Family Thing

We are just a few days away from the big guy coming to our house. Santa must be preparing for a big night. This week we hung all of our stockings. It was a huge job. Twenty six stockings all hung in a row. As my husband and I started adding up the family members we were sure we had counted somebody twice or even three times. As we recalculated and wrote down each name we came to realize that 26 was the magical number. This past year we added a son in law, two granddaughters and a soon to be son in law. We are truly blessed to have such a wonderful family.

So now with all of the decorating done and stockings hung we realized that we had a huge job ahead of us. Christmas shopping!

Our grown kids are easy. It’s a surprise but we are really excited about it, but the grandchildren! What do we get for the grandchildren? Does anyone have any ideas?

I checked my list and I checked it twice and still I am unsure. Here are some of my ideas:

I think that anything Frozen would work for the granddaughters. How about this Disney Frozen Doll Set

The grandsons are all into different things right now. So I have a couple of ideas for them. They love the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and the Incredible Hulk. Those would be easy gifts for my little guys. How about this fun idea?

After I saw a train chugging around my son-in-laws Christmas tree this year I knew this would be a great idea. Every young boy needs a choo-choo train for Christmas.

But I know that every grandchild from newborn to 5 years old would love and be able to easily maneuver this great device. On sale this week, the Fire HD 7 Kids Edition.

I am amazed with the intelligence of these little children. They know how to swipe and click and handle all electronic devices. I shouldn’t be surprised though. They have some pretty smart parents.

I am still undecided. So many ideas, so little time. What are some ideas you have for your children or grandchildren? I am open for suggestions.

My favorite holiday cookie is the sugar cookie. I love to make them for Valentine’s Day, Easter, Independence Day, and Halloween. But most of all I love making them for Christmas because I love to cut them out into these cute little wreaths.

Holiday Sugar Cookies

1 cup butter or margarine, softened
1 cup sugar
1 large egg
1 tsp vanilla
2 tsp baking powder
3 cups flour

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Cream butter and sugar together. Add eggs and vanilla. Add baking powder and flour one cup at a time, mixing well. The dough will be very stiff. Do not chill. Roll into 1/8 inch thick and dip cutters in flour before each use. Bake for 4 to 6 minutes or until lightly browned. Cool and then remove from cookie sheet.

One of our family’s favorite cookies is the chocolate chipper. Who doesn’t love a warm chocolate chip cookie right from the oven? Because this is such a popular cookie in our house we thought it would probably be just as popular in our neighbors’ houses as well.

To keep an abundant supply of cookies always baking in our house, we will make dough balls with a medium size scoop. Then throw them in the freezer and freeze overnight. When dough balls are frozen they store easily in gallon size zip lock bags.

For Christmas we decided to share these delicious cookies with our neighbors and gave them a bag of dough balls to cook whenever they were in the mood for a warm batch of cookies. We attached this cute little card with directions and delivered several bags around the neighborhood.

Chocolate Chip Cookies

1 ½ cups granulated sugar
2 cups brown sugar
1 lb butter, softened
3 eggs
1 ½ tsp salt
1 ½ tsp baking soda
2 tablespoons vanilla
6 cups flour
2–4 cups chocolate chips
2 cups chopped nuts

In your KitchenAid Professional Stand Mixer,  cream sugar, brown sugar and butter until creamy.
Add eggs and vanilla and mix well.
Add dry ingredients combing well.
Add chocolate chips.
Drop by cookie scoop onto ungreased cookie sheets.

Bake in preheated 350 degree oven for 10 – 12 minutes.

Makes 5 dozen cookies.

Follow this link for the for the Christmas Tag:

Christmas Dough Tag PDF