Christmas Eve

A couple of images from this Christmas Eve...I started baking this morning at 8. This is the platter I took up to Tina's tonight as my contribution to our family Christmas Eve. She had a wonderful buffet which included an assortment of sandwich fixin's along with shrimp cocktail and potato salad. The spread was rounded out with crudites and dip. It was wonderful, especially after spending the day sampling chocolate and sugar filled treats.

There are a couple of new goodies I tried out this year that will join my repertoire. I made drop sugar cookies and iced them, chocolate crinkles (a recipe I requested and received on The Essential Herbal list - thanks again, Sharon!), a delicious toffee candy that I've been reading about for a couple of years on another forum and Tina (and now Molly's) favorite, Snickerdoodles. They joined my usual chocolate chip, chocolate chip oatmeal and magic cookie bars. The kids baked the two chocolate chip varieties last night, but I made the rest of them this morning.

Later in the day I finished up the T-shirts I was making for gifts. It was fun being able to personalize them for everyone.

We decided to make handmade gifts this year and I think we should probably continue it as our tradition. Everyone put thought and love into their gifts and one of the coolest was a little box that our brother's wife, Pam, made for each of us. It was made of the wood from a cedar chest that our grandfather had made for our grandmother as a wedding present. Now we each have a little piece of that chest. She even filled it with Peppermint Patties, which were a something special our grandfather would treat us with from time to time.Something else that stood out tonight was the almost full moon outside. We had some clouds streaking through the sky and although it doesn't show well on the picture, the light of the moon formed a pinkish ring around the it. The clouds were moving so fast that the moon appeared to really be sailing across the sky. It was just beautiful!

Merry Christmas!