Yes another Christmas post..

I ran across this and I just had to share it. I started crying while watching this clip, wish I could have been there to sing tand to see all the looks on everyone's face. Enjoy:)

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!!

I have so much to share with all of you. Christmas was very full of love, family and worship.

I will be back soon with pictures and stories, maybe even tonight still. I have been very busy with my kids and family, so I choose to not blog until at least New Years Eve.  I needed some time to just relax so the computer was not in use, at least not for blogging:)  I guess I'm a day early:) but I just had to wish all of you a very Merry Christmas, and a wonderful New Year!!

I will leave you with some exciting news from our home. This Christmas we found out we were expecting a new little blessing. I am over the moon in love with this baby already.

Yep... Sweetheart we are "Pregnant!"

My husband is so excited, he does not show many emotions but he did on this day!

My Children are so excited, and the looks on their faces were priceless.

Blessings,

Pamela



Today we will start our Christmas Novena

I wanted to share the prayers we will share as a family starting today. We will pray a Novena for the next 9 days till Christmas. I am adding a couple of links that we have used in the past. We add what we want and take out what does not need to be said.

For the daily prayers you can visit any of the links below. The first two are Catholic websites and Wikipedia is a free online Encyclopedia.

fisheaters.com and Catholic Culture.org.

Wikipedia has a lot of good info on the O Antiphons

We will be saying these prayers in conjunction with the O Antiphons which start on December 17th.

Advent Blessings,
Pamela

Christmas cookies...

Okay I'm back again with the rest of my baking list. It took some time to figure out just what I wanted to do this year, to many ideas. This is what the rest of Advent and Christmas baking will look like in our home.

December 5th ~ Christmas spelt muffins

December 6th ~ Chocolate peppermint crinkle cookies.

December 7th ~ Peanut Butter cup cookies and Honey cookies (Pierniki)

December 8th ~ Chocolate Gingerbread Cake with whip cream:)

December 9th ~ Mexican wedding cookies

December 10th ~ Peanut Butter Nanaimo Bar (Here's a link to the recipe)

December 11th ~ Sticky Pecan Mini-Buns (Here is the link to the recipe) GO PACKERS!

December 12th ~ Chocolate Chip Christmas cookies (Christmas M&M candy)

December 13th ~ Saint Lucia's Braided Bread (Today we will learn about Lucia of Sweden)

December 14th ~ Paula's Loaded Oatmeal Cookies minus the icing

December 15th ~ Russian Tea Cakes

December 16th ~ tonight we will make our Christmas Eve bread.

December 17th ~ Chocolate Cheesecake Candy Cane Bars (Here's a link to the recipe).

December 18th ~ Gingerbread Houses, and a Gingerbread Pumpkin Trifle the

December 19th ~ Pretzels dipped in chocolate, and garland for the Christmas tree

December 20th ~ Key lime Mousse Pie (Here's the link to the recipe) and Reindeer (daddy) chow.

December 21st ~ Nutty Orange Coffee cake (Here is the link to the recipe), and our Jesse Tea for Advent

December 22nd ~ Rice Crispy Crown/Wreaths (Thank you Jessica) and Peanut Blossoms

December 23rd ~ Spitz Cookies and our Jesus birthday cake

December 24th ~ Polish Star Cookies - Gwiazdiki z Nieba, and Starlight Cookies (to remember Mary and Joseph's very long journey from Nazareth to Bethlehem).

December 25th ~ No baking have a very blessed Christmas.

December 26th ~ the Colonists Scripture Cake and I would also like to try today's Scripture Cake

(Many activities in the colonies were related to the Bible, these recipes for today are based on books of the bible).

December 27th ~ Hot-water Chocolate gingerbread cake as we remember

December 28th ~ Coconut Rice Pudding

December 29th ~ January nothing planned at this point, we will be doing lots of fun things for the Twelve days of Christmas, but not much baking.

January 5th ~ we will be making Gift of the Magi bread.

January 6th ~ the last day of Christmas Christmas is over and it is time to take down our tree and decorations.

Blessings,

Pamela

Just a short song...

I was looking back through my blog and I ran across one of my favorite songs. I posted a Blog post about how God loves you just the way you are.  Every time I listen to this song I can't help but start singing along. I have 7 daughters that will need to hear these words from me over and over again. I need to hear this words over and over again myself because I to forget. Enjoy!!

