my favorite things about Christmas – part 3: baking cookies

So it is Christmas day!  It has finally come!  And I got a really great gift this year – a new Canon Rebel EOS camera so the pics on here will look a bit more professional going forward.  For today’s post I used my trusty iPhone though because I took these pics over the weekend when I baked some peanut butter kiss cookies at my parents house with my mom.  While opening presents with family is the highlight of Christmas morning, I wanted to share this final post about my final favorite thing about Christmas – baking cookies!

The recipe is posted below if you are up for making some of your own…

First you unwrap the kisses:

After rolling the dough into balls you bake them:

Then you press the kisses into the cookies:

And finally, let cool.

Peanut Butter Kiss Cookies:

3 1/2 Cups Flour2 Tsp Baking Soda
1 Tsp Salt
1 Cup Butter or Margarine
1 Cup Peanut Butter
1 Cup Sugar
1 Cup Brown Sugar
2 Eggs
4 Tbsp Milk
2 Tbsp Vanilla

Mix flour, baking soda and salt together. In a separate bowl cream together butter and peanut butter. And the rest of the ingredients to this butter mixture. Gradually add flour mixture to the wet ingredients.  Let dough chill.

Roll dough into one inch balls and roll in sugar. Place on baking sheet.  Bake at 375 degrees for 6-8 minutes.

Use 1 1/2 bags of Hershey’s kisses. Press 1 kiss into each cooking. Bake another 2 minutes longer. Let cool.

Enjoy!
~~~

As we celebrate this precious holiday, I am filled with joy.  God has been so good to me and my family and I always want to remember that. Today and throughout the new year I pray that the Spirit of Christ fills my heart and home with love.

“One thing I ask from the LORD, this only do I seek: that I may dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life, to gaze on the beauty of the LORD and to seek him in his temple.” ~Psalm 27:4

Today I wish you peace, love, and blessings.  May your home truly feel like a graceful haven as you spend time with family for Christmas!

my favorite things about Christmas – part 2: wrapping presents

I saw this great commercial (below) about a month ago and got inspired to use washi tape in my Christmas present wrapping.  (on a side note – I’m not an affiliate of Scotch and actually used a different brand)

Right now I’m currently working in Chelsea in an area where there are stationery stores galore (including the Container Store’s big display) so I decided to stop by one of them after work last Friday – namely Paper Presentation – and headed straight to the wrapping paper section in the back of the store searching for brown craft paper.  It is some thing I’d always wanted to use and instead of using stickers or stamps to decorate it – I would instead used washi tape.  Okay well, I did use a few stickers and some tags too, but the washi tape was center stage.  Here is what I got:

Sunday afternoon I started my wrapping.  Now this is going to take a bit to get everything done, I need boxes and am still waiting for some gifts to be delivered and also have a few I need to shop for.  BUT at least I got started!

That’s right, so far I got 3 presents wrapped.  I’ll be spending the latter part of this week and the first part of next week finishing up the job, but I wanted to show you a bit of what my concept was for how they will look.

I’m not exaggerating when I say that wrapping presents is one of my favorite things about the holidays.  I almost enjoy it more than unwrapping presents!  It really makes me merry 🙂

How about you?  Does wrapping presents make you merry?

my favorite things about Christmas, part 1: the tree

We are getting ever so close to Christmas that it is stirring in my bones!  This post is the first in a series celebrating my favorite things about the holiday season.

It starts off with something that we picked up last weekend here:

That’s right – the Christmas tree!

Growing up many a time me and my parents would go up to the mountains in upstate NY to find a tree and cut it down fresh for the season.  My dad had a thing for getting the biggest tree possible for their living room that spanned two floors in height.  You could touch the top from the top of the staircase once it was put in place.

Now we (my husband and I) opt for something much smaller – this year a five footer.  And we don’t go cut it down.  Instead we took a nice walk down to Hoboken and picked one out among the these beauties below to have delivered to our apartment last Sunday afternoon.

Then it was time for decorating!

I got right to it that evening all while watching “The Grinch” play in the background.  It was a festive time that I enjoyed all to myself.  Here is the outcome:

I was very proud of my work and thrilled to see it glittering that very night.

Unfortunately, in the middle of the night we heard a crash that woke us up.  Our lovely tree had fallen breaking quite a few ornaments. So we had to redecorate it,this time while listening to some tunes, and now its just a bit sparse but glowing once again.

This is one of my favorite parts of Christmas, obviously, because it involves decorating.  Styling the tree and adding some other decor around the house, including a nativity scene is always a fun job.

There are gobs of gorgeous photos out there that show the holiday spirit but in this series I’m going to show you straight from my own home and life what Christmas means to me.  I hope you enjoy!

Now its your turn – how much do you love decorating for the holidays?