On Saturday, we had ice, then snow. Yesterday, DH, DD#3, and DD#2 went to our friends’ home to try the hill behind their house. They had a great time. I stayed home where it is warm and cozy. 🙂
Last night, DD talked DH into going outside around 7:00 and DH pulled her all around the driveway and yard on the sled behind one of his bikes.
Doesn’t sound like a lot of fun to me, but they enjoyed it. Again, I stayed inside where it was warm and cozy… ~~Rhonda 🙂
18 oz. package Oreo Cookies, crushed (reserve 2 T.)
8 oz. package cream cheese, softened
Crush the Oreo cookies. I put them in a zippered storage bag and hit them with the rolling pin. 🙂
Stir together the cookie crumbs and the softened cream cheese until well blended. Form into small balls. Cool them in the refrigerator for 15-30 minutes.
Dip into melted vanilla almond bark. Sprinkle with reserved cookie crumbs.
My daughter brought this recipe home from college. It’s delicious. Especially if you’re an Oreo cookie fan! ~~Rhonda
12 oz. semi-sweet chocolate chips
2 T heavy cream
1 T butter
2 T seedless raspberry jam
In a heavy saucepan, combine chips, heavy cream and butter. Cook over low heat, stirring constantly, until smooth. Stir in raspberry jam. Cover with plastic wrap; freeze 20 minutes. Drop mixture by teaspoons onto foil lined cookie sheet. Freeze 15 minutes. Roll into balls; freeze until firm.
Dip into melted vanilla almond bark and sprinkle with red sugar crystals. I used sanding sugar. Keep refrigerated until serving.
I found this recipe at epicurean.com. I doubled it for the open house. It made about 70 truffles, but the finished amount would depend on how large they are made. They are very easy to make. ~~Rhonda
Each year, for our annual Christmas open house, we make these very cute Christmas mice. They are a great addition to a cookie tray. I think more of them are taken home wrapped in napkins than are actually eaten at the party. 🙂
The bodies of the mice are made from maraschino cherries dipped in chocolate. I drain and rinse the cherries and leave them on paper towels for 30 minutes to an hour, changing the paper once. They need to be fairly dry before dipping in chocolate. The stems become the tails. When dipping, totally seal the area of the cherry at the base of the stem. Don’t dip the entire stem in chocolate.
While the chocolate is still soft, add the heads (Hershey’s Kisses) or, if the chocolate hardens, you can dip the bottom of the Kiss in chocolate and stick it to the body.
The ears are sliced almonds, dipped in chocolate and set behind the head. They can be added while the body chocolate is still soft, but the timing is tricky. Too soft and the ears slip down the sides. Too hard and they don’t stick at all. I find it easier to attach all of them at the same time. I break an almond slice in half, dip the broken side in chocolate and attach it just behind the head.
To make the mice, you need:
In this picture you can see the set up. The pan of chocolate sits on a heating pad that has been wrapped in a towel and covered with aluminum foil. The gentle heat from the heating pad keeps the chocolate melted. The almonds are in a bowl for easy sorting. The dragees are attached by holding them with tweezers, barely dipping them into melted chocolate. They easily stick to the head (Kiss). I smear a small bit of chocolate on the aluminum foil which keeps the chocolate soft, and also gives me a perfect spot for dipping the eyes without immersing them too deeply into the chocolate. If you find the dragees do not stick well, set the tray of mice in the refrigerator for five minutes or so. When the melted chocolate touches the cold Kiss, the eyes will adhere immediately.
I make about 90 of these mice for our open house. Each jar of cherries has 27-31 cherries in it. DD#3 loves to find stemless cherries in the jar. She gets to eat those. 🙂
Do check the jar label. Some maraschino cherries have stems, some don’t. We live in a small town and can’t always find stemmed cherries locally. Larger grocery stores with more variety are an hour away. I sometimes pick the cherries up in the summer or fall before Christmas so I have them when I need them.
Try creating your own Christmas mice! They are fun to make and look cute on the cookie tray, as you can see in this picture of cookies packed for the volunteer firefighters. Boxes also go to the police station, the staff at DD’s school, and others.
~~Rhonda 🙂
Nathan Clark George and two fellow musicians presented a beautiful concert this evening. You can sample their work at nathanclarkgeorge.com. Their Christmas album is my very favorite. They played the songs from that album as well as other songs. Everyone had a wonderful time! We got rave reviews on the music, the food, the entire evening.
After the concert, everyone stayed to talk, eat, purchase albums, and tour the house. DD#3 has heard Nathan in concert at youth camp three years in a row, and was very excited about having him perform in our home. She wore her “nathan clark george” T-shirt and she asked him to autograph it for her. 🙂
Did I mention the totally yummy food??
