Sour Cream Sugar Cookies

If I could make only one kind of cookie for Christmas, this would be the one *everyone* would ask for.

ready to frost half way through the cookies Sugar cookies decorating the sugar cookies

Sour Cream Sugar Cookies

Cream:
2 c. sugar
1 c. shortening

Add and mix well:
1 c. sour cream
3 eggs
1/2 teaspoon almond extract (or 1 tsp. vanilla or lemon, but almond is the best)

In a separate bowl, mix well:
5 c. flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt

Add flour to creamed mixture and mix until well blended.

This makes a very soft tender dough. It should be chilled for a few hours before rolling. Remember that adding more flour and doing more mixing makes dough tougher. I roll this out on a floured counter and cut it using floured cutters (just dip them in flour between cutting each cookie). I save all the leftovers till I’m done, then knead them smooth (knead as little as possible), then cut more cookies.

Bake at 350*F for 10 minutes.

This makes a lot of cookies. I actually double it for Christmas and never have enough! They go fast!

My favorite frosting for these cookies (and for decorating cakes):

2 pounds of powdered sugar
1 cup shortening
1/2 c. water
1/2 tsp. almond extract

Mix till smooth. Tint with paste or gel food coloring. This sets quickly so add sprinkles as soon as the cookie is decorated. I use cake decorating tips to decorate the cookies. A leaf tip makes great Christmas trees, holly leaves, and wreaths.

~~Rhonda

a good time was had by all

We really had a wonderful time at the open house yesterday. Many thanks go to all those who helped, especially my sister Genny who comes several times each year to help decorate, set up trees, cut greenery, etc. Though by Saturday I was wondering (as I do each year) if we would be able to get everything done, the house pulled together well.

The weather was rainy, extremely windy and got colder as the day went on. The temperature was about 60* F at noon and down to 36 by 6:00 p.m. But it didn’t keep down the crowd by very many. We usually have about 200 guests and this year we had 170+. It was a tremendous amount of work, but a tremendous amount of fun, too. DH wasn’t able to take as many pictures as I had hoped he could, but others took pictures and I hope to get some copies of those. The party was supposed to start at 2:00 pm and we had company as early as 1:30, so we didn’t have time to take “before” pictures which I like to do each year.

Our friends Gary, Laurie, Bethany and my sister Genny all helped in the kitchen which was great. It’s become a tradition and we so appreciate their generous gift of time! They keep the cookie trays full, the coffee filled, and the punch flowing. I don’t have to give it a second thought. I know it’s in good hands.

The grand-baby tree was a favorite. Everyone liked it.

Grand-baby Tree

Grand-baby Tree

On the right side of this counter I have a deer. It sits on a piece of tabletop glass which is elevated on wooden blocks. We put white lights under the glass and batting on top. Makes a lovely night time display.

addition hall

The grand-baby tree sits on the counter in the addition where the guest room, laundry room and downstairs bath are located. Across from the tree there are pictures of our children as babies. I wrap them each year as gifts.

baby pics

The laundry room and downstairs bath, just off the hall in the addition, have a garden theme for Christmas. The little tree in the laundry room is decorated with garden ornaments, pansies, birds, butterflies, and insects. The tree sits in an old wooden sugar bucket from DH’s family farm.

laundry room tree

The wreath on the laundry room door has pansies and small green balls on it.

laundry room wreath

On the bookcase in the guest room, we display the book A Tale of Three Trees.

guest room

The tree in the guest room is decorated with a Victorian theme.

guest room tree

We had a slide show of the baby pictures in the library on my computer and a slide show in the office of cookie making. Guests enjoyed those.

baby picture slide show

The piano in the office is decorated with pictures of our children. These are pictures that have been used in our Christmas cards in years past.

Christmas pics from years gone by

The young lady who cleans house for us came today and vacuumed cookie crumbs throughout the house. But she didn’t have to do much other cleaning. My kitchen crew had cleaned the entire kitchen, took the serving tables apart, put the tablecloths in the wash, etc., so Sam cleaned the baths and vacuumed the floors. Made it all fresh again. I delivered cookies to the teachers/staff at DD’s school and then did my grocery shopping while Sam cleaned. Now I am enjoying a very quiet relaxing afternoon, which is quite a change from the hectic work we’ve been doing for a few weeks.

Thursday night about 15 women from my home extension group will be here for our Christmas party. The 14th we are hosting a house concert by Nathan Clark George. He has a beautiful Christmas album and will be performing songs from that on the 14th, accompanied by two other musicians.

