Merry Christmas from Sweet Honey Iced Tea

Weekly Meal Plan and Cookie Dough Balls

Christmas in in two days! Are you ready? We're ready. Well...one main present hasn't yet arrived, and it's not expected to arrive on time. It's one of the tough parts of living abroad. Things don't always arrive on schedule. Everything else is wrapped and tucked under our little tree, ready for Wednesday morning. My daughters are planning to set their alarms for 5 a.m. Christmas morning. I do so hope they oversleep.

I'm linking up to Menu Plan Monday. If you're visiting from there, welcome! I hope you'll hang around a while!

Here's what's cooking at our house this week:


Monday, December 23rd

Breakfast: Gingersnap Oatmeal

Lunch: Black Bean Pumpkin Soup

Dinner: Chicken and Dumplings

Snack: Cookie Dough Balls (below)


Christmas Eve

Breakfast: Cinnamon Rolls

Lunch: Leftovers and homemade bread

Dinner: Paleo Chicken Pot Pie,   Flourless Orange Cake 


Christmas Day

Breakfast: hootenanny and bacon

Late Lunch: Roasted Goose, Brussels Sprouts, Sweet Potato Rolls, Oven-Roasted Whole Onions, Carrots, Spice Cake with freshly whipped cream

Snacky Dinner: Deviled Eggs, gingerbread men cookies, leftovers, cinnamon raisin bread


Boxing Day

Breakfast: biscuits & cream sausage gravy

Lunch: leftovers from Christmas

Dinner: Roast beef, Yorkshire pudding, leftover veg from Christmas, leftover sweets


Friday, December 27th

Breakfast: leftovers

Lunch: Simple Sesame Noodles and Baked Ham & Cheese Sandwiches

Dinner: leftovers for the kids while Mom and Dad go out on a date! We're venturing out for the first Mexican food we'll have since moving to Europe two Octobers ago. The restaurant is supposed to be pretty darn good, but having lived in the midwest may have spoiled us for Mexican. We'll see. I'll let you know how it was.


Saturday, December 28th

Today, I am going to begin stocking my freezer for future meals. I'm going to assemble this list of slow cooker freezer meals as my first go with freezer cooking.

Breakfast: donuts and fruit (they balance each other out, right? hehehe)

Lunch: sandwiches and chips

Dinner: Beef Noodles


Sunday, December 29th

Today, I'm going to assemble several breafast freezer/pantry meals.

DIY Instant Oatmeal Packets
Breakfast Sandwiches
Cinnamon Applesauce Waffles
Pancake batter (mixing it up and storing it in decorator bags to use later)
Pumpkin Spice Scones


Breakfast: breakfast sandwiches

Lunch: Loaded Baked Potato Soup and homemade rolls

Dinner: Meatball Sub casserole and salad



And now, I've got a recipe for you. You can take it to a Christmas pot luck, or you can wrap it up and give it as a gift. Edible, safe, raw cookie dough. What's not to love?

Cookie Dough Balls

total time spent: 30 minutes hands-on
total cost to me: $5 per batch, roughly
craftiness level: beginner

Ingredients:

2 cups flour (gluten-free or otherwise)
1 cup packed brown sugar
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/4 tsp salt
1 cup butter at room temperature
1 cup chocolate chips (recommend mini but all I had was regular)

Beat butter and sugars together until creamy, then add in flour and salt. Mix in chocolate chips. Roll into balls and chill until firm.

Now, you can leave them as is, or you can dip them in melted chocolate. It's up to you!

Nom them relentlessly. Or, you know, gift them.

Gluten-Free Gingerbread Men

The Shortest Day by Susan Cooper

So the shortest day came, and the year died,
And everywhere down the centuries of the snow-white world
Came people singing, dancing,
To drive the dark away.
They lighted candles in the winter trees;
They hung their homes with evergreen;
They burned beseeching fires all night long
To keep the year alive,
And when the new year's sunshine blazed awake
They shouted, reveling.
Through all the frosty ages you can hear them
Echoing behind us - Listen!!
All the long echoes sing the same delight,
This shortest day,
As promise wakens in the sleeping land:
They carol, fest, give thanks,
And dearly love their friends,
And hope for peace.
And so do we, here, now,
This year and every year.
Welcome Yule!!

