The Perfect No-Stress Holiday

 

As I read back over last year's first post, I had to laugh. I wrote about last Christmas being stress-free, but this year definitely wins...hands down! Last Christmas came as close to being perfect as it could ever be, so I decided not to compete with it. OS is living across the country (again), YS moved out, and MS is now living with us. Still no grandkids (I've now lost hope on that ever happening) and the boys have each said they don't like Christmas. On the upside...no gifts to worry about! 😀 Seriously. I didn't step foot in a store except for a grocery store the whole break. What could be less stressful than that?

Truth be told, I still can't "get into" Christmas like I used to. It's been 7 Christmases since my mom passed, and I'm still grieving during that holiday. And on top of all that, can I just say that 2021 just sucked for my family? As in, the worst year ever. 

I did very little baking (mostly only as gifts for my neighbor and church personnel) and even less decorating. I couldn't face putting up my big tree; besides that, some of the lights are broken, others aren't working, and it just looks sad. I ended up buying a prelit $20 3 feet tree and a smaller prelit tabletop tree, putting up my childhood creche, and calling it quits. 

This tree holds ornaments that I picked up while on vacations over the past 10 years. It started when we used to go to The Keys between Christmas & New Year's.

This little tree holds my Danish ornaments (and 1 Irish ornament).

I bought a few things for CH, he bought a couple of things for me, and we were done. We had a very scaled-down Christmas Eve Dinner with MS and YS' GF (YS had to work); we didn't even eat in the dining room. 

We usually have a big Christmas Day Brunch, but since YS had to work that evening, we decided to put it off until the 26th. I made cinnamon rolls and we just kind of grazed after Mass. After Sunday Mass, I got everything ready for brunch. YS & his GF were 30 minutes late, but was I stressed? Heck, no!

(The mimosas may have helped some!)

I didn't even put up my Christmas carousel this year. I pulled it up from the basement but then decided to heck with it. No stress.

We usually go camping between Christmas and New Year's but CH had a chemo treatment on Tuesday so we weren't able to go anywhere. But you know what? It was nice being at home for NYE. I cleaned out a lot of the house and got rid of a bunch of stuff. I watched movies, cleaned the house, read, and took Gurl Dogg on daily walks. It made me wish I was already retired! 

But I'm not. My school district had an administration day scheduled for Monday with the kids returning on Tuesday. After 2 weeks of unseasonable warm temperatures, we had snow Monday morning! It wasn't much and it started melting before 10:00 a.m. but it was nice to not have to get out of the house. Having a bonus day for blogging was nice, too!

For the Birds Hodgepodge

 

Time for a post-holiday Hodgepodge! Joyce asks the questions; we provide the answers. Check out what others said at From This Side of the Pond.

1. Share one happy moment/memory from the holiday season. 

I really had to think about this one. As with most all of the Christmases since my mom passed, I just couldn't get into the holiday cheer. It was just a very different holiday. I did enjoy waking up without the aid of an alarm clock and doing a lot of cleaning in the house. Plus, the warm weather made it feel more like spring break than Christmas Break.

2. Let's be reasonable with our expectations going into this new year, k? What is one thing you'd like to accomplish/improve/complete/do in 2022? 

I really want to get back to my blog(s). 

3. Every January 1st (since 1976) Lake Superior University has published a list of words they'd like to see banished from the Queen's English. Words may be banished due to misuse, overuse or just general uselessness (go here to read more about how the words are chosen). Here are the words/phrases they'd like to see banished in 2022-
wait, what?-no worries-at the end of the day-that being said-asking for a friend-circle back-deep dive-a new normal-you're on mute-supply chain

• Which of these words/phrases do you use regularly? I don't say any of these regularly, but when I write I notice that I say "that being said" sometimes.
•  Which of these words would you most like to see banished from everyday speech and why? None of them bother me. Maybe "asking for a friend". Put your big girl panties on and own up to it! 
•  Is there a word/phrase not on the list you'd like to add? Nope.