Celebrating Nicholas of Myra in a Reformed family

Yes we are reformed family! I still love many of our families Catholic traditions and I still love many things about the Catholic faith. We don't agree with many things the Catholic Church teaches, so my husband calls us reformed. I don't really need a Christian title to live by, Christ did not carry a faith title around him and neither do I.  Christ will save us from hell but only Christ, nothing you do here on earth will stop you from going to hell except following and excepting Jesus Christ as your savior. This is Reformed thinking, so I guess if I had to give myself a faith title which I hate I would lean more towards Reformed.

I was asked by a friend why I teach my family about Saints and do we pray to them.

Well the answer is no we don't pray to them ever! We pray to the one and only Jesus Christ and our father in heaven.

Patron saints are people who lived a life which is a worthy example of how to faithfully follow Jesus Christ.

In our family we don't ask Patron saints to intercede on our behalf and we never call upon them.

We do how ever want are girls to know about history, and we want them to know that they are not alone when it comes to fighting for Christ. Many great men and women have lived and died to fight for what is right.

So, today we remember Nicholas of Myra for all the wonderful things they say he did while he was alive. On earth he could have been a  saint for Christ just like us who follow and live for Christ. Did God make him a special saint in heaven I don't know; only the creator knows that. Some say most of the stories are true about Nicholas, others say they are made up.

We know he was a Bishop of Myra in the fourth century, and the Legends are many. Legend or not his stories show us many wonderful things that we can do as Christians.

We teach our family to give to others first, to help the poor the ones with less than we do. We want our girls to spread the love of Christ to all who will hear it.

Nicholas of Mayra we are told did just that.

We have kept the traditions that my husband grew up with. We leave our boots out on the night of December 5th for Nicholas, which mommy and daddy fill. We replace the boots/shoes with new slippers, books, candy, fruit and Chocolate coins.

We watch the movies on Nicholas and have yummy treats.

It's funny because we are a Reformed Christ centered family, and we still have Catholic traditions. Loved and well worth traditions for our family.

Blessings,

Pamela

Christmas Cookies...

Every year I make Christmas cookies, like I'm sure many of you do. Today I am going to share with you some of the cookie recipes. I have so many of them that I have a hard time trying to figure out which ones to use. I start on December 3rd and normally bake each day until Christmas Eve. We all gain some winter weight and I must say it is so worth it. One thing I don't do around Christmas is watch my weight I have just given up on the whole idea. Here is part of our list for Advent and Christmas goodies for Christmas 2011.


Dec 3rd ~ Shortbread Cookies  (This Shortbread Cookie recipe can be found at the Food network website). I have never made anything from Ina Garten I did not like.


Our second batch for the day is from again Food Network, Paradise Macaroons this cookie looks so easy and so good. (Here is the Paradise Macaroons video on how to make these along with the recipe).
We are learning about Germany and Poland this week and how they celebrate Advent and Christmas. This would be a great recipe for this. In Germany they make Chocolate Macaroons.

Dec 4th ~ Schwarzwalder Apfelkuchen (Custard-Apple Torte). A nice treat in the evening after dinner.
I will also make Pfeffernusse (One of my favorite German cookies).

I will be back later  to put up the recipes for the Custard-apple Torte, and the Pfeffernusse. We are on our way to a Christmas craft fair and my girls are all waiting for me.

 
The Custard- Apple Torte was just awesome. Super simple and it had a cream filling throughout. I cooked mine a little to long since I became busy with other things. I found the Custard- apple Torte recipe in a book I read to my children each year now called Christmas in Today's Germany.  

The pfeffernusse is a great German cookie, one I grew up with each Christmas. You can find a recipe for this cookie in many places. It does take time to make but I think worth every hour, and it makes about 15 dozen cookies.

You will need the following to make these cookies

1/3 cup of Molasses

1 1/3 cups of Honey or Bandy

1/2 cup of organic butter

4 cups of flour

2 Tbsp of Dutch cocoa Powder

1 tsp of baking soda

1/2 tsp of ground cardamom

1/4 tsp of Nutmeg and ground cloves

1/2 tsp of all spice

Some fresh ground pepper (about 1/4 tsp)

Juice of 1 lemon and 1 tsp of lemon zest

1 large organic egg

1/4 tsp of anise extract

Last the powdered sugar to be used after the cookies cool

The first thing you will need to do is combine your Molasses, honey, and butter in a pot over low heat. After everything is combined you can let it sit and cool down.

 
Next sift together the flour and all the spices, salt and pepper in a large bowl and set aside.