It's the winter solstice. The shortest day of the year. A great day for opening one Christmas present to soothe the anticipation of the big day, and a great day for baking gingerbread men and decorating them with your children. 

Kathryn was thrilled to open up her new Logitech gaming headset so she can start making her own Minecraft videos and Skyping with her friends. 

Bay received the earring holder she wanted so she can organize all her jewelry. 

The kids can now look forward to opening the rest of their presents on Christmas morning. 

Here's a gluten-free gingerbread recipe that you can use to feed all of the holiday revelers in your life, both gluten-free and otherwise. It's that good. 

I found this recipe and this recipe and this recipe and countless others for gluten-free gingerbread cookies but they all had either a.) too many ingredients b.) a missing ingredient from what I'm used to making gingerbread men with, or c.) had an ingredient I didn't want to use (like flax meal -- ew...not in my Christmas cookies). So I mae this up as I went along with a bit of guidance from the above sources, and I think you'll find this recipe quite satisfactory. 

Gluten-Free Gingerbread Cookies

Ingredients:

• 2 1/4 cups gluten-free flour blend (plus more for rolling later)
• 1 tsp xanthan gum
• 1/4 cup powdered sugar
• 3/4 tsp baking soda
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 1 tsp ground ginger
• 1/4 tsp nutmeg
• 1/4 tsp ground cloves
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1/3 cup sugar
• 1/2 cup packed brown sugar
• 1 beaten egg
• 1/4 cup molasses
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 6 T butter at room temperature

Directions:

• Heat oven to 325F and set your baking sheets up. Use Silpat or parchment on your baking sheets. 
• Combine all the dry ingredients in a large mixing bowl. 
• In a separate mixing bowl, combine the egg, molasses, and vanilla. 
• Pour all the wet into the dry at once. Cut up the butter and add it to the mixing bowl. Mix on medium speed until all combined. 
• Check your consistency. Your dough should hold its shape in a ball. If it's too wet, mix in some additional flour, a couple tablespoons at a time, until it stiffens up a bit. 
• Divide your dough into three portions. 
• Between two sheets of parchment covered, I mean covered, in more flour mix, roll out each portion of dough to roughly 1/3" thick and cut your gingerbread however you choose. Really use a lot of flour. It's the key to great, gluten-free cut-out cookies. You don't want your cookie dough to stick to the parchment, and the recipe is built is a way that the extra flour will be fine in the finished product. We'll clean up our cookies later. For now, be generous with the flour on your work surface. To get the cut dough to the cookie sheets safely, I use a spatula to lift then up off the work area. These guys puff up just a little bit, so give them a little room, maybe an inch between cookies. 
• Continue in this way until all your dough is cut and ready to bake. 
• Bake for 12 minutes before checking on your cookies. Mine were done at the 12 minute mark, but yours may need a few extra minutes. 
• Cool completely before decorating. 

Now, about all that flour that's all over your cookies. Simple solution: when they've cooled completely, use a pastry brush to gently brush away all that excess flour from your beautiful cookies. It's worth using when cutting, and it's easy to get rid of when you're done. Watch:

Use a ton of flour when you're rolling and cutting. 

All the flour sticks to the cookies. It's okay. Leave them. 

Cool the floury dudes completely once their baked. 

Then, take out your handy-dandy pastry brush, and brush that flour right off. 

Voila! Naked as the day he was ...oh, nevermind. 

Now most people use royal icing for these cookies, but I don't care for the taste, or lack thereof. So I use a traditional buttercream frosting to decorate my gingerbread men. Here is a reliable recipe for royal icing if you want to go that route. If you want buttercream, here's a good recipe to use.