4. Best thing you ate in the month of December? 

I don't recall eating anything that was just over the top spectacular. I did have an exceptional drink: Frangelico and Five Farms Irish Cream (I'll never buy any other kind of Irish Cream again!), also called a "Nutty Irishman". 

5. January 5th is National Bird Day. Are you a bird lover? What's your favorite bird to see in the wild? Choose a phrase from the list that follows and tell us how it relates to your life currently...eat like a bird, bird's eye view, early bird, bird-brained, free as a bird, a little bird told me, or kill two birds with one stone.

I love to sit and watch the birds! We have several bird feeders in the backyard and the side yard. My favorite is a toss-up between a cardinal and a woodpecker. I've seen 2 different kinds of woodpeckers around here: a downy woodpecker and a red-bellied woodpecker (whose belly isn't red). They're just fascinating to watch! Hawks are pretty awesome, too. A couple of days ago a huge hawk flew out of a tree that I was fairly close to. They are amazing.

"Early bird": I'm definitely a morning person. I like to get up early and get the day going. The downside is that I'm usually ready for bed by around 8:30!

6. Insert your own random thought here. 

Did you catch my post from earlier this week where I talked about a cookie recipe? I don't know if I'd go so far as to say it was the best thing I ate in December, but it did rank up there!

Also, catch my holiday post on Friday. 

From My Kitchen: December 2021

 

December means Christmas, so of course, this post is going to include be about a sweet recipe. I seriously scaled down my baking and candy-making this year. I only made 1 batch of Texas Millionaires and that was for my next-door neighbor who supplies pecans for the purpose of being gifted a batch. I made a couple of batches of Eggnog Bread, with gluten this year and an Apple Cake for Christmas Eve Dessert. A couple of days before Christmas, I had a craving for bakery cookies. The problem is, there is no bakery in the Small Town. There used to be one that had amazing cookies (but the King Cake was a huge disappointment) but every time I've driven by it appears to be closed. 

I have a huge problem with cut-out sugar cookies. I can never roll the dough out evenly and I can't tell how thick it's supposed to be. I found a recipe a few years ago that I used to make cookies for the goody bags for my in-laws' 50th wedding anniversary, but they aren't "bakery cookies". They are really good, but not what I was looking for. 

A search for "bakery sugar cookies recipe" gave me exactly what I wanted. The Best Sugar Cookies really are! I used the trick that I outlined in the post about my in-laws' cookies, but I'll share it again:

2 craft sticks that are 1/4 inch are perfect. Just lay 2 down and put the dough in between, cover with parchment paper, and put the rolling pin on the sticks.

Then roll away and you have dough that is the perfect thickness. And it's even! Well, as long as the rolling pin doesn't slip or you have too much dough for the length of the sticks. I halved the dough and then rolled, so it worked well. 

If you try these cookies, make sure you follow the steps exactly. The main thing is to roll out the dough, then refrigerate. I think I only messed up 1 cookie after cutting it out, and it was because I wasn't sure which of my cookie cutters to use. After that, it was clear sailing. I put rum flavoring in this batch but I couldn't really taste it. 

The finished product:

The icing part of the recipe says to omit the vanilla flavoring for "stark white" frosting, but I put it in and the cookies were still "stark white" in my opinion. 

The cookies were such a hit that I made another batch for New Year's Eve. For this batch, I put in maple flavoring and they were delicious. I could definitely taste the difference between the ones I made the week before. While not many comments were made on the Christmas cookies, MS & YS and YS' GF all raved about how good these were. 

The New Year's Cookies:

Only 1 cookie made it past midnight! 

These cookies were so easy to make, they just took a little bit of time since the dough needs to stay in the fridge for a minimum of 1-2 hours. I kept mine in for 2 hours which was perfect. I used the "easy cookie frosting" because, well, it was definitely easier and I didn't want a "fail" on the cookies! The frosting dried in a couple of hours although the recipe says they take around 24. 

Do you have a go-to cookie recipe? If so, is it easy and quick or time-consuming?