Friday, January 4, 2008

Christmas Pictures.....

Today will be my Christmas post with snaps.
So if you have had enough jingle jangle jingle you may want to skip this one.....

I spend every Christmas at my sisters home in Vancouver, Washington as does my Mom. She flew up from Daytona Beach on Wednesday and I flew up on the Thursday before Christmas. We have as do most families certain rituals and traditions that happen just about every year, and it really make it a special time.

Over the past few years since Katie and Matt have both gotten older I have been making cookies with them. Cissy (their mother/my sister) lets them each pick a cookie to make and then when I get there we make them. This year Katie picked Gingerbread cutout cookies and Matt choose coconut Macaroons. The first ones we made were the cutout cookies. We used a family Kolbe recipe and it was a really nice one. Here is a snap of them before baking


Here is my little helper "helping."


I think that it was not so much the cookies as it was the decorating that she wanted to do.


She is very creative and does lots of drawing and painting and has even gotten interested in beading and jewelry making. (If you look in the background you can see a cookie jar my granny made, it is Santa Claus checking the good and bad children's gift list)

Matt choose coconut Macaroons, one of my favorite as coconut is at the top of list in my book!!
They are pretty easy to make and we used a scoop to get them all about the same size.




I think that what Matt wanted to do was the dipping part, and he was really very good at it!!



After we had finished dipping the Macaroons we had some peanut-butter crispies to do so we did those also...


These are really just Buckeye cookies with the addition if rice-crispies, which in my opinion make them very good. Here are the finished Macaroons...

We had some chocolate left from the dipping and so then we made peanut butter crackers and dipped them along with graham crackers....getting very "sprinkley" along the way......



One of our family traditions for as long as I can remember and it is going into my 4th decade, is that we have a birthday cake for baby Jesus. Since it is his birthday we celebrate, we do this to remember the "reason for the season." When I was growing up my mom would always make a Robert E Lee cake, which is a white cake, lemon filling with 7 min white/coconut frosting. Since we are at my sisters home she makes the Kolbe crazy cake and here is this years entry...


Crazy cake is dense chocolate cake with cream cheese frosting, delicious!!!!


I will leave off with a Christmas snow picture. For those of you that live with the stuff for months and just don't understand my excitement for frozen rain.....the last time I saw snow I was in Berchtesgaden when I visited the Eagles Nest there. So here is the one snap I will post. I took lots more and even a couple of movies (what that camera won't do, I tell ya)
It just made my trip!!!!!!

Alright just one more......



That's about it for today. Thanks for stopping by!!!!!

Take care,
edgar

14 comments:

  1. The cookies look yummy, but the best part was making them with family! Brings back memories of cookie making/decorating with my daughter when she was younger! She also thought the decorating was the most fun.

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  2. Hi Edgar,
    I so enjoy your blog entries. Thank you for sharing both your stitching and your family. I do want you to know, if you like snow, you've got a friend in Minnesota now...and we have plenty of it! Happy New Year!
    Blessings,
    Julie

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  3. Happy New Year Edgar! Your niece is one very pretty girl!

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  4. What great memories! I love all the pictures .. even the snow ones! Just wish it had snow more and more!

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  5. Thank you for sharing your Christmas with us :) What a wonderful bunch of traditions you have! The pictures are lovely! And just between you and me...I LOVE snow too!!! Now my husband despises the stuff but me...it does it for me :) In fact when I'm trying to sleep, I think about snow gently falling in the woods....puts me to sleep everytime! LOL!

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  6. Mmmm, those cookies look yummy! As does the cake!

    I'm looking forward to setting up an annual cookie-making tradtion with my girls when they're a bit older, just like my mom did with my sister and me.

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  7. I'm so jealous, you got snow for Christmas! Those cookies looked delicious! Glad you have a super time with your family!
    Donna

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  8. All of those cookies and goodies look fabulous :) Sounds like you had an awesome time!

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  9. Yum, those cookies and cake look great!

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  10. Looks like you had a wonderful time with your family. Happy New Year.

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  11. Those cookies look scrumptious!!! What wonderful traditions and happy memories!!!

    We usually have snow laying around on Christmas, but this year we had the treat of it actually snowing on Christmas day...so pretty!

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  12. My mouth is just drooling!! xx

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  13. What wonderful traditions you have in your family! The cookies look delicious - a great way to spend the day with your niece and nephew. It sounds like you had a wonderful Chtistmas!

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  14. Hi Edgar- I came across your blog from Garden of Stitches (Carol S). Your stitching is exquisite, and your thoughts on Jan.11th about the anticipation, yet hesitation upon starting a new piece, as well as the sort-of disappointemnt at its finish, and the peacefulness of the "middle" really resonates with me! But the real reason for my post: my mom made that EXACT same ceramic Santa cookie jar in the early '70's!! It brought back a flood of memories- all good, mind you! Glad tidings to you and your family, and I hope you don't mind if I check back in on you from time to time!

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 Happy Hallowe'en!!! edgar