Have fun decorating your gingerbread family!

Pomanders for Yule

We went, as a family, to my husband's company party. I don't usually go to these things, because first of all, I'm a major introvert and I find them exhausting, and second, I hate seeing young soldiers pound down alcohol and act stupid.

But I'm glad I went last night. I do have a few fun people to talk to in his company, and I enjoyed their conversation time last night. Plus, there was a raffle, and as my Bay always says, I win everything. Sure enough, I won a cute clock that says Coffee on it. Kind of perfect, because I'm planning to install a coffee bar in our new home when we move next summer.

Also, I was recognized as a volunteer, given a certificate and a lovely set of handmade coasters that say Frohe Weihnachten on them (Merry Christmas auf Deutsch). This was special to me, because it's my last Christmas here in Germany, and I was determined to find something nice that said Frohe Weihnachten on it to take back to the states with me. Only, in all the markets I visited, I found nothing all season. I love my coasters.

At the Christmas party, Santa Claus, of course, made an appearance, with little presents for all the children, even the oldest of the children (our Bay), and I was happily able to snap a photo of my precious babes with Santa. That's something that hasn't happened here in at least nine years. Santa always freaked out Kathryn, and Bay hasn't been into the old man in as many years. We haven't "done" Santa in our house since Kathrn was about three years old. And, no, it doesn't take away the "magic" of Christmas. It simply takes away the creepy old fat man who spies on us year-round and breaks into our houses and eats our food once a year. Kathryn was not okay with that. And so neither were we.

Here are my precious wee ones on Santa's knee:

Outside, the town was all lit up for Christmas. It's so pretty here this time of year. Well, actually, all year it's gorgeous. We will miss living here so very much.

Okay, enough sappy photos. Onto crafting. Tomorrow's Yule, or the Winter Solstice. In celebration, we make natural decorations for our home. Dried orange slices and cinnamon sticks, twigs tied into the shape of a star and decorated with evergreen and holly, herbs, even popcorn and cranberries count. Pomanders are a good way to decorate in a natural way, combining oranges and cloves in a Christmasy scent, and they're really easy to make.

Pomanders

total time spent: 5 minutes per clementine
total cost to me: $2 for cloves, less than $.25 for a clementine
craftiness level: beginner

Simply push whole cloves into an orange in whatever pattern you find pleasing. Some people completely cover the orange; others make patterns in the peel.

You can keep these indefinitely. The pomanders will dry out in two to six weeks.

Paper Mache Bowl

Making this bowl opened me up to a total love of paper mache. There's something so richly satisfying about getting covered in flour/water glue and slapping ripped newspaper onto a mold, and then having it turn into something useful and pretty. 

This is one of my longer crafts, but still, it's only about 3 hours hands-on time, with plenty of time for drying. You can't do this one on Christmas Eve, but if you start it today, you've got way more than enough time to throw together a practically free present that's super impressive and fun to make. 

Paper Mache Bowl

total time spent: about 3 hours hands-on time
total cost to me: $8 for the Mod Podge, and $1 for the bow. I had everything else on hand. 
craftiness level: beginner to intermediate

You'll need:

• flour and water for the paste
• strips of torn newspaper
• a bowl to use as a mold, in a shape you like
• something to cover your bowl with later (I used dictionary pages, and you might do that, or use tissue paper, music sheets, or some other materials you love)
• Mod Podge
• a foam brush
• embellishments if desired

Instructions:

