Scenes from Christmas

Just a few random shots from Christmas:

My beautiful nieces Athena & Ariel:

And I must apologize here to their dentist/orthodontist for wrapping and taping and wrapping and taping and stapling their $50 bills causing them to use their teeth to try and open the little bundles. It sure was fun to watch tho:

Daniel wearing his new Peyton Manning jersey:

Fun with jello jigglers:

Daniel asking if he could use all of his cash for the ice cream man that haunts the neighborhood with that all too familiar music:

Grandma Lucy trying to stick her fingers up Casey's nose:

Chloe, need I say more:

Daniel helping Grandpa open his presents:

The kids:

Me and my darlings:

Collin & Grandma Lucy:

Good fun and much love.

Christmas Cookies

Here is what you need to make peanut butter kiss cookies, or as my Mom calls them, Russian Hats:

So why hasn't anyone invented the bag of already unwrapped Hershey Kisses? I'm just askin:

Preheat oven to 375. Then beat softened butter and peanut butter until well blended.

Mix in white and brown sugar:

Add egg, milk, and vanilla and mix well. In a separate bowl mix flour, baking soda & salt. Then gradually beat into the sugar/peanut butter:

Shape into 1 inch balls then roll in sugar:

Place on ungreased, newly purchased at the fabulous Cuisinart/Conair annual sale, or whatever cookie sheets you have on hand, and bake 8-10 minutes until golden brown on the edges. Then immediately press kisses into the center of each cookie. They will delicately crackle around the edges just so:

A special shout out to my SIL's Mom Rosie who hand crocheted the fabulous hot pads seen above. These are my absolute favorite hot pads ever. My SIL Lucy has tons sitting in her hot pad drawer and I found it hard not to slip a few in my purse when visiting. But Rosie came through and gave me a few for Christmas last year. Thanks Rosie, I luv ya!

So remove from pan and cool on wire rack and:

Oh, there's that fabulous Christmas themed hot pad again! I arranged the Russian Hats with the Furballs (dipped a few in white chocolate for those non-coconut lovers) for a lovely Christmas display:

Enjoy!

48 Hershey Kisses
1/2 cup softened butter
3/4 cup peanut butter
1/3 cup light brown sugar
1/3 cup white sugar
1 egg
2 Tbsp milk
1 tsp vanilla
1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt

Beat butter & peanut butter until well blended. Add sugars and blend. Add egg, milk, vanilla and mix.

In a separate bowl stir flour, soda & salt. Then gradually beat into peanut butter mixture. Shape into 1 inch balls and roll in sugar. Place on ungreased cookie sheet. Bake 8-10 minutes. Then immediately press kiss into center of each cookie. Cookies will crackle. Remove and cool on wire rack.

Notice the clever use of diverse baking methods; blend, mix, beat, stir.....

Oh I'll Have a Pink Christmas

Our wonderful daughter Casey's lovely pink Christmas tree. It's kinda growing on me.

Christmas With Mom

I had a wonderful Christmas and want to post a special tribute to my Mom. You have not had a truly unique and how can I say....well unique says it all.....Christmas without Lucy.

She provides much laughter and fodder for Christmas stories of the past. And we love her all the more for it. Mr. H received the new Keith Richards autobiography, and when he opened it and held it up I said "How cool, the new Keith Richards book" (Mr. H being the musician and all), and Mom asked "Is he a new mystery author?"

Then daughter Casey received a much coveted gift certificate to the local nail salon. We were discussing how fabulous the place was and how nice it is to get a mani-pedi...and Mom said "Mani-pedi? Is that a new store?"

But my favorite...and oh so Lucy moment, came when Tyler, who is experiencing his first Lucy Christmas, opened his gift.

Before I reveal the most fabulous, welcome to the family, you don't know what you are getting into gift, I must go into the way back machine.....well not so way back, just last year....yes, it was an all out, as seen on tv Christmas for yours truly. It started with the Bump It, moved on to the fabulous Butterfly Twisty Turny Decorative Comb, and ended with the....wait for it......Purse size, personal, ready at a moments notice for that all important meeting or job interview....you guessed it! The nose hair, ear hair and sideburn Personal Trimmer!

And on to Tyler's gift, behind door number 2, the YES YES.....

Pac Man Snuggie!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Thank you Mom! We love ya! You definitely make our Christmas memorable!

The Many Uses of a Pool Table

Or "pool tavol" as the grandman spells it. I love wrapping Christmas presents, at least for about the first hour. I am wondering if everyone would be disappointed next year if I put each persons' presents unwrapped in one giant bag.......but no, the fun part is the unwrapping, especially for the kids.

