Christmas Eve

It's Christmas Eve. It's early morning and I am sitting here looking at the beautiful tree lights in the dark before the sun comes up. 

Today is for the cooking and then family time. I can't wait till they get here. We have our traditions. We eat. We unwrap gifts. The kids play with new toys. But we also watch Norad Santa Tracker. You are missing out on a ton of fun if you haven't visited this site before. 

So you better watch out, you better not cry. Santa Claus is coming tonight. May your Christmas wishes be fulfilled and your life be blessed with great joy.

It's almost here....

Last day of work today before Christmas. When I get off this evening, I plan on starting my baking for the holiday. But this morning, I need to make something for the work Christmas party. I am taking the cinnamon roll french toast casserole. I go in at 9:00 and we start eating from morning till close. It's an all day buffet. Thought this would be good for the brunch portion of the day.

We are having our Secret Santa exchange at work and I can't wait to give my gift to the lady I drew. She is going to love it. But I can't post it here because it's a secret.

I got the rest of my gifts wrapped earlier this week and they are under the tree waiting for our Christmas party. I am so excited for my family to come over. I have a lot of cooking/baking to do tomorrow, but it is so worth it to have family time. This was my Christmas pic with the grandbabies last year. It is one of my favorite pics because they are all smiling. Of course, they are always laughing and smiling....until you point a camera at them. LOL

Hope everyone is getting their final items marked off their to do list.

Holiday Food

We all have those favorite foods that make up the holidays. My Christmas menu goes from what drinks I have to have at Christmas all the way to the main course. These are favorites year after year and many of them go back to my childhood because they were things Mom had every year.

In addition to my standard Pepsi, I have to have grape and orange pop. When I was young it was always Nehi. But we can't get that around here and I have fallen in love with Crush over the years.

I love baked ham. At Christmas I top it with orange marmalade and brown sugar. It is divine.

Potato salad is a must if I am going to have ham.

In my house I can't have ham and potato salad without my all time favorite ... baked beans.

Then of course comes the dessert. No bake oatmeal cookies top my list of things I have to eat at Christmas.

And chocolate cake is made around here at least 2 or 3 times per month. I love chocolate cake.

My special holiday dessert is graham cracker pie. I only have it for Easter, Thanksgiving and Christmas. I didn't get to make one for Thanksgiving this year so I am definitely having one for Christmas.

Then you move onto the quick snacks. Starting with Mom's recipe for old fashioned chocolate candy. Not to be confused with creamy fudge. This melts in your mouth.

Plus peanut butter fudge. I love that just as much as the chocolate.

There are some store bought snacks that I can't live without at Christmas that bring back memories of my childhood. The main thing is Brach's chocolate malted milk balls. I've been sneaking into these all week.

My other Brach's favorite is their chocolate covered raisins.

I also have to have nuts. My favorites are cashews, honey roasted and salted peanuts.

If all of that doesn't make you hungry, nothing will. I plan all this to last from Christmas eve through New Year's. I know the kids will help me eat it when they come over for our party. I just hope I have enough time to get it all made. 

My Random Thoughts...

As Christmas draws near, I have so much still left to do. Well, not really that much. I do have some final wrapping to finish up and some fudge to make for a friend. Other than that, the rest of my baking for my family will happen on Saturday morning so it is good and fresh when we gather for our Christmas party. To kick off my final few days before Christmas, we all need a good laugh. I blog this cartoon every year and my blogging buddies always love it. 

My children gave me money for my birthday this year so I could get my new mixer I wanted. I saw it every week when I went to Walmart. Then when I got ready to get it, it was out of stock at all 5 Walmarts in my area. I had given up hope of finding in. Monday it was on sale at Sears for $20 off the original price, which made it the same price as Walmart's price. So I got it and I am loving it. 

I broke it in really good by making chocolate cinnamon cake cookies with homemade chocolate frosting, spice cake cookies with salted caramel icing, peanut butter cookies made from scratch and snicker doodles made from a cookie mix. This was just two boxes of them. I had a total of 4 boxes. They were gone in no time. Out of all of them, the chocolate ones were the biggest hit. Even people who don't eat cookies came back for seconds, and thirds and fourths.... 

The peanut butter ones were from Mom's recipe she made when we were little. The kind where you make them from scratch and then refrigerate the dough for about 3 hours. I had to keep a few of those to eat myself that night with a glass of cold milk.

It was so cold yesterday in our office. When I got home, I put on my warmest jammies and fuzzy socks and sat in front of the fireplace just trying to get warm. I just noticed the tablecloth above and the p.j.'s below. I apparently have a thing for red plaid.

Saw this on Joann's online this week. In light of the fact that I want bolder colors in my sewing room and that I need a sewing basket, I think I may need to order this after Christmas.

I have been scouring Thirty-One, Vera Bradley and Donna Sharp sites looking for the perfect bag for work. One that has enough body to set up right without flopping over. One that has enough room for the items I have to carry back and forth every day. One that is stylish and in a pattern that I love. Well, I finally found exactly what I'm looking for. It's from Donna Sharp. I do love her bags and purses. This one has a leather bottom with four little "prongs" to keep if from getting filthy on the floor. This is on my wish list for January. 

It is so roomy inside. Perfect for my needs. We share desks in the call center so we always take our personal folders, notes and notebooks back and forth everyday. This will be exactly what I need. 

One day a few weeks ago, I stopped in at Walmart. Since I will be going to the eye doctor in February or March and I already can tell I need new glasses, I decided to look at what they had. This pair really caught my eye.  

Come spring, I am going antiquing and to yard sales to build my Pyrex inventory back up. I am going to start looking for space savers in the 503 size. I have one in the Town & Country and I have used it for so many different things. 

Have a great day!

Color palettes

I have for years had my office in soft pink, soft blue and butter yellow. I am tired of that. I want pop. I want pizazz. I want bold. So I went to Pinterest for some colors that might go good together. Here were some color schemes I liked. 

Lots of choices out there. But I found a website that I need to check out. I didn't have time this morning, but tonight I believe I will visit www.coolors.co and see how it works.

Busy, busy, busy....

I have a busy day ahead of me. Lots to do still. When I have days like this, I always remember the guy in the Frosty cartoon that says "Busy, busy, busy". That's how I feel. I had a four day weekend so I got a lot done. Just wanted to finish the rest up so I am ready on the 24th for Christmas with the family.

We did our first snow last night. Some surrounding areas did receive a very light dusting. But this is the entirety of all I got at my house....just some in seal of my car window. That was it. But it is Christmas week and that is snow so I'm counting it as my Christmas snow for the year.

The great rearranging of my spare room has begun. I have pulled stuff out of the closet and am deciding what to keep and what to get rid of. I have an entire bedding set and some small spare pillows that I have to find a place to store. After Christmas, I am going to make pillow shams with some beachy material for throw pillows on my bed.

I have a few presents to finish wrapping today but I'm going to wait until tonight and do that while I watch Prancer. Can you guess what else I am going to do today?

That's right. I am going to make some cookies and some fudge for Christmas gifts and for work. A couple of people went in with me to buy all the stuff, but I get the fun of making them today. Then I will bake for the family on Friday or Christmas eve morning so everything will be fresh for our party.

I think the elves are getting excited about the grandkids coming over and turning Frosty on. Frosty has some fresh new batteries waiting for Christmas Eve. The kids love to play him as he dances and sings Frosty the Snowman...over and over and over. One year, Papaw figured out how to muffle the speaker so he isn't as loud. It's just not Christmas without them getting to play Frosty. 

Time to get busy, those cookies aren't going to bake themselves.

Sundays songs....