It's beginning to taste a lot like Christmas

Mostly, Christmas to me is about food (and also the sacred nature of singing Christmas carols at church, which should never be tampered with, but we won't talk about that here). We've been celebrating with food even I wouldn't consider eating regularly during most of the year: caramel turtles, cheeseballs, hot buttered rum, a 3-pound summer sausage...

For our neighbors, I wanted to do something cute but easy, and I think these little baskets came together nicely:
Hot chocolate with smashed candy canes at the top, and marshmallows dipped in a simple syrup (sugar and hot water) mixed with a little peppermint extract then rolled in more smashed candy canes. Smashing the candy canes was fun. I used a paper bag after making a big mess on round 1.

For a number of other friends and family, I made turtles. I've always loved turtles, but they're a bit on the pricey side, so I used limit myself. NO MORE shall I suffer under the tyranny of expensive turtles! Using a recipe I found, I composed my shopping list, purchased obscene quantities of sugar, butter and chocolate, and went to work. My test batch was approved, though I opted to make some milk chocolate rather than all semi-sweet.
Test batch not included, I made 152 of the little reptilian confections. There were turtles EVERYWHERE, on the counters, cooling racks, fridge, freezer, nearly all flat surfaces in the kitchen.
It was a fun project, but boy were my hands ever sore after carmel-ing. They sort of cramped together like claws for a few days after.
And here's the finished product: packaged and ready (almost) for shipping!

For another of our little get-togethers, I improvised a cheese ball. We had a lot of cheddar lying around and some smashed pecans left over from turtles, so I added cream cheese and dry minced onion and some other stuff and presto!It made a yummy companion for the sausage.

Lastly, here's a nice shot of the tree, pre-Christmas morning destruction:

"Freezing butts."

Last night, the predicted overnight low was 9 degrees. NINE. Single digits are fairly unheard of in our pocket of the country, so we had to do some things to prepare. Tonight's not supposed to be much warmer, coming in at 12. We left our water trickling so our pipes didn't freeze (yay uninsulated crawl space!) and threw an extra blanket on the bed. Also, this:

which, if you can't tell, is our little laurel shrubs covered in paper grocery bags. And this is our pool, which was covered in a sheet of ice about an inch and a half thick. I have to go bust it up again.

Plants and things (laurels and camellias, mostly) are looking a little ragged, but I'm hopeful everything will survive. I'm looking forward to camellia blooms this spring, which won't happen if all the buds fall off.

Anyway, on to more Christmasy matters. We put lights on our tree last week and were told by our neighbors up the street that it looks awesome through our front window. It has about four ornaments on it right now...I have to finish decorating.

Here's that footed bowl with the pomegranates. They're deepening in color to a nice punchy red, and they look very festive. Isn't the bowl great?

The kissing ball (nod to sophomore year of college) is hung. I need to figure out how to get some mistletoe out of our oak trees so I can hang that, too. (In the background of this picture, please note the wreath hanging on the dining room wall. That was a clearance steal last year, for five measly dollars...marked down from 80. Who pays that for a wreath!?)

Lastly, continuing with the pomegranate decorations, I made this doorhanger that I saw in BHG. It's hanging on the closet in the dining room. Nice little shot of color.

I tried to get creative and improvise another hanging, but I'm not sure it took on quite the style I was hoping for. It kind of just looks like an orange wired to some tree branches. Oh well. Win some, lose some.

Christmas Edition

It was my own tradition, growing up, as soon as we returned from the big family Thanksgiving dinner, to decorate my room for Christmas. The past three years, I haven't really had Christmas, at least not in all its month-long crafty sparkly glory. Three years ago, we were getting married, plus there were finals and whatnot. Two years ago, I was working fulltime, which left little time for festivity, and I lived in a 400-sf house, which left little space. Last year, I was half living in my in-laws' house, and half moving, and we didn't put a tree up until two days before Christmas.

So, you see, I have three years of backlogged cheer, plus a WHOLE HOUSE I get to decorate this year. After Thanksgiving dinner, I kept with tradition and headed for the nearest coniferous tree in sight, a small potted Austrian pine I put on the front porch for this express purpose.It's on the left in this picture. Please also note the wreath, (functional) icicle lights, and garland which I made myself with a whole lot of clippings from the mountains (more on that shortly).

Friday, I lost no time diving into the holidays. After making a huge mess in the guest room with lights and assorted decorations, I slowly began carting things downstairs (to the sounds of the holidays on my "xmas mix" playlist wafting through the house, naturally).

I swapped out the centerpiece on the dining room table (still need pillar candles for those holders) and the porcelain balls on the teak console for this SWEET silver footed bowl with a scalloped rim and little snowflake cutouts that I nabbed at Collector's Market last year. I will be filling it with either pomegranates or clove-stuffed oranges and posting a picture soon. In the background, you can see the red and white tablecloth Mom got me a few years ago!The glass bowl got relocated to the coffee table and filled with these mercury glass balls from Anthropologie (a few years ago...been hanging on to 'em).The mantel got decked with a great fake garland (Michaels clearance, last year) and it looks way more awesome than the picture.Then I got into the crafty side of fun...wreath-making. Never done it before, but I clipped a bunch of holly and cedar branches off the trees in back and made two wreaths Friday and three today. I hung one on the bathroom door (below), the coat closet, and one on my office door. I have a few others I'm still undecided on where to place. They smell great!

Today, I informed Todd that this is my favorite time of year because it involves many of my favorite things: bad food, candy canes, decorating, presents, and rigging. It's likely that many of my old roommates will chuckle at this, given my inclination to install hooks and other creative storage devices in our houses. Anyway, I rigged the garland (see below) on mug hooks. The garland was strung from clippings gathered yesterday on our Christmas tree-picking expedition.
and here's the garland. I added cranberries after I took the picture.Speaking of....This is a picture of me with the tree. (For those wondering, yes, I wear that hat in public, and yes, people do tend to stare at me. Say what you will, but I stay nice and warm.) You buy a permit for $5, then head for the hills where you can cut down a tree. We went with our neighbors up the street, Wayne and Cody, and cut down our trees. It's a little on the sparse side, but they all were. I'm hoping once it's decorated, it'll look more filled out. The shape is perfect, though.I think that's enough Christmas cheer for one post. Stay tuned though, there's way more to come!