New Year's Eve Menu

I surveyed my guys to see what they wanted for our New Year's Eve Feast. Here's the run-down:

* Steamed Shrimp
* Potato Wedges
* Mozzarella Cheese Sticks
* Jalapeno Chips
* Bugles
* Chocolate & Raspberry Ice Creams with Chocolate Sprinkles
* Merry Mocha Nog
* Assorted Sodas

And for entertainment, we have the movies "Mr. Magorium's Toy Emporium" and "Miracle" lined up. (Two movies is being ambitious - M. and I probably won't make it through the first one before we're dozing.)

Happy New Year 2011!

Celebrating Christmas In A "Magazine"

(My lovely sister in red who creatively and lovingly made her home into a holiday "lay-out" for others to enjoy.)

Happy Christmas Faces

Eli, happy with his headphones. Even happier when he discovered they connected to a new keyboard.


Ben, paging through his Hebrew-Greek Key Study Bible.


Farmer Caleb wearing his new Farm-All hat.

Merry Christmas to All!

Thrifting

Did a little thrifting earlier in the week. My favorite find? A small pile of lovely fabrics ranging in size from 1/4 of a yard to a yard and in price from 25 cents to a dollar. I love how someone took the time to roll it and neatly tie it. Right now the pile is sitting on a pretty blue platter next to my bed where I can enjoy the harmony of the colors and prints.

Other finds:
* a handful of vintage Christmas cards and several springtime notecards
* three December 2010 magazines - Christmas issues
* a panel of fabric Christmas ornaments to cut out and stitch
* a tiny, day-old Hershey chocolate chip cheesecake (for free!)

A successful thrifting day in my book!

Preparing Gifts

Looking for different ways to prepare gifts? Here are a few:

This summer at the cabin we finished burning a large citronella candle in a bucket. M. gave it to me thinking that I could come up with some idea for it once it was cleaned up. After popping a vintage Christmas hankie into it, the bucket made a perfect container to fill with goodies for a friend - snowman cupcake liners, apple simmering potpourri, candy-cane flavored tea, a bottle of citrus linen spray and a package of mint chocolate chunks with a reproduction of a Christmas postcard tucked in.


This is a gift my friend delivered to me yesterday afternoon - what a treat! She rolled down the sides of a brown bag and added a bow to it before filling it with goodies - a loaf of her bread, a bar of homemade peppermint soap and a devotional wrapped in a Christmas tea towel tied with raffia and two packets of holiday tea.


I usually give my aunts and uncles a jar of homemade apple butter - it makes a nice presentation to cut out a circle of Christmas fabric and add it to the top.


I found a small pile of these reproductions of old Christmas cards somewhere or other and used several this year as gift tags with a note on the back.

Hand-Drawn Christmas Cards

For the past few years we have been among the select few who have received a Christmas card from our friend and neighbor, Ken. These aren't just any Christmas cards but lovely, hand-drawn creations of wildlife - a bear last year and a buck this one. When anyone sees his return address in the mail around Christmastime, there's a scuffle to see who can open it first. This year after receiving our card, Eli felt inspired to draw his own wildlife creation of a moose to send to Ken. I think it turned out quite well.

Christmas in Skunk Hollow

Various shots by Eli and me of things around the house - the last photo is of the goats' stockings hanging in the barn. They had to be placed high enough so as not to be chewed on by Izzy, Boots, Nellie and Reggie. I believe one of the items on the list to add to the stockings is whole bananas (usually they just get the peels). . .

Tea & Cookies in the Afternoon

I had a friend over for Four Berry Tea and Christmas cookies one afternoon this week. I usually set up the tea table near the window with the best view of the pond for my guests. She wasn't disappointed and declared it a "picture-perfect postcard" as she watched the boys skating on the pond. Then, to put the icing on the cake, it started snowing in the middle of teatime.

(Sorry about the crazy lay-out of the photos - Ben said that I must have changed a setting by accident when loading this post and the next.)

A Holiday Outing - Part 2

After we went to Cross Creek Farm on Saturday, we stopped at Brown's Orchards on the way home. I never cease to be inspired when I visit this shop - it's always a delight to the senses. I usually want to run home and bake after I've been there!

