What Are you Serving on Christmas and/or New Years

There was a conversation on Twitter earlier today about what people are serving on Christmas Eve, New Years, Christmas Day (or whatever day or holiday you celebrate). I don't know what we'll be having as I'm not the one cooking the meal, but every year is something different depending on where we are located.

I thought it would be fun to post of few different meal ideas and I'd love to hear about what you're planning.

My mom has baked cornish hens, one for each person, in the past and the presentation has been gorgeous, much less eating it. Martha Stewart has several recipes (the one with the 40 cloves of garlic being my favorite, but you might not want to serve that the multiple people - hold our nose!) This lemon and herb recipe looks fantastic!

What about Terducken? This dish has always fascinated me. Husband and I love to watch the Food Network and we've seen everyone from Paula Deen to Guy Fieri show off this dish. It's just fascinating to watch it being made. Are any of you brave enough to try it? HERE's Paula Deen's recipe.

Someone on Twitter mentioned Beef Wellington! Yummmm....that sounds fabulous to me. Tyler Florence has a great recipe for this dish. (I'm telling you, my mouth is simply watering!)

Of course, there are always the old traditional stand-bys, turkey (you all know what a turkey looks like) and ham, depending on your traditions.

For a pre-baked ham, no one does it better than Honey Baked Ham. We didn't have a Honey Baked Ham in my hometown. But I worked at a llittle bakery called Dumplin's in the mall and the calls for Christmas ham reservations started well before Thanksgiving. We had one cooler completely filled with hams to the rim (organized by weight) and we would carmelize them by hand with a blow torch. We sold them ham for sandwiches during the lunch hour and man, those are the best!!

Of course, we must remember our vegetarian guests. I've never hosted a vegetarian, so I had to do a little research. I came across the Vegetarian Society website and found this dish. I think it looks fabulous. It's completely vegetarian, yet has the feel and presentation of a full-blown holiday dish. It's a Festive Fillet with Orange and Pomegranate Sauce (made with turkey-style fillets).

So, now that your mouth is watering, I want to know what you are planning on serving at your holiday meal this year?

New Blog Design!!

So, what do you think of my new blog design? Girl's Night Out Blog Designs created it for me and I think she did a fabulous job! I just wasn't happy overall with my other design (was a little too loud), needed something more muted and Girl's Night Out Blog Designs really delivered!! Not to mention, she was SUPER fast too!

So, what do you think?

Christmas Gift Baskets

Here are the Christmas baskets I made for this year.

I love the look of a simple bushel basket with just a little grosgrain ribbon trim.

Inside the basket is a simple mason jar filled with a Gem Cookie recipe. Attached is a scrapbook card with the recipe on the back (I have a friend who makes these for me every year, the picture really doesn't do it justice).

Lallie and I also made ornamanets, thanks to Stuttering Shell. They didn't turn out exactly the way I had planned, but they are still pretty. I am still debating on monogramming them but I think I like them simple.

Again, the basket itself has a gift tag (made by the same friend).

And then I topped it off with a couple little things from the Preppy Paper Girl. A popcorn bag (the others are red/white), green and white polka dot tissues and Christmas chapstick. Just cute little fun things.

For the girls in my office, I got these cute mugs, also from the Preppy Paper Girl, filled with hot cocoa mix and mini marshmallows. They both LOVE coffee and hot chocolate, so I thought this would be nice and then I can pin their gift cards to them.

Weekend Update - Super Fun!

This weekend was so much fun! Started out on Thursday evening when Husband's work threw a family Christmas party with Santa Claus arriving on a fire truck to hand out gifts to all the kids! I was rightfully concerned that Lallie, being the age she is, would be scared. She LOVED Santa arriving on the truck and loved watching him from a distance but flat out refused to go anywhere near him (you know the death grip where you couldn't pry the child off of you with the assistance of two burly men - yep, that's what happened). It was still lots of fun and Santa brought Lallie a Baby Alive doll with a matching outfit for Lallie. She was thrilled and wore her dress up outfit all weekend (along with earings, rings, shoes and tiara to match!)

Friday, I met Petunia over at Petunia in Paradise for lunch at P.F. Chang's. It had been at least a year since I've eaten there and it was wonderful. It had also been a while since I'd been able to catch up with Petunia, so it was nice to sit and actually talk for a while.

Saturday, Lallie and I walked in a Junior League Reindeer Dash. That was a lot of fun as Lallie and her little friend, Turner, nearly ran the entire 1 mile in which we particpated. We came in DEAD last due to Lallie and Turner's need to learn some necessary survival skills.


Saturday night, I went out with a group of mom's from Lallie's school. It was by far, the best girl's night out I've ever attended. I was out late and none of us really wanted to leave we were having so much fun.

