Holiday Baking

Happy Tuesday.......

Well today is a vacation day from work, but has been busy thus far. Russell and I attended the school performance for Isaac today at 9:30 (he was the back-up for the cow) because he was performing (back-ups perform in the morning). He did a great job and we found out today that he had to "try-out"! He is coming into his own. When we returned home, we started on the holiday baking. I try to do this with Laura, but it didn't work out this year...:( On Sunday I went through all the recipes and put together a list of ingredients. For those who don't know this fact, when I was growing up Christmas was a big thing in our family. We could count on Mom and Granny to make all sorts of goodies. Mom would never make sugar cookies, because a friend of hers did them so well, she would pay her to make them (I sure wish I had Krista McWhirter's recipe), but we made all sorts of other goodies. We would play Christmas music and go to town on making things. My favorite as child, was making bon-bons. I actually got to help and would roll the balls and get to dip them in the chocolate.....I'm sure I've bored you with my walk down memory lane!

So we have made chex mix, seasoned oyster crackers, and new recipe this year, cheesy ranch chex mix, up next is good chunk of the fudge and a couple of Swedish Tea Rings (Grandma Barcus used to always make these - one of the few things of hers that I mastered the recipe).

The greatest thing about today, is that Russell and I are getting to do it together. We both enjoy cooking and it is fun to do it with the love of my life....we are of course listening to Christmas music (not his favorite, but for my benefit he is tolerating it). As soon as the chex mix comes out of the oven, we will be running up to little local grocery store to purchase a few things that we forgot, I am not certain how we could have forgotten something with a list that 2 pages long!!

Well, I must sign off for now, the timer is beeping at me and that signals time to stir the chex mix.

Love,
Tina