Mix the egg, anise extract, and the lemon and lemon zest in a small bowl put aside.

 
Pour the egg mixture into the Molasses mixture and mix well.

Combine the dry and the Molasses mixture all together now.

The dough is going to be sticky so don't worry. Now wrap your dough up in plastic wrap or place in a bowl tightly sealed with Plastic wrap.

Place the cookie mix in the fridge for about 8 hrs or overnight. It really is worth it :)

Next day or 8 hrs later you are ready to start making your cookies. Preheat your oven to 325 degrees F. Line you’re baking sheets or grease up your cookie sheets with what you like to use.

Roll your cookies into a 1inch ball and place on you sheets. Cook for about 10-15 minutes, rotating the sheets a little while cooking. I normally will turn my sheets twice during the 10-15 minutes.

You will know they are done when you start to see small little cracks on the cookies. Sometimes the cracks won't happen and that’s fine. The cookies will look a little soft when you take them out and that's fine. These cookies harden as they cool and that's how it should be.

I let the Pfeffernusse cool just a few minutes, and then roll them in the powdered sugar. Put a nice layer on the cookie, the heat from the cookies will help the sugar stick to them better.

Store your cookies in a nice tin, or something with a nice lid on it. These cookies will taste better as they sit. I have made these in December and left them till January and they are even better then the first day. We normally eat them all month long because it makes so much.

Fröhliche Weihnachten!

Advent

We are preparing our home for the Advent season with 7 little girls by our side. I say “our” side because my husband likes to join in on almost everything we do.  Advent means so much to me; it really is more than lights, gifts and food. We take the next 4 weeks to prepare our hearts and to really focus on preparation for the historical events preceding the birth of Christ. We will surround ourselves with lots of scripture and prayer, and lots of feast days. I love our family traditions for Advent and Christmas and I look forward to all of this every year. It is so much fun to watch my girls get so excited about Christ they love our Lord and know so much more than I ever did at their age.

Here is what are plans are for Advent 2011, it looks like a lot but it blends in to our daily life perfect. We celebrate feast days, do many crafts open many gifts, make and send many gifts, bake and cook a tonJ, pray a lot and learn a lot as a family. We have done Advent teas, work with the church, and we read many great books. Here is what it looks like in our home during Advent, season of life may change things from time to time but these are traditions we have grown to love.

 **This year I added a little something for my husband and me to do alone. I found this Advent Christmas Candle  and thought it would be nice to place this in are bedroom. Each night before bed we will light it and read part of the Nativity story, or anything out of the Bible that we may need to hear together as a couple. The Father at Mass today asked us to spend quite time this Advent with God even if it is only 10 min GIVE IT TO HIM! He reminded us how many people slept outside Black Friday waiting for the great deals. How you will most likely never find a Christian waiting outside the church doors on Sunday trying to get the best seat in church. This is all so true, people get priorities all mixed up and forget what really is most important. So even though I spend time each morning with my Holy Bible reading Gods word, I never take the time to do this with my husband. So Larry will be reading each evening for us because I love his voice, and I love to hear him speak the word of God to me.

 **We also added a beautiful new wooden set of Jesse Tree ornaments, I bought these as an Advent gift for our family. We bought them from a Esty store called  Jesse Tree Treasures and she did a wonderful job. Thank you Jessica for the great idea.

Starting Nov 27^th we will welcome the first week of Advent attending Mass and setting up are home. We will put our Nativity’s up, Yes we have more than one Nativity in our homeJ  we also will hang our Jesse Tree up, and place our Advent wreath in our family dining room.

The first week of Advent we will also focus on Germany and Poland, learning about their traditions during Advent and Christmas. We may try new foods and will read many good books.  The second week we will be focusing on Russia and Eastern Europe, The third week we will jump into learning about Mexico and the British Isles and the last week of Advent we will finish by focusing on the Holy Land.

 Nov 30^th we will learn about Saint Andrew, Apostle. I need to make a note here that we teach our children not to pray to anyone other than Jesus Christ and our Father in heaven. We love the Saints in heaven and love the Godly examples they left us here on earth. In our family my husband is the head of his castle and his wishes are firm, no praying to the mother of Christ and please no praying to the Catholic Saints.

Dinner today will be fish of some kind with lentils and gluten free bread, and maybe a dessert.

December 3^rd   Saint Francis Xavier, Priest, he had an amazing zeal for spreading the Gospel.
Dinner today will be a Xavier Soup, with flaky bread.

