After-Christmas buys (and more!) for the Christmas kitchen

During the time while I'm making Christmas kitchen gifts, I will often take inventory as to what I might need for packaging such gifts in the coming year.  Then I can look for them at the after-Christmas sales and stash them away for next Christmas.

This year I realized I didn't have any of these cookie tray bags on hand, so Mr. T went out to Dollar Tree and purchased some.  For most of my cookie trays to neighbors or friends, I will put the cookies on a foam plate and tuck it into a gallon size plastic bag.  The assortment of cookies is so pretty that no embellishment (other than possibly a ribbon and/or a sprig of evergreen) is needed.

But I also give out two special cookie plates each year to folks who enjoy a particular cookie.  For them, I like to find a special plate to include with the cookies as part of the gift.  These cookies -- Eggnog Log Cookies for one person, and Sacher Torte Cookies for the other -- are still pretty, but not colorful, one being cream-colored and the other chocolate.

Eggnog log photo from Taste of Home

So for those, I look for special Christmasy plates that the recipients can use again.

This Gooseberry Patch plate is an example

 And I like to wrap these special cookie plates, laden with cookies, in a special way too.   The cookie bags from Dollar Tree are perfect for this.  They come with coordinating, pre-cut ribbon for closing the bags, and even matching tags.  There are three bags in each package.  Quite a deal!

This year we also found some great after-Christmas deals on packaging for kitchen gifts.  I'll just put in some photos and captions.

These treat bags are very useful for packaging snack mixes and other treats.

These treat boxes will be useful for packaging cookies or candies.

Square boxes like this work great for leaving a gift for the mail or newspaper carrier!

These colorful paper sacks, about the size of a lunch bag, will be so useful for packaging treats within a gift basket.

Tins like these with the see-through lid are a very nice way to package candy or cookies for a special gift.  Nice in a gift basket, too.

What about you?  Do you give kitchen gifts?  What sort of packaging works best for you -- and did you find any great deals on packaging this year?

Questions and answers for Christmas crafting

From a craft calendar my girls loved as children

One of my friends on the Christmas craft forum posed a few crafting questions to begin the new year.  I thought I would answer them here to have a place to record my thoughts.  (They're currently on a piece of paper -- not the best idea if I want to find them again!)

So Rose asked us seven questions.  I will paraphrase them to simplify and then add my answers.

1.  Let's decide if we want to finish any projects started for last Christmas and not completed.  Will we : a)finish them right away and put them in our gift closet;
       b) put them away for a bit; or
       c) get rid of them altogether?

I had one project not completed for a November birthday (though I did make plenty for the birthday baby girl to open!) -- fabric alphabet letters.  So I need to finish those.

And I had one Christmas gift not completed -- another felt campfire and accessories.  My plan is to finish that and send it off to the recipients.

And then I have 3 long-standing UFOs (un-finished objects) -- a crocheted throw, a crocheted scrap afghan, and a "Snow Angels" cross-stitch.  I also have two completed stitchery projects that just need to be finished off in some way -- framed, made into wall hangings or pillows, or whatever.

2.  Decide if we want to go through any boxes/containers holding craft supplies; decide if we want to get rid of any of these supplies.

I'd love to sort out/give away craft supplies, but not just yet.  I plan to finish the alphabet letters and the campfire first, as all of the ziplock bags in which I have fabric scraps sorted by color are a huge mess.

3. Write down any ideas people have given you for the coming year, crafted items or other ideas.

I've done some of this but have more to add.

4.  Does your crafting area need a little tidying -- or a lot?

It needs a lot of tidying.  See question #2.

5.  Think about what went right or wrong in making crafts for gifts -- is there anything you would change for this crafting year?  

My biggest problems were starting too late and underestimating how long certain projects would take.

6.  Set a date for when you want to have all Christmas crafting completed.

My hubby set this date for me -- December 1.  One friend asked if it would work to have Mr. T setting my crafting deadlines for me.  Well, I don't really know yet.  But, as I told her, since he is the one who takes up the slack in eldercare, meal prep, housework and cookie baking if I really get stuck, I am going to try it his way!

