The Original Chex Party Mix



6 Tbsp. butter
4 Tbsp. worchestershire sauce
1 tsp. Lawry's seasoned salt
3 c. Rice Chex cereal
3 c. Wheat Chex cereal
3 c. Corn Chex cereal (NEWS FLASH: my Grandma, mom, and we girls use Cheerios instead since the corn cereal tends to fall apart)
1 c. mixed nuts (or you can use peanuts or cashews)
1 c. pretzels

Heat oven to 250 degrees. Melt butter in roasting pan (if you're tripling the recipe, you'll want your largest one that you'd use for baking a 20+lb turkey like we do). Stir in worchestershire sauce (and say the word a couple of times, it's fun) and seasoned salt. Stir in remaining ingredients until evenly coated.

Bake for one hour in 15 minute intervals by stirring every 15 minutes. Spread on paper towels to cool.

Enjoy, and let me know how it turns out! :)

Kitchen Delights

These scenes are a sampling of the many things we like to make during the Christmas season. Of course, some were not photographed (like the soft gingerbread) for reasons of short duration from the freshly baked stage to the consumption stage. :)

 

Yours truly making the Original Party Mix. Don't be fooled however! The "original chex mix recipe" on the cereal boxes is not anything like the original, or so says my Grandma and Mother-dear.

We triple the recipe whenever we take it to the annual Christmas Caroling Party. But then we always triple the recipe, it tastes so good. :)



I made Thumb Cookies from Tasha Tudor's Cookbook for the first time this year. I made enough to share with friends and neighbors also. My brother kept raving about them. I think they'll be a keeper recipe.



Mother-dear in the kitchen Christmas morning. Our brunch always consists of apple cider, scrambled eggs, sausage, bacon, cinnamon rolls, and pecan swirl bread.

Rolls rising on the stove for our Christmas dinner

I pulled out the antique glasses from Grandma for our sparkling grape juice to drink along with our dessert of chocolate pie



Every year we make our Christmas cutout cookies using vintage cookie cutters that Mama used when she was little. I've picked up a few along the way, too.

Ready for the oven!

One year we doubled the recipe, but made a decorating party out of it. Since then, we've made sure to only make one batch since it makes so many. With Mama, Molly, and I decorating, it didn't take to long.



They taste quite delicious, too. :)

Christmas Eve Post

Source

I salute you. I am your friend, and my love for you goes deep. There is nothing I can give you which you have not. But there is much, very much, that, while I cannot give it, you can take. No heaven can come to us unless our hearts find rest in it today. Take heaven! No peace lies in the future which is not hidden in this present little instant.

Take peace! The gloom of the world is but a shadow. Behind it, yet within our reach, is joy. There is radiance and glory in darkness, could we but see. And to see, we have only to look. I beseech you to look!

Life is so generous a giver. But we, judging its gifts by their covering, cast them away as ugly or heavy or hard. Remove the covering, and you will find beneath it a living splendor, woven of love by wisdom, with power. Welcome it, grasp it, and you touch the angel’s hand that brings it to you.

Everything we call a trial, a sorrow or a duty, believe me, that angel’s hand is there. The gift is there and the wonder of an overshadowing Presence. Your joys, too, be not content with them as joys. They, too, conceal diviner gifts.

Life is so full of meaning and purpose, so full of beauty beneath its covering, that you will find earth but cloaks your heaven. Courage then to claim it; that is all! But courage you have, and the knowledge that we are pilgrims together, wending through unknown country home.

Fra Giovanni, Christmas Eve 1513

Calicos in the Shop

Yesterday I spent most of the day in the sewing room (when I wasn't, I was teaching violin) and had fun cutting into new fabrics. When Mother-dear and I went to JoAnn's the other day, I was horrified to see how much fabric has gone up in price! Why it seems like just yesterday we all of us girls were buying blue calico to match family friends of ours for Easter Sunday and only paid $3.99 a yard (and probably used a 50% off coupon!). The cheapest price I saw was $6 a yard for ugly and cheap feeling yardage. Feel special that I didn't change the price on these aprons even though I used premium cotton.

 

I finished two aprons and listed them yesterday in the late afternoon/evening hour:

 

This one in the 1930s style reminds me of the springtime in Georgia when the the skies are often grey with a cool drizzle, but the pink and white dogwoods trees bloom on in profusion.

This one just seems like a classic 1950s calico apron that you'd find hanging from a cabinet in a antique store. The fabric almost looks like a vintage print.

Now I'm off to start baking our Christmas cutout cookies. I have a whole entire post in the works designated just for the baking endeavors I've done since I've been home. Stay tuned!

Time for Home

Winter is the time for comfort, for good food and warmth, for the touch of a friendly hand and for a talk beside the fire: it is the time for home. ~Edith Sitwell

The Seamstress Has Returned

Many thanks to those of you who kept me in your prayers over the last few weeks. God provided all I that I needed, plus some. Our 2nd orchestra concert went well (we have heard rumors that it was one of the best in recent years), violin juries and the following recital went well (apparently my vibrato sounds gorgeous when I'm nervous, or so said my teacher), and finals were stressful, but went well with good class grades (the highest being a 99.42 in Biology Lab!).

 

I pulled into home-sweet-home shortly before supper last night.

 

As you can see, this afternoon I already dusted off the sewing machine. I cut this apron out when I was home for Thanksgiving, but had no time to sew it. Since it is Christmas-y in nature, I made sure it was the first to be sewn before any others. Like it?

 



Looking into my bin of stashed fabric, there are no cottons in there so it looks like I'll have to go peruse the local shops if I'm to stock up before the next semester! I'm open to suggestions or requests if you have something in mind.