Dec 6^th  Feast of St. Nicholas

We really take the day off for this; our children will wake up to slippers with Gold coins in them, along with  each little girl receiving some type of Christmas book, and a small toy or movie.

We read and do many things today, in our family we look forward to this day very much.

All day we will have special treats and serve a nice dinner

Dec 7^th The feast of St. Ambrose, since he is the saint of candle makers we will normally make candles of some kind and make honey bee cookies for a snack.

Dec 8^th  Feast of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Today we explain to our children that we are remembering the wonderful gift the Lord gave us. Mary is now with child and the day is coming soon the savior of the world will be born. The King of Kings! We thank Mary for choosing such a task, a job sent to her from our Father. A message sent to Mary from a Heavenly Angel. Praise the Lord for this day!

We will be eating food that is white, normally Alfredo and Cauliflower salad. For dessert will be Hot- Water Chocolate cake with gingerbread spices. We will also make our gingerbread  house today. In the Catholic Bible in the book of Sirach it talks about how Mary smelled of spices. This is way we thought it would be a good idea to work with the gingerbread spices today.

 Dec 13^th Feast of St. Lucy each year we make a Saint Lucia’s Bread for breakfast. Here is what we did last year on the feast of St. Lucy.

 Dec 14^th Today we will be at a play this year with our HS group to see a Christmas Carol. We also will be making a stop at my husband’s work because St. Nick will be there with presents for all the Kids.

 Dec 16^th -24^th we will start a Christmas Novena, this is a devotion to prepare our hearts. The Novena focuses intensely on our expectation of the Coming King. We will be leaving out the Hail Mary, and other prayers that may take our thoughts away from scripture alone. My husband reads through all of it and puts our family’s thoughts and prayers into it. To us it makes it more personal when you pray from your heart not from a typed up prayer.

 Dec 17^th is the start of the “O” Antiphons using seven different names from Salvation History in the Old Testament. We start to impatiently beg God to come and save his people. The girls by this point have become increasingly impatient for Christmas, so we may say the “O” Antiphons at dinner each night to help them keep focus on what the meaning truly is the birth of our savior.

I give a new gift each night to go along with each prayer, an old Monastic custom was to provide treats, representing each of the “O Antiphons” leading up till Christmas. It makes it so much fun for the girls, and it does increase their excitement about the birth of Christ getting closer.  I am not sure what I will be buying this year yet but the ideas are endless. You can see what we did last Year, I am sure we will come up with something great.

 Dec 17^th O Wisdom we will be giving a book of Wisdom to our girls tonight

Dec 18^th O Lord and Ruler We will make our Gingerbread houses today, and have a pumpkin Trifle for dessert.

Dec 19^th O root of Jesse I will buy our family Poinsettia today

Dec 20^th O Key of David I will be making a Key Lime Pie

Dec 21^st O Rising Dawn

Dec 22^nd O King of the Gentiles

Dec 23^rd O Emmanuel

Dec 24^th we will turn our lights on in the home now. We wait to light the tree till Christmas Eve, well if the little ones can wait for it and mom and dadJ

Christmas Eve we will attend Mass and watch Nativity Story as a family.

Christmas Day  we will go to Church and celabrate. We will be having a cake and party for our saviour. We do not open gifts in our home till Epiphany January 6th, but they will get to open the stockings from mom and dad. We will not be opening gifts on this day so we can focus on the true meaning of Christmas. The Christmas season starts today and does not end today like most of Americans believe. Most will start taking down Christmas things, we will now celebrate for the next 12 days of Christmas opening gifts from family and friends each day till January 6th.  So Christmas is ONE day, but the Christmas season is much longer.

So this is a little look at what we will be doing this year in our home. I didn’t add every detail because that would take much to long for me to type out. From Christmas Lap bookmaking to Card making, gift exchanges, and lots of Baking I’m sure I could add much more to our list.

Each morning I thank God for a new day to worship him.  I thank him every day for his Son, and I encourage you to place your heart in the reason for Advent, prepare your hearts for the birth of Christ. Yes I know he is alive in heaven and not a baby anymore, but we take this time to remember. I like to place myself back in time as if I were with the Holy family, as if I knew what was going to happen. What would I do during the days leading up to the birth of my savior.  I put my heart and mind in that place during Advent and then Christmas, and I feel so much closer to Christ during this time because of these actions.  

What will you and your family be doing this Advent?  

Blessings,

Pamela