7.  Start making notes of what you would like to make craftwise this year.

I've jotted down a few ideas in my Christmas notebook.  I think I'm going to try and aim for making more handmade items for birthdays and fewer for Christmas.

So there is my preliminary planning session.  Now to tackle one of those UFOs!

The actual Christmas baking list from 2015

The original list

Every year I make a Christmas baking list, and every year what I actually make differs from my original plan.  So I always like to do a quick post on what the actual list turned out to include, just so I won't forget.  Here's what actually made the list:

Cookies
Eggnog Logs
Sacher Torte Cookies
Chocolate Spritz
Whipped Shortbread (both regular and gluten-free)
Chocolate Mint Crisps
Macaroon Kisses
Hot Chocolate Caramel Cookies
Double-Drizzle Pecan Cookies
Date Casserole Cookies
Christmas Tree Spritz*
Pepparkakor Spritz*
Lemon Spritz*

Candy
Heavenly Delight (a chocolate peanut butter fudge)
Arlene's Easy Fudge
Chocolate-Dipped Orange Slices
Chocolate-Dipped Marshmallows

Snacks
Cinnamon-Sugar Pretzels

The last three on the cookie list were completely unplanned.  You can read about it here: A Christmas mini-miracle.  I had not planned to make any pressed cookies because my cookie press is pretty unsatisfactory.  But my sister-in-law found a vintage one which worked great, so my hubby took the press and ran with it, making three kinds of pressed cookies. 

These are the sort of surprises that often pop up with my Christmas baking plans!

A gift with possibilities

... many possibilities!

Yes, it's fabric.

My daughter Joanna, out in faraway northeastern Nevada, knows me well.  She told me a few days before Christmas to expect a parcel from an eBay seller.  I saved it to open on Christmas day while we were Skyping with her and her family.  Yes, fabric.  Not just any fabric -- it's Christmas fabric.  Holly Pond Hill Christmas fabric!

Joanna and I share a love for Susan Wheeler's adorable Holly Pond Hill characters and scenes.  I own two Christmas books -- The Happiest Season of All

and Holly Pond Hill Christmas Treasury.

The illustrations by Susan Wheeler and the text by Paul Kortepeter are simply wonderful.  I get these out every year to read before Christmas or sometime during the season.  The Christmas treasury is one that I found at a discount bookstore one year.  I got several copies to give as gifts.

So you can understand my delight at opening up a simple parcel and finding this:

which includes Christmasy scenes from these books!

My daughter had asked the seller to include a note worded like this:

And, as you see, she did.  The note was written inside a pretty card.  Yes, Joanna knows me well.  Now my task is to consider the many possible uses for this fabric and to make the best use possible of it.  Such a thoughtful gift!

Light housekeeping

One of my favorite cross-stitched ornaments on our living room tree

We ran into a couple of dilemmas with our pre-lit Christmas trees this year and I thought Mr. T's ingenious solution well worth sharing!

In the living room, we have a pre-lit tree with white lights.  In the bedroom, a pre-lit tree with colored lights.  Last year, the colored lights stopped working and so we simply added a separate string of colored lights that did work. 

Near the end of the Christmas season last year, the white lights, just on the top section of the living room tree, stopped working.  We'd forgotten about that until setting it up this year, and wanted to find a short string of white lights to use for that part of the tree.  We hadn't been successful in finding a short string -- we thought 20 lights would be just about right -- but then, on our outing with the grandkids, my hubby happened upon these in a discount store:

They are called rocky icicle lights.  The ones he found were white.

He looked them over carefully and decided that he could remove the "icicle" part from each light, leaving a string of 20 white lights.  When we got them home, he did just that, and strung them on the top of the tree.  Problem solved!

And then he thought of a use for the leftover rocky icicles.  He decided to clip them in place over  20 of the colored lights on our upstairs tree.  Voila!

You can see the "colored" rocky icicles interspersed with the regular colored lights.

It turned out to be such a pretty effect that when he went back to the discount store after Christmas, he picked up a set of the colored rocky icicle lights at half price.  Next year we will add them to the upstairs tree.  Pretty ingenious -- and inexpensive too -- solutions to our tree light dilemma!

