The Christmas celebrating started days before Christmas with the baking. Brody and I spent countless hours in the kitchen putting together yummy treats to share. Making sugary treats is a big deal around our house! Scott and I gave up sugar in August and this is really the first time we've had 'junk' food like cookies and sweets. Brody was such a fun baking partner. He loves to cook! I think he is pretty good at it. I treasure the time we got to spend together in the kitchen.
We made peanut butter cookies with kisses, peanut butter fudge, cranberry banana bread and Rolo pecan pretzels. Some of it was eaten, but most of it was given away as gifts. We also made dry cranberry hootie creek cookie mix for gifts.
Gaven came down to stay a few days before Christmas and got drafted to the cooking team. He didn't seem to mind. I think he and Brody ate as much as they baked.
Part of the holiday baking included some special treats for the Singleton family. For 20 years, Scott and his sister, Carrie, have traded a ceramic rocking horse cookie jar back and forth. It was made by their grandmother. Somehow, it became a tradition that every few years, one of them gifts it to the other. It always happens in some funny way. Currently, the rocking horse cookie jar is in our possession. Scott wasn't ready to gift it back to the Singletons, but he wanted to remind them we still have it and are somehow plotting it's return. He decided we would make rocking horse shaped cookies. I ordered a cookie cutter from Amazon and Brody and I set to work making sugar cookies.
It took some work to figure out a few things: how thin to roll the dough, how closely the cookies could be cut and that we could, in fact, bake them on wax paper. The shape turned out pretty good, I thought. We used the cookies that didn't exactly come out right for taste testing. They even tasted good!
After we baked them, we had to decorate them. I found a recipe for sugar cookie icing and off we went. I wanted them to look like the actual rocking horse, so I unpacked it so I had a model.
Behold, the rocking horse! (It does have a lid. You can see the edge in the bottom right of the picture.)
I mixed up some shades of brown. I made yellow icing and I tried to get orange, but it ended up looking more pink. There were many fails in the initial attempts. I first thought I would put the icing in the piping bag. Brody tried to tell me the icing was too thin for the piping bag, but I didn't listen. Turns out he was right. There were plenty of failed artistic renderings. Those cookies became our tasters. No one complained about having to taste test. I finally settled on hand painting the cookies with a paint brush. It was a painstaking process, but I was pretty proud of the way they turned out. (The Singletons opened them a few days later and thought it was a funny funny gift!)
With the Christmas baking done, it was time to get on with the festivities. On Christmas Eve, we headed to Johnson City to spend time with Nan and Pap. We enjoyed a very thoughtful lunch. Nan had thought through everyone's favorites and that's what she made. Steaks for Brody, sweet potatoes and deviled eggs for Scott, broccoli cheese casserole for me...the list goes on. It was such a yummy meal. We also opened presents. I didn't take any pictures while we were there! Mom took a few and shared them with me.
After opening presents and having some dessert, we went to Keith and Sarah's for a visit. It is always so good to see them. They opened their gifts from Mom and Dad and we talked for a bit before we had to head back to Knoxville.
Christmas Day is quite different from what it used to be. Scott and I didn't stay up half the night to wrap presents and get everything under the tree. Everything was wrapped before Christmas Eve. The kids stayed up late and we went to bed, so Santa didn't deliver packages until Christmas morning, but the kids were still asleep so it didn't matter. They got out of bed mid-morning and came down to open presents. I also didn't take any pictures of this. But I do have a picture of the tree on Christmas morning after Santa made the delivery.
I do have a few pictures of the aftermath. Both the boys stretched out on the couch after opening all the gifts and began playing with their new AirPods.
My favorite gift was the start of my very own Christmas Village! This was one of the few things I asked Santa to bring. He delivered the house and characters from A Christmas Story! It is such a perfect start to my Christmas Village. I can't wait to add more pieces.
While Scott and Brody worked on computer stuff, I went back to the kitchen and made chocolate chip cookies. They are my favorite cookie. We make them every single year. It became tradition many years ago so we could leave out cookies for Santa. They were so good. We all love chocolate chip cookies. I'm pretty sad they disappeared so quickly!
We enjoyed dinner at home, just the 4 of us. I fixed a ham that had been gifted to us, Mac and cheese, mashed potatoes and we warmed up some left overs from Nan's. It was a lot of food and we had a lot of leftovers.
The day after Christmas, we headed to Sevierville to see Bo-Bo and Gramma and the Singleton family. We couldn't have asked for a more beautiful day. It felt more like spring than the end of December. We had lots of yummy food, all prepared by Gary and Debbie. After we ate, we all went outside to the gazebo and opened gifts there. It was a really lovely day with some lovely people. I took very few pictures here too. I guess I just spent Christmas trying to soak it all in. :) Thankfully, Carrie took pictures and shared them with me! It is hard to believe these babies are all grown up. They had a fun day together shooting Bo-Bo's BB guns.
In the days since, Brayden and Scott have been working on Brayden's big gift: new headers for his car. This means his car is partially disassembled in the garage. They've spent hours working on it. I think they are almost done. I'm not sure what headers do or what they are for, but Brayden was super excited about this gift. I did grab a picture of them working on the car together.
I'd say "together" was the theme of this Christmas. I am so grateful for the time we got to spend with our families and with each other this holiday season.
One other exciting development in our house: My Christmas cactus bloomed for the first time ever! I bought it last year and it was nearly dead. Somehow, it has not only survived, but grown and thrived! It bloomed over Christmas. There are three big beautiful blooms that popped out. It blooms a little more each day. We've never had great success with plants, so I am pretty proud of this development.
I'm looking forward now to 2022 and wondering what new adventures it will hold. This time of year always makes me feel simultaneously reflective and anticipating. I am so grateful for this amazing life I'm living with my beautiful little family. 💖
No comments:
Post a Comment