DO IT NOW!

Doesn’t everyone strive for a joyous stress-free Christmas Season filled with the true meaning of Christ-mas? An entire season dedicated to celebrating God’s gift to us should not be bogged down with tons of “to dos", rushing around and stress. So often this is how our Christmas goes no matter how hard we try. You CAN have a wonderful joyous Christmas filled with baking with the kids, feeding the hungry, adding to your Church’s "needy family gift tree", or doing whatever generous act the Holy Spirit calls you to do without worrying about your Christmas cards, shopping, beating post office deadlines and scheduling get togethers by doing it NOW! That’s right, in October! Give yourself a Halloween deadline to get your Christmas card address list updated, select your family photo or take it to be copied for your cards, purchase your cards or schedule the portrait for your cards NOW! NOW NOW NOW! How can I motivate you to set a deadline of Halloween to be ready for Christmas? Only you can do it. I know a few people who have mastered this skill for years. If you know someone similar, just think of the peacefulness they seem to enjoy during the Christmas Season. Don’t you want that? Don’t you want to be able to show your kids the TRUE meaning of Christmas? Recruit some friends to take on this challenging goal with you and check in with each other regularly. Think of how much more fun Halloween will be to celebrate this year!

Frugal Beauty Products and Christmas Gifts Ideas

I am totally plugging my friend’s little Avon business with this post but honestly that is not my motivation. You can not beat the price and quality of a lot of Avon products. The fact that you can be helping a fellow mom earn some bucks is just a plus. Another friend of mine got me hooked on some of Avon’s Mark products a couple years ago and then she stopped selling it so I was thrilled when my friend Stacy told me that she started selling Avon. I just placed an order for powder (buy one get one ½ off), Mark foundation and a few stocking stuffer: princess lip gloss and some body bath paints (got one for each kid, 3 for $5). You just can’t beat it for price or convenience. Stacy emails her customers when they have free shipping specials, which is ALL the time including right now for orders over $30, or you can have her deliver it for free. She is cute as a button and sports some Avon fashions which I didn’t even know they had.

I Might Have to Rethink my December Menu

I was so happy to let my son pick our turkey for Thanksgiving this year and he really really wanted the 20 pounder. I figured that Thanksgiving only comes once a year so, fine, I let him. I did not realize at the store that it would not fit in my huge stock pot for brining. It is sitting in the garage brining in an enormous bucket. Nor will it fit into any roasting pan that I own. I bought a flimsy metal one which we will use placed on top of a cookie sheet for stability. In reviewing roasting time for weight of turkey I came across information that said that you should figure 1 pound of turkey per person. Gee, I'm glad we are having 20 guests. NOT! There are seven of us and three of the seven are age 6 and under so really we are more like five feasters. Holy moly. We have 15 pounds of excess turkey. I do not believe in wasting food when people in the world are starving (yes I finally realized that my grandmother was right about that) so I've got to put this turkey to use. I will be looking up turkey recipes over the next couple of days and would love any suggestions. I am assuming that I will have no problem freezing the roasted meat for use in recipes later, right? I don't want it to dry out in the freezer.

I am going to try a Turkey Hash recipe for Friday's breakfast that my SIL found: http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Turkey-Hash-350650

This Turkey Gumbo looks interesting:http://www.seriouseats.com/recipes/2007/11/turkey-gumbo-thanksgiving-leftovers-recipe.html

I will make turkey stock in the crock pot from the carcass like the crock pot lady did with a chicken carcass: http://crockpot365.blogspot.com/2008/01/homemade-chicken-broth-crockpot-recipe.html

We will of course have lots of turkey meat for sandwiches and I am thinking that using a whole turkey for that and slicing it for lunch meat may be cheaper than the $5.99/lb deli meat. Hmmm. I'll have to give that more thought.