1. Make your flour/water paste. Mix one part flour to two parts water until completely blended. That's it. 
2. Now, the fun part. COVER YOUR WORKSPACE WELL (NOT with newspaper, unless you want to paper mache your workspace, too. A Dollar Tree plastic tablecloth will do just fine.) and then start dipping your newspaper strips into your glue and plopping them onto your upside-down bowl. Cover the whole bowl this way. 
3. Let this layer dry. You can speed it up with a hair dryer, if you want. Letting the layers dry is crucial to prevent mold later. 
4. Once it's dry, do the whole thing again. Make another layer of paper mache on your bowl. Dry again.
5. Keep going for as many layers as you want. I recommend four or five. The more layers you have, the stronger your final product will be. Two or three will be okay, if that's what you have time for. The Mod Podge we use later will help strengthen the bowl, too. 
6. Let your bowl dry completely before proceding. 
7. Now, you get to cover your bowl. I used squares of cut-up dictionary pages for mine. Decide what you want to cover yours with: gift wrap, tissue paper, book pages, whatever. You'll use your Mod Podge to attatch your coverings. Brush some Mod Podge onto your bowl where you're sticking your material, then brush the material itself and apply. Brush some mod podge over the top of the material. 
8. Continue in this way until you're happy with the way the bowl looks, Mod Podge-ing the whole thing. 
9. Let it dry completely. Overnight is good. 
10. Now, would you like to embellish your bowl? Add whatever embellishments you like with a hot glue gun. 
11. Enjoy your new bowl, or give it as a gift. I love mine. 

Pottery Barn Knock-Off Mirror

The Plague has hit my house. 

It's awful. You send your kid to one birthday party and they come home and take out the whole family. 

I swear, the world is not going to end in some bloody battle or a nuclear explosion. We're going to be taken out by modern-day viruses. This one is terrible. We're all dizzy and light-headed, headachey and upset in the tummy. 

Anyway, it's what happens when you send a germy kid to a germy birthday party with a zillion other germy kids. They bring back The Plague. 

And still, December marches on. There are crafts to complete! This one is fun and easy and cheap, and I have some suggestions on how you can improve upon the original (and my own) design to help make yours even better. 


Pottery Barn Mirror Knock-Off (link)

total time spent: 30 minutes
total cost to me: ~$15
craftiness level: beginner

Follow the link above for the original instructions, but first, let me give you a few pointers:

• Really overdo it on the duct tape. Every seam, every frame, and diagonal. And still, add more. Go over your tape a couple times. Use the whole roll. Here's mine, but I ended up adding more:

• If you're going to hang your mirror, glue *and* staple the ribbon to give it extra stability. Be careful not to staple it to the mirror itself, but rather the frame, or you will be so very, very sad to see the shattered mirror that results, and you'll have to start all over again. 
• Consider adding cardboard to the back for extra stability. Without it, my mirror was a bit wibbly-wobbly. 
• Dollar Tree mirrors are not perfect things. Stand in the aisle for a good while and check the magnification of each mirror. Try to buy nine that look about the same. 

Have fun making your mirror!

You, too, Can Knit

I can't knit.

Well, I can't knit with knitting needles. Don't know the first thing about them.

I'd like to.

I can't seem to find anyone to teach me, and those online tutorials and the books that claim to be able to teach anyone to knit just don't work for me.

I need to learn face-to-face.

One day, my good friend Patty showed me how to knit on a loom, handed me a partially contructed knitting project, and told me to finish it up.

I never finished it. It ended up a jumbled mess on my nightstand.

But I unraveled it and made something new. This was my first knifty knitter project:

I made that hat in under two hours with a skein of yarn and a Knifty Knitter. I'd never knitted or crocheted anything in my life before this. Not bad, right?

So you, yes, even you, can knit with a loom. All you need is a loom, some yarn, and about two hours.

If you have several more hours, you can make something bigger. This double-knit infinity scarf, only the second thing I've ever knitted with my loom, took me six hours to make:

That scarf was six skeins of yarn in two colors. It is really very easy to make. I didn't even pay it much attention, just started knitting watching Doctor Who (finished up season five while knitting this). To join it together, I used a sewing needle to connect the end stitches.

So, I don't have a tutorial for you, but rather a couple of links for you to follow. The Knifty Knitter changed the way I craft. It makes creating things from yarn so easy. Even after I learn more traditional methods, I will still pick these up to craft with because I love the stitch it makes.

Here is a link to the Knifty Knitter page.