Sunday, we did some house organizing, preparing for Lallie's large amount of new toys that she will be receiving, not necessarily a lot of toys, but some of them big. She's gone from an infant to a toddler (overnight) and she needed older kid toys like Barbie, dress up clothes, older puzzles and books. We moved some things up to her room, I got the Christmas decorations stored in her playroom and moved them elsewhere to prepare for shelving that Husband will make etc. Afterall, we did just move 5 months ago, so I'm still trying to find the perfect storage space for everything.

Anyways....I hope everyone has a wonderful week!

Christmas Decor Galore

Welcome to our home! This is my first year decorating for Christmas in our new home, so I'm trying to figure out what works and what doesn't and what will be saved for next year.

Our Minnie Adkins folk art horse from Kentucky all decked out for Christmas in our foyer. My Christmas topiary, which I'm kind of happy I didn't sell, is sitting behind it.





My mom has made needlepoint stockings, from scratch - patterns and all - for all my cousins in the family. Husband and Lallie have one too. These are very special to me and notice how our names are not on them so they can be handed down. It takes mom about one year per stocking.


Our nativity and Lallie's Santa Claus picture from last year. We will not be getting one this year, Lallie is deathly afraid of Santa, except from a distance.


Our formal roof Christmas tree, yes, it's skinny, but it fits! Our larger Minnie Adkins horse is above it, you can see it's legs and tail. I haven't gotten a tree skirt yet, so ignore that part! :-)


Our banister... (and messy kitchen - sorry!)

Our living room tree.....an explosion underneath!

Merry Christmas (and Happy Hanukkah to those celebrating tonight!)

Oscar Blandi - Dry Shampoo

(Let me preface - I really love Husband, he makes me smile! He always leaves me anonymous comments that I rarely publish as they are usually snarky, funny, inside jokes, but he also usually tries to deny that it's his comment when I call him about it, making me somewhat uneasy, he likes me to squirm. Anyways - please note his comment - no, no, no, I do NOT have greasy, clumpy hair - it is in fact oily....okay - continue reading.) :-)

Good morning peeps! I don't have much to blog about today in family life, so I thought I'd blog about one of my favorite products, Oscar Blandi Dry Shampoo (found at Sephora.com).

I have long, blond super fine hair. I can't wash my hair every day because it gets extremely dry and brittle and will break (and gets those little fuzzies that stick up - partly because my hair is naturally curly and I straighten it). I digress....BUT, I can't not wash it every day because it gets greasy and clumpy around my scalp. This is for two reasons 1) again, super fine hair and 2) I am a compulisive hands-in-the-hair girl. I've tried really hard to stop, I just can't, it's unconcious. Arggg...



Anyways, you know how some soups and casseroles are better the second day after? Now, my hair always looks better the second day after washing, all because of Dry Shampoo.



I sprinkle some on those greasy, clumpy areas, usually on the top of my scalp only, near my forehead and then style as normal. The best thing, I lose that grease shine, but not the luster and shine that makes the hair look pretty. And, there is no white residue or white-ish looking hair that some products leave behind. If I'm not mistaken, they make this is colors as well for darker colored hair, not sure?

I love this stuff. Have you ever tried dry shampoo? And if so, why does it work for you? What brand? I'd love to know!

Linsday Phillips Shoes - LOVE them!

Lindsay Phillips, the inventor of Switch Flops, has now come out with a Switch Ballet Flat. While I am not a fan of the switch flops, I love her new flats.

I simply adore shoes and am always looking for new ones with different embellishments. Somedays I want something simple, somedays I want something with a little pearl or maybe jewel flair. Buying a pair of shoes for each of these wants can become quite costly.

So, I bought a pair of silver Lindsay Phillips Liz flats (also available in gold, copper and black). Each pair comes with one embellishment and then you get to choose a second one. They snap on and off easily and there are many varieties of embellishiments (though I wish she'd make a pearl one).

As a review, here are my favorite points:

• They wear well with skirts, dresses, jeans, capris, tights, casual, dressy.
• The variety of embellishiments is endless, especially if you bought all of them. They are $12.00 each.
• They are SUPER comfortable. They insoles are padded like you're wearing Dr. Scholls and the backs are fabric and do not cut into your achilles tendon. They are also snug so they don't slip on and off
• They first pair of shoes and two embellishments (one already on the shoe) retail for around $65.00.
• The snaps are secure, to avoid the falling off of your flair.

So far I have the silver Liz flats (they come with the flower) with the Ila and Joy flair and I love them. My Florida toes (which are exposed for 11 months of the year) are finally happy in a pair of closed-toe flats! Yay!