Our Simple Thanksgiving Menu

This year will be different than last year. We are on our own along with my Mom and Step-dad, who will be driving a little over an hour to visit with us. I'm keeping the Thanksgiving menu simple while adopting a couple of the favorites from our more elaborate feast of last year. Last year, my sister-in-law put our fabulous menu together and we had fun cooking together for our family plus four out-of-state family members. We ran out of oven space we cooked so many dishes so we called our next door neighbors who were away visiting family and they allowed us to use their oven. It was fun going back and forth with our oven mits. But, this year I will be the only cook so I've scaled it down.

Brined Roasted Turkey
http://www.foodnetwork.com/food/recipes/recipe/0,1977,FOOD_9936_8389,00.html
My son went to the store with me to pick our turkey this year. He picked a 20-pounder -- I'm hoping to freeze some cooked turkey meat for many many turkey dishes to come.)

Gravy
I am no gravy expert. I'm going to try to do this by whisking the scraps from the roasting pan with flour and chicken broth as it should be done.

Cranberry Pear Chutney
http://www.marthastewart.com/cranberry-pear-chutney?lnc=369ad9e51c2ee010VgnVCM1000003d370a0aRCRD&rsc=photogallery_thanksgiving_holiday_thanksgiving_p5
Last year we added some candied ginger to this recipe and it was delicious.

Roasted Garlic Mashed Potatoes
I just roast a head of garlic at 400 for about 40 min. and squeeze the cloves into our mashed potatoes. I'm just going to throw the other ingredients in as I usually do: butter, salt & pepper, cream cheese and milk.

Corn: just straight up frozen stuff.

Stuffing: just plain with sauteed celery, onion, mushrooms and seasonings. Nothing fancy.

Apple Pie
This is in the freezer just waiting to be baked.

Pumpkin Roll: the first one I have ever made. Can't wait to eat it.
Pumpkin Pie
I asked my mother to bring this and dinner rolls.

Apple Cider

What more do we need really? I am hoping to have time to make some more of those browned buttered frosted pumpkin cookies. We decided against a salad because it seems unnecessary with all the other food and our holiday being just a few of us. No one eating with us likes sweet potatoes or squash. So hopefully the turkey will be the showcase.

I'm also looking forward to reading our Gratitude Jar. This is the first year that I remembered that I wanted our family to do a Gratitude Jar. The day after Halloween I put a lidded jar on our dining room table and each day (that I remembered) I asked the kids to think of something that they are grateful for, however small or however big. I wrote what they thought of on a piece of paper with their name and we will read them all before our dinner prayers on Thanksgiving. Mom, if you are reading this it would be nice if you and Dad thought of some to share on your drive up. I hope to make our Gratitude Jar and annual tradition.

The Halloween Candy Gnome

We have a Halloween tradition in our house that has been passed to us through a very clever friend of ours. We have modified the tradition just a bit but basically this is how we handle the overabundance of Halloween candy that our kids try to stuff in their little bodies. On the night of trick-or-treating, the kids may gorge themselves on their candy until the grotesque display makes my husband want to vomit and he calls it quits for the night. The kids go to bed all sugared up and with queezy tummies. The next day they may have candy treats 2-4 at a time a few times throughout the day. After dinner they may choose one piece of candy per years old that they are. They may eat those pieces of candy whenever they wish. The remaining candy is left out for the Candy Gnome. The Candy Gnome will visit any house that has clearly left candy out for him. We leave ours in our front entry hall in our trick-or-treat bags. He takes the candy that is left out for him and delivers it to all the girls and boys who did not get any trick-or-treat candy such as children in hospitals or those who have circumstances where they can not trick-or-treat. The Candy Gnome leaves a small thank you gift. Last year the kids got “head flashlights” that strap around their heads. They had loads of fun in the basement with those. This year the Candy Gnome was not able to shop without children so if he doesn’t get out to shop today then he’ll have to choose something from the Christmas stash. Right now it’s looking like it will be bank calculator jars for the 4 year old and 6 year old and a threesome pack of balls for the 1 year old.

Happy Halloween!