On the 15th, 12-15 women from a local PCA church are coming for a house tour and potluck supper. A busy but fun time of year.

Time to get supper started. I will try to post more this evening.

You can see these and other pictures on my flickr site.

~~Rhonda

a great party

We had a wonderful time at the open house. I have been too busy prior to it to post, but will spend some time tomorrow putting up pictures and talking about the prep. Here are a few pics from around the house today.

Cookie Buddies – my friends Laurie, Bethany, and Gary kept the kitchen running and the cookie trays full, along with my sister Genny, who missed getting her picture taken. Because of their tremendous help, we were able to concentrate on greeting our guests.

Cookie Buddies minus one

I put up a “grand-baby tree” in the hall of the addition.

Grand-baby Tree

It was decorated with baby items, pictures of the twins, baby footprint ribbon, and blue/pink glass balls, and a fuzzy pink baby blanket served as a tree skirt. This tree garnered a lot of comments. It was a favorite along with the “glass” tree in our bedroom.

Just before the open house, DD#3 added the holly berries to the wreath we painted on the door to the addition. We use poster (tempera) paint. Easy and a fun decoration. DD uses her finger to make the berry dots. This door was originally the front door of the house DH’s father was born in and lived in all his life.

adding the berries

DD#1’s tree had paper doves on it.

Dec 2007 099

DD#2’s tree was decorated with twiggy stars and felt ornaments.

Dec 2007 098

I changed the little tree in the corner of the kitchen counter to display framed pictures of our family.

family tree

Saturday afternoon Gary brought over his latest creation…the windows for the door to the downstairs bath! They are beautiful!! Thank you, Gary!

Gary's windows

Gary's window

Tomorrow I will post more. Now I’m headed for bed and a good night’s sleep! ~~Rhonda

cleaning is almost there

Sunday is our annual open house and this week is always a busy whirl of “getting things done.” I wish I had more time to post about all our activities this week, but time is running too short for a long computer session. I’m having lunch right now and wanted to post an update.

A young lady from church who helps with house cleaning each week, is here today doing a double session. She will take care of almost all the house. We’ll leave the kitchen (still have cooking to do) and the upstairs hall (gathering place for all the leftovers from picking up the other rooms). The upstairs hall may be done tomorrow and the kitchen will be thoroughly cleaned Saturday afternoon.

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I have walked through the entire house, with a stapled stack of papers, writing down everything that needs to be done in each room. This list covers lots of different last minute details. From “polish the banister” to “wash the crystal snowflake ornaments” in the scrapbook room. With this list I have a handle on what is left to do, and I can delegate the jobs to be done.

to do

DH is off work until Monday, so he is helping. My sister will come back Friday evening after work to help for the weekend. I have really missed the help of DD#1 and DD#2 this year. This is the first time I haven’t had at least one of them here to help during the decorating season. Miss you both!!

Lunch break is over…back to work. ~~Rhonda

idea binders

I collect Christmas magazines and used to have about six feet of shelf space filled with them. It was only a few years ago that I could bring myself to pull out the pages showing ideas I like and put them into binders. I have about half the magazines done and will finish the rest as I have time. These binders come in handy time and again!

idea binders

In the past, my older daughters (23 and 20) would decorate the trees in their own bedrooms. This year they are living away from home, attending college. They both gave me permission to do “whatever” to their trees. My sister and I took out the idea binders and pulled some pages that gave us ideas we liked. Just looking at the pictures was inspiring!

This page showed twiggy stars.

twiggy stars

And this page showed felt ornaments.

felt ornaments

We took those ideas and tweaked them a bit. Genny made stars using the hot glue gun, then spray painted them a cream color. She sprayed them with a glossy sealant when dry.

I stamped stars and snowflakes onto cream colored felt, then used my sewing machine to stitch the ornaments.

felt ornaments

Genny spray painted twigs for the top of the tree, and we added large bows made from three kinds of wide ribbon.

DD1987's tree

The tree fits the room which features a horse theme, with a 22″ horse border, brown bandanna window toppers, and bandanna pillows on the bed.

DD#1’s tree was decorated with silver ornaments, silver tinsel garland, and white paper doves sprayed with glitter. This magazine page gave us the idea for the doves. Genny free-handed the pattern and cut them from card stock.

paper doves

DD1984's tree

The tree sits on a small round table. We will cover the tree stand with white batting, then drape white lace panels over the batting to the floor.

