What do you do to make the holidays special for your kids? What kind of baking do you do for this holiday (Christmas)? I am getting so excited to bake this year with my kids. I know my kitchen will be destroyed but bring it on :) :)
I was actually sitting down with my cookie recipes this morning to do one big grocery list to cover all of it. I do not have my kids help me, however. I make between 8-15 different types of cookies/candies & I'm super organized about it. They do gingerbread men with Daddy start-to-finish so they do still get to do some baking & decorating.
Good for you! Enjoy your baking! Right now I'm baking bread - to take over to a friend who broke her leg over the weekend. Surgery and a cast is not the Christmas surprise she wanted, but she'll make the best of it with her family.
- Monster Gingerbread Houses
- Truffles & Truffle Stuffed Figs
- Make the meringue mushrooms for my sis's buche de noel
- Stab oranges with cloves (i buy my cloves by the pound, $3 per pound, at the indian spice market. If I bought them at the grocery store it would be about 4 bottles at $5 each / $20 per orange. I think NOT! Meanwhile 5# makes about 7-10 cloved oranges... that would be $200 in cloves if I bought from the grocery store)
- Xmas tree
- Lights in and out
- (I am bound and DETERMINED to sew new stockings this year! It's been on my 'to do' list for 3 years. Now I just have to remember where I put the durn fabric)
- Advent Calendar OR (well sometimes AND) rings to be cut
- Dress in PJs and drive around looking at lights
- Play my own xmas 'mix tape' (so not the right term anymore... playlist?) almost continuously
- Visit Santa
- Portable North Pole http://www.portablenorthpole.tv/home
- At least 1 christmas party (our christmas parties are funny... most of my friends are jewish or muslim. So we go to sedar -hey, it's all about teaching children, and goy count sorta like children, right?, and eids, and they come to christmas)
- EITHER see the Nutcracker ballet or A Christmas Carol
My mum makes xmas bakalava and icelandic xmas cake. Yummmm to the first, the 2nd is some kind of culinary torture! Yech!
LOL... we have birthday cake on the 25th as well... but it's because we have 3 birthdays on 12/25 in my family!!!
We make a lot of cakes. Some muffins. A few cookie recipies. Since I have 2 and they argue constantly, I found it's asier to do everything 2 at a time. So, I will set up all the stuff for each of them to make a cake. That way they dont argue over who got to crack the egg and who got to pour in the sugar. I have them side by side, both making thier own batches. That way I get 2 cakes done at once and everybodys happy.
In my family we do Christmas Trash (a type of chex mix - way better than chex mix, though) and Pecan Tassies (like a tiny pecan pie in a cream cheese dough shell). They only get made at the holidays.
For some reason, we also only do sausage balls around the holidays, though they're easy enough to do all year...
Oh, but none of this is done with kids - it's just the smell of them that gets everyone excited.
Baking, looking at Christmas lights, decorating the tree - she enjoys the lights the most I think. This year I'm taking her to the ballet and going to attempt making our own christmas cards for the grandparents.
I used to pick out a recipe for every few days. Our goal was 6 different types of cookies. Usually Blonde Brownies, Sandies, Sugar cookies, Chocolate crinkles, Pecan Frosties and some sort of Oatmeal cookie..
Many times the dough does better over night in the fridge, so we would make the batter one day and the next set aside the time to bake them..
Keep in mind, kids get bored with the "work" part of the baking.. So when our daughter was done with her attention, I would wash her hands and let her go and play while I finished. I never expected her to make it through the entire process.
I also used to lay down news paper (taped together) on the kitchen floor to help with the drops and spills.. I made sure to have everything we needed so there was no having to run to the grocery store in the middle of the entire production.
Until this year we have only done sugar cut out cookies and icing decorations. This year we have added to the mix, chocolate dipped pretzles, peppermint bark and the peanut butter ritz sandwiches dipped in chocolate.
Sad thing is we can't make 'em fast enough to fill up the tins - the boys and my husband keep eating them as they come off the line - LOL!