Pool tavol = One big wrapping station. Paper: check; tape: check; scissors: check; tissue paper......oh heck....guess that's one more trip to the store.

OK, we're getting there.

But someone please tell me, how do you wrap this?

And I just noticed my inner OCD having its way with the Christmas tree....do you see it? Look closely at the placement of the candy canes......yes I am seeking therapy.

Oh Christmas Tree

I finally put the Christmas tree up today. Inorite? Really? The grandman was here today and for the first time played with the two neighbor kids; Zoli 7 and Maggie 3. Once I got the tree ready to decorate the boys put one or two ornaments on then grabbed a candy cane and were off to other adventures.

Maggie on the other hand was a trooper and helped me until the very last ornament was lovingly placed. She sang "Oh Christmas Tree" and I just melted. Only the first two lines over and over (we don't know the rest of the words like we do Jingle Bells, although we did sing that when we hung the jingly bell ornaments).

She is about as tall as my knee so the branches she could reach on her own were limited. Here is the very bottom branch that she favored. I counted 10 (yes 10) ornaments on this one branch:

And then there are the candy canes....here is the one square foot that just begged for seven candy canes:

We both decided our favorite color balls were the purple ones. And we both really like the snowflake and angel and gingerbread ornaments. Here is the glorious tree all decked out:

 Merry Christmas!

Bowliday Party

My team voted on a bowling outing for our Christmas Party. We went to the Lucky Strike which is a "swanky" bowling alley. Is there such a thing? Oh contrare (inside joke). First off, contrary to Wii bowling, you are subject to injuries. Exhibit A; the "bowlers thumb"

Exhibit B; the "bowlers bottom"

And along with the physical injuries, there are the psychological injuries.
Exhibit C; the "elusive tenth pin"

Now some people are Ok with having their picture taken. And others who like to sneak into the shot:

There was an amazingly diverse representation of techniques.
Exhibit D; our fearless leader with a nice follow through:

And others which defy description:

And some good old fashioned just dang bowling.

What was really cool is the screen recorded the speed of your ball. We had a couple of incredibly fast 22 mph right along with an incredibly slow but ineffective 6.9 mph:

Just remember, it's all about the color of your balls, and how many steps it takes you to get right up to, but not including the foul line. Ok, one, two, three, no wait, one, two, three, four, oh F it.

Girls Gone Wild

So Jaime came over today for a practice run to try out our cookie recipes for the contest. Good thing we did. Had a few FAIL's. But here is the end result:

Ha ha! Had to do it. Lady and the Tramp (um, Jaime would be the Lady) meets Beauty and the Yeti (um, Jaime would be the Beauty).

First on the list was the Brandy Snaps (see previous post for how they should look). Here is the first FAIL:

We cooked them 10 minutes and they spread out too much and we ended up with tacos and broken pieces. They were too thin and too crisp and would not form nice cannoli like tubes. Taco:

Pieces:

Let's try this again. A little less than a TBSP this time and baked for 9 minutes. Now we are getting somewhere:

Good tubular shape but we never did get them to remain small. They spread ALOT. Here is our finished product with the filling. We made both a luscious buttercream and the brandy whip cream.

After a taste test (see above) we decided that a mixture of both a layer of buttercream and a layer of brandy whip cream was the bomb. They are very crispy and the shell is like toffee. And the buttercream/whipped cream melts in your mouth. We cooked these on parchment paper but I'm wondering if using Silpat instead might keep their shape better. Anyway, the recipe is easy but getting the shells just right is is a little tough.

Next on the list is Furballs, or Somwman Turds, or whatever you want to call them. I am open to ideas. No baking, made in a skillet. In a large skillet add: 1 stick butter (real butter. no fake stuff), 1 cup sugar (I might try half white and half brown sugar next time), 1 egg beaten, and 1 cup chopped dates (the 8oz packages you see here work perfectly as they melt well into the mixture.

Over medium heat stir and bring to a boil. Simmer 5 minutes strirring constantly (the dates should have melted well into the butter/sugar) then add 1/2 cup chopped nuts (walnuts or pecans) and 1 tsp vanilla (Jaime, that's 1 tsp : ) Stir in 2 1/2 cups rice crispies and mix well.

Let mixture cool slightly. Grease hands (with butter) and shape into balls. Roll in coconut and set on wax paper to cool.

We made a few without coconut for those non-coconut lovers. And for those who do not like nuts, or dates, or coconut....well...

Delish. Furballs in all their glory. Oh and some reindeer droppings as well for those non-coconut lovers. Makes about 3 dozen. Enjoy!