Decorating continues today. Genny is making *another* run to the store for needed supplies. Check back later for more pics! ~~Rhonda

on to the library

The decorating is proceeding well. We’d be farther ahead if we hadn’t taken a week to visit those precious grandbabies, but one has to have priorities, doesn’t one?

The downstairs is done except for the library (which functions as our family room) and the downstairs bath. The lights on the 9′ library tree had to be taken off and redone. They were too messy to leave on the tree. Lighting that tree takes about 6 hours. Today we will put the beads, ribbon, and ornaments on it, decorate the counter of the TV cabinet, and do the smaller “Three Kings” tree in the corner. Pictures will be posted later today.

The tree in the downstairs bath is an easy one and won’t take long to decorate. Then we move upstairs. Our bedroom is done, the two baths are done, DD#2’s tree is done, DD#3’s tree just needs the rest of the ornaments, and the tree in the scrapbook room is done. So it’s picking up, cleaning up, and doing the finishing touches on those rooms and we have DD#1’s tree to decorate.

I want all the decorating to be done by Wednesday evening. I need Thursday and Friday for the last minute cookies / candies, and Saturday morning is reserved for decorating the sugar cookies. That will take about three hours. The schedule is tight, but we do have enough time to get it all done.

Two young people from church are coming to help this week. One to clean the yard, rake leaves, pick up trash, limbs, whatever. And the other to clean the entire house on Thursday. It’s wonderful to have their help! Some of my friends from church will also come during the week to lend a hand where ever we need the help. There is always a job I can delegate, so their help is also fully appreciated. And a big thanks goes to my sister Genny who decided to stay an extra two days to help today and tomorrow. Yeah! 🙂

I will check in later with pictures of our progress. Stay tuned! ~~Rhonda

Saturday decorating

Today we managed to get the lights on the living room tree and put up the red beads and the popcorn and cranberry strings. This is a nine foot tree on an 18″ high box DH made. The ceilings in the living room are 12′.

living room tree

We made the popcorn and cranberries strings last Sunday/Monday.

living room tree

dining room tree

We finished the “snow” tree in the dining room. DD helped put the shredded artificial snow on the tree. I made the snowball ornaments several years age.

We also put up the snowflake ornaments in the kitchen.

snowflake garland

I stamped and sewed felt ornaments for DD#2’s tree.

felt ornaments

felt ornaments

I’ll post the final picture tomorrow. I need to get some sleep! ~~Rhonda

::waving hi::

Just want to let you know I plan to post this evening. We are knee-deep in decorating and I can’t take time right now. My sister is here this weekend to help. I am taking pictures and will post some of those later when I need a “sit-down” job.  TTYL!  ~~Rhonda

a new do

I had my hair cut last night. It has looked like this for as long as I can remember:

old hair

New do:

new hair

new hair

🙂 ~~Rhonda

popcorn and cranberries

We made popcorn and cranberry strings this weekend. It’s a family tradition. My mom always made them for our trees as I was growing up, and we have always had them on our living room tree for the 30 years of our marriage. After a long day of decorating, stringing popcorn and cranberries is a great sit-down-and-rest-your-feet-while-you-watch-a-movie job.

six bags of cranberries

It takes six bags of cranberries to make enough strings to decorate the 9′ living room tree.

almost done

We make the strings about as long as this table. They are easy to carry into the living room and attach one section at a time. We leave a 4-6″ tail on each end and tie those together when the string goes on the tree. I like to hang them with ornament hooks to give the loops a nice scalloped definition.

Here’s a hint for stringing popcorn and cranberries – the popcorn will string more easily if it is a day or two old. Freshly popped corn can certainly be used, but it breaks more easily. We use loose popcorn, not microwave popcorn, for the strings. It takes a lot. DH popped three large bowls full and we used it all. I like to use Orville Redenbacher’s white popping corn. It pops large and has a clean white color. Can’t always find that, though (like this year), so we used Orville’s yellow popping corn.

We use regular white or ivory sewing thread and a regular hand sewing needle for stringing. We double the thread and tie a knot 4-6″ from the end. We start with a cranberry and thread through it twice to keep it from slipping off the end. And we finish the section with a popcorn, but do not tie that end with a knot. Be sure to lay your strings out with the knotted end at the same end of the table, so you can easily pick up the popcorn end to prevent the popcorn and cranberries from slipping off the string.

I am often asked if we save the strings from year to year. No, we don’t. The cranberries turn into craisins and the popcorn shrinks, too. By the end of the season, some of the strings are showing gaps. In the past, I have tried setting them outside for the birds, but they have never shown interest in eating them.

~~Rhonda