A Holiday Outing - Part 1

My mom, sister and I have been wanting to visit Cross Creek Farm ever since we first saw their display at the York Flower Show. This past weekend they had a Christmas Open House, and we were delighted with our visit to the farm. The displays and vignettes were lovely (see for yourself), and the cookies and the cocoa simmering on the old, outdoor stove didn't hurt either! I think a visit to Cross Creek each December will have to become a tradition . . .

Mom's Christmas Trip

For Mom's Christmas trip this year, we visited Hershey Gardens for their Winter Walk. Though cold, it was an interesting time to visit the gardens. Usually the focus is on the color of the flowers, but since there weren't any blooming (except for a handful of die-hard roses), you were "forced" to look elsewhere. And elsewhere meant all the different types of pines, greens and unusual plants that look good even in the cold. Even many of the herbs in the herb garden still looked fresh and green - the parsley could have been picked and thrown in a soup that very night!

I was having trouble with the settings on my camera, so I didn't get many photos of the day. The first two are in the gardens and the second two are from the beautiful displays in the gardens' glass-enclosed gift shop.



After touring the gardens, we walked through the old and elegant Hershey Hotel on the hill. I gave Mom a brief tour based on my trip there with my sister several summers ago. The hotel is just gorgeous and worth a walk-through even if you aren't staying there. We visited the little shops inside - our favorite was the cupcake shop with their eye-popping cupcakes and the decorate-your-own-cupcake-bar.


We decided on lunch at The Chocolate Avenue Grill - an excellent choice! I had Tomato Basil Bisque and an incredible salad that had coconut-breaded chicken in it with strawberries, almonds, cucumbers and fresh coconut with a poppyseed-ginger dressing. Our last stop on the way home was an antiques barn that we wandered through for an hour and came up with some fun Christmas presents.


Another successful Christmas trip I would say!

Christmas Cookies

Nine hours +


Twelve varieties =


Tons of fun (and several tired women).


The line-up:

* Chocolate Crinkles
* Peanut Butter Classics
* Sand Tarts
* Chocolate-Covered Cherry Cookies
* Oatmeal & Oatmeal Raisin
* Chocolate Chip
* Peanut Butter
* Coconut Bon-Bons
* Sugar Cakes
* Ginger Cookies
* Choco Caramel Bars

Christmas Spirit

We talk glibly of the “Christmas spirit,” rarely meaning more by this than sentimental jollity on a family basis. But what we have said makes it clear that the phrase should in fact carry a tremendous weight of meaning. It ought to mean the reproducing in human lives of the temper of him who for our sakes became poor at the first Christmas. And the Christmas spirit itself ought to be the mark of every Christian all the year round.

It is our shame and disgrace today that so many Christians – I will be more specific: so many of the soundest and most orthodox Christians – go through this world in the spirit of the priest and the Levite in our Lord’s parable, seeing human needs all around them, but (after a pious wish, and perhaps a prayer, that God might meet them) averting their eyes, and passing by on the other side. That is not the Christmas spirit. Nor is it the spirit of those Christians – alas, they are many – whose ambition in life seems limited to building a nice middle-class Christian home, and making nice middle-class Christian friends, and bringing up their children in nice middle-class Christian ways, and who leave the sub-middle-class sections of the community, Christian and non-Christian, to get on by themselves.

The Christmas spirit does not shine out in the Christian snob. For the Christian spirit is the spirit of those who, like their Master, live their whole lives on the principle of making themselves poor – spending and being spent – to enrich their fellow men, giving time, trouble, care and concern, to do good to others – and not just their own friends – in whatever way there seems need. There are not as many who show this spirit as there should be. If God in mercy revives us, one of the things he will do will be to work more of this spirit in our hearts and lives. If we desire spiritual quickening for ourselves individually, one step we should take is to seek to cultivate this spirit. “Ye know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, that ye through this poverty might be rich.” “Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus” (II Corin. 8:9). “I run in the path of your commands, for you have set my heart free” (Ps. 119:32).

-- J. I. Packer, Come, Thou Long-Expected Jesus – Experiencing the Peace and Promise of Christmas, edited by Nancy Guthrie

Decorating for Christmas

(The first two photos are by Eli.)