new "toys", we watched a favorite show rerun on PBS and all of us were picking and nibbling at the leftovers.  Today brought a girl's day out at the movies and a quiet dinner at home followed by a couple of rousing games of "Scene It" and "Buzzword".  A fun evening hanging out with my three favorite people.  Loved it ... wish there were a lot more evenings like this.

Unfortunately for my bathroom scales there are still a few too many leftovers on the premises for me to be picking and nibbling on but that's why they created New Year's resolutions, right?

One nice discovery from the holidays ... boiled custard makes the BEST coffee creamer!