Cheese spread on bagel chips and cocktail bread, meat and cheese sticks, meatballs in spicy cranberry sauce, veggie tray and dip, sugarplums, and truffles…what’s not to like!
We have known Nathan for a long time. His father is the pastor of a nearby PCA church, the denomination of which we are members. DH is the presbytery youth camp director and has invited Nathan to do a concert at camp each summer. DD#3 has enjoyed Nathan’s camp concerts for three years and was SO happy to have him come to our home for the house concert. We enjoyed meeting Nathan’s friends, and hearing the three of them in concert was a privilege. We are planning to have them back for next Christmas!
~~Rhonda
The dining room is decorated with silver and white and a touch of cobalt blue for Christmas. The deep window sills are covered with batting, snow and silver ornaments.
The inexpensive blue vase came from Wal-Mart and it and others like it were used at a friend’s wedding to hold bouquets on the reception tables. The large vase makes a great hurricane for the candle. The lights in the background are on the redbud tree outside the window.
The dining room Christmas tree is our “Snow Tree.” The quilt batting that covers the sheet was cut with a decorative scalloped edge.
Buttercup loves to sleep here, near the east window.
I use shredded plastic snow to “snow” the tree. It looks beautiful! We apply about eight bags of the artificial snow to this tree. There’s an urge to throw it on and see where it lands, but that doesn’t give the best effect. And it makes a mess! The best way to put it on the tree is to take a large handful and gently lay it on top of the branch. When the season is over, after taking all the ornaments off, we shake the tree, sweep up the snow, then vacuum the tree and the floor. We can’t remove it all, but this tree is used for the same theme each year, so that doesn’t matter. As with all our trees that go to the attic in one piece for storage, a large tree bag is put over the tree. It is tied shut at the base of the trunk so the excess snow doesn’t litter the floors and staircases.
DD#3 *loves* to help with this project. All the ceilings in the original part of the house, both downstairs and upstairs are 12′ high. Because of that, I like to sit trees on top of tables, dressers, boxes, etc., to give them height.
Two large wooden snowflakes, wired together near the top, slip over the tip of the tree and make a great finishing touch.
The 7′ tree sits on an antique oak table. We keep extra bags of snow under the table in case we need to add more during the season, though we seldom do. The snow stays on the tree very well. We use 3M Command strips to hang lights under the table. These shine, especially at night, through the white sheet that covers the table. We tried using the outdoor lights that come in three layers of scallops under the table, but they are difficult to keep from tangling during storage. Now we use a long single strand of white lights and take it several times around the inside of the table. Much easier to handle.
On top the table, a round of tabletop glass is set on wooden blocks, with 2×4 reinforcement under the stand itself, and white lights are placed under the glass. It gives the entire table a beautiful glow through the batting and the white sheet. On top of the batting and the sheet is spread a piece of white tulle spangled with silver snowflakes.
In another corner, a small tree on top an old cupboard is also “snowed.”
This picture was taken just before our annual open house in 2006. The cupboard belonged to DH’s paternal grandparents.
Another wall is decorated with a lighted church and antique kerosene lamps. The picture above the table is an enlarged reproduction of a vintage postcard. The snow tree is reflected in the glass.
We are hosting two events this weekend, so I need to get back to work. More about that later! ~~Rhonda 🙂
Grandbaby number one of the twins. We hope to visit in February.
The kitchen is decorated with snowflakes and icicles. This collection continues to grow. Each year new ones are added and older plastic snowflakes are removed.
We have four south facing windows and two east facing windows, all topped with a garland that is lit with blue and white lights. The snowflake ornaments hang from the garland.
Our friend Gary made this beautiful ornament for me, along with quite a few others. It is made from the glass from a lamp made for me by a friend in 1972. The lamp had come apart and Gary used the glass to make these.
I love the look these ornaments give the kitchen.
Several years ago, I was in a Christmas store and saw ornaments hung from the ceiling with mirrored garlands. I took that idea and used mirrored garlands to hang snowflakes from the 12′ ceiling in our kitchen.
~~Rhonda
In the early 40’s, when my mother was a young girl of about eight years of age, her father took her and her siblings to visit his mother at Christmas time. Grandmother’s house was small so she decorated a tree in the yard rather than the house. They didn’t find her at home, but my mother’s father told the children they could choose an ornament from the tree. My mother chose this small elephant.
It hung on the tree in our home for all the years of my childhood and after. A few years ago, my mother gave the elephant to me and now it hangs on our Christmas tree each year. It will be passed on one day to my daughter Sarah Jane who is named after her Great-great-grandmother, the original owner of the elephant.
~~Rhonda