Here's a Pinterest page with tons of Knifty Knitter pattern ideas. And here's another one. And another board. And one more.

Go forth and knit. You can finish several projects between now and Christmas. And won't everyone be impressed by your new talent?

Colored Pencil Mongram

I made this as a teacher gift a few years ago for my daughter's teacher. I loved the way it turned out, and it cheap enough that a parent could easily duplicate it for all of the teachers in your children's lives. 

Colored Pencil Monogram Gift

total time spent: 30 minutes
total cost to me: about $10
craftiness level: beginner

You'll need:

• a couple boxes of colored pencils (the cheap dollar tree ones are fine for this)
• pencil sharpener
• a frame (I used 8"x10", again, dollar tree carries them!)
• a letter (pressed wood, Hobby Lobby, $2)
• hot glue
• ABC blocks to spell the name (if it's long, leave the "Mrs." on top and the name on bottom) Got mine at Hobby Lobby for $5
• a bit of ribbon for hanging
• some nice scrapbook paper for the back of the frame (to cover the cardboard and to glue the letter to)
• staples for the ribbon as reinforcement

Step one: Lay out your pencils on top of the letter, then sharpen both ends until the pencil fits in the spot on the letter where you want it, like this:

Glue them in place with hot glue. 

Step two: Get your ABC blocks ready:

Then hot glue them to the frame how you like them. Mrs. Fox was short enough to leave together on the bottom, but you can put them on top and bottom, or down the side of the frame for more room. You can also find smaller letter blocks to use. 

Step three: Hot glue everything together. Glue the paper to the cardboard backing. Glue the letter really well to the paper. And staple and glue the ribbon for hanging to the back of the frame. 

Your gift is ready for giving!

Moving Sticker Ornament

Have I mentioned that I love German Christmas Markets? We went to another one yesterday, in Amberg this time.

kinderpunsche: it's like hot, spiced Juicy Juice. But it tastes better than I make it sound. I swear. 

Really: If you can get to Germany for a vacation, do it. This is the most amazing country. Castles and history, bratwurst and beer, Oktoberfest and Christmas markets. You've got to get here if you can. Germany's incredible. Just incredible! And if you can come at Christmastime, all the better, because this is the land of Christmas. Germans know how to get their holiday spirit on.

This evening, my husband and I went on a date! We went to Painting with Friends (Sips & Strokes type class) after we got some dinner together. My non-artsy husband went to arts and crafts with me. What a catch!

my winter Christmas trees

His winter trees and bowl

For our daily craft, I present to you: Moving Sticker Ornament!

If you've ever used moving company, you know what these lovelies are. And if you haven't, well, be thankful you don't have to scrape hundreds of these bad boys off of your belongings.

Moving Sticker Ornament (link)

total time spent: 5 minutes
total cost to me: free (already had an old ornament ball, bit of ribbon, and tag I used)
craftiness level: a kindergartener could manage this.

Here's the one I made from our last move from Georgia to Germany

Make a Record Bowl

Yesterday was a fun day. I really love Christmastime in Germany. It's full of festivities. Yesterday, my youngest daughter and I went to the Bayreuth Christmas Market. A Christmas market is a wonderful place, an outdoor market full of stalls selling gifts, delicious food, hot drink, and merriment. There are concerts, parades, performances, live nativity scenes, Santa sightings, you name it. It's Christmas all wrapped up in one convenient location. And they're all over the country! We'll be going to our third this season today. Here are a few photos from yesterday's Christmas market:

Next, we went to my oldest daughter's debut high school choir concert. She had a duet with a boy and they sang "All I Want for Christmas." It was a great time. I am so proud of her. Some photos from that:

Now onto today's craft. These nifty record bowls can be made in just a few minutes. An ideal gift for that retro friend on your list, they're great for holding jewelry, makeup, a plant... the possibilities are endless.

Record Bowls (link)

total time spent: 5 minutes per record
cost to me: $1 each bowl (thrift shop records)
craftiness level: beginner