A Christmastime tradition, last installment

Here's the last post about our little Christmastime tradition with three of our local grandkids.  As you recall, we took them out for breakfast on one day

and then out to do Christmas shopping for their parents and little sister.  We usually like to visit a favorite Christmas and ice cream shop during the same trip, but it didn't work out this year as the Saturday was far too busy.  So we took them there on  a weekday that Mr. T unexpectedly had off.  The kids were doing a volunteer project at their local library that day, but were done in time to head out with us around 4 pm.

We enjoyed ice cream sundaes

and the player piano, in particular.  In the candy kitchen area, the kids each picked out a small bag of candy to take home.  Sam picked assorted jelly beans, Julia an assortment of mini fruit slices, and Josiah a bag of Lego candies that actually snapped together!

After leaving the shop,

 we headed to one of our favorite shopping places which I've posted about before.  The kids love running over to the bridge to see the waterfall and they really enjoy some of the shops.  Unfortunately, even though it was only ten days before Christmas, none of our favorite shops were open.  And, because of the mild weather we'd been having, the waterfall was nowhere near as pretty as usual.  I'll just show a few pictures and add captions.

Looking at the falls

The waterfall as it usually looks at Christmas time!

The waterfall this year

Lighted trees in the courtyard

Lighted garland on the stairways inside the main building

Hope you've enjoyed this look at one of our favorite traditions!  Do you have traditions with kids or grandkids?  Why not share in the comments?

Merry Christmas!

Adorable vintage scene is from The Graphics Fairy

.Taking just a moment from dinner preparations and wrapping a few final gifts to wish all of my readers a very merry Christmas!  May you have a blessed day wherever this Christmas may find you.  And may you take a few moments throughout the day to ponder the "good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people" (Luke 2:10)!

Christmastime tradition, part 3

I took this as we were leaving.   You can see someone vacuuming the stairs.  We pretty much closed up the place!

Just another post (there will be one more after this) about our traditional Christmastime jaunt with three of our local grands.  I'm just going to put up the photos and add a few brief comments.

Sorry about the glare on this one, but the fireplace screen is so pretty and those "elf" stockings hanging up are so decorative!

Back in the day, our kids always enjoyed watching Santa sleep.  He used to sort of snore, I believe.   Doesn't seem to anymore, though.

 Pretty cabinet beside the fireplace

Left: a pretty tree beside yet another fireplace; Right: heading down toward the candy kitchen

As we left.  Still vacuuming.

Illuminated chimney with wreath -- so pretty

Hope you've enjoyed this peek at one of our little traditions!  Maybe tomorrow I can put up the fourth and final installment.

A Christmastime tradition, part 2

Usually when we take our three grandkids on their little Christmas shopping jaunt, we take them to a favorite shop to get ice cream sundaes.  (The photo above is from a previous year.) A flag always goes on top! 

This year we didn't have time to do the shopping and the sundaes both, so we decided to take the ice cream shop trip a different day.  Mr. T ended up with an afternoon off from work and so we went for it.   I'm just going to show a few pictures with captions.

The player piano is always a hit.

We brought along 2 quarters for each child.  Note for next year: not enough!  The piano was playing fun arrangements of Christmas songs.

Julia and Grampa seeing what song is next.

Grampa's and my sundaes.  The dishes are actually all the same size.  (You can get larger size sundaes, but we all got the smallest ones.  Generous ice cream serving and all the toppings you want.

Enjoying the ice cream!

Happy boys.  You can see one of the other rooms in the shop through the doorway.  That particular room is filled with toys.

This pretty tree was the view from our table.  We were the only ones in the ice cream shop!

 Such a fun time.  More to follow on another day!

A Christmastime tradition, part 1

One of the kids set the clock to their meal items.

Just a few photos from our time with three of our grandkids on Saturday morning.  We have a little tradition each year in which we take them out for a meal and then help them do their Christmas shopping for their parents and baby sister.

I just snapped a few pictures with my tablet while we ate breakfast at a favorite McDonalds.

Julia

Josiah

Sam

Part 2 of the traditional trip to follow.  Don't you just love traditions?  Clearly, we do!

An early Christmas gift ...

... a new granddaughter, born Saturday morning in northeastern Nevada.  What a blessing -- and one of the nicest gifts we will receive this year, I am sure.