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]]>I did a post-holiday review last year but sometimes didn’t take my own advice. Still, here’s what I learned this year–these are my top three holiday tips.
Holiday Tip #1: Don’t Sweat the Timing
I no longer stress about WHEN we can do what we want to do. For example, we didn’t get to do our annual gingerbread house party until last week.
I did learn from last year, that the whole family needs to participate. Last year, everyone was busy so I just made houses with the grandkids. It was not as much fun as when the whole family is involved. It’s worth the wait to get everyone on board.
I just took down our Christmas tree and packed up our ornaments yesterday. I had to keep the tree up until we could take our annual family Christmas pictures, which didn’t happen until Sunday night.
The kids get dressed up in their Christmas outfits and we take family photos in various combinations: mom, dad, and the kids, grandpa and grandma with the kids, the whole family in one shot…and so forth.
By taking family photos every year at Christmastime, we have a pictorial record of our family, from year to year. One day, I’ll make a video to rekindle memories and show the passage of time.
Holiday Tip #2 How to Store the Decorations
We have hundreds of ornaments for our tree, so I’ve gotten smarter about how to store them most efficiently.
I avoid ornaments boxes with gridded separations except for very special, fragile ones. Instead, I wrap each ornament in tissue paper and arrange them in boxes–about half a dozen to a box. I put cloth ornaments in between to maximize space and cushion fragile ornaments within the box and between boxes. This saves space and it’s ample protection if you aren’t jostling them as you put the boxes away.
Along with cloth ornaments, I also put hardier wooden ornaments and metal ornaments like brass musical instruments, in spaces between boxes.
Another way I save space in storing Christmas things is by tossing all the jewel cases for Christmas CDs and DVDs and storing them in a CD/DVD wallet.
Even more space-saving is to discards the CDs entirely and stream your holiday music from a digital streaming service like Spotify or Apple Music. You can use a bluetooth receiver for music streaming (my son gave me a Soundsync A3352 for Christmas) that allows your phone’s audio to play on installed speakers.
Holiday Tip #3: If your Plan is Shot, Let it Go
This year, Miss T and I baked Christmas cookies but we didn’t decorate as many as we have done in the past. I think the decorations were more complicated and it took more time.
So, we didn’t have the usual oversupply to give neighbors and to the ER staff of a hospital close to our house.
Despite your best efforts, if you didn’t get around to doing something on your Christmas list, let it go. I wanted to have an informal desserts and mulled cider party for the neighbors post Christmas and before the New Year because our summer party was such a success. It was a wonderful way to bring the neighborhood together.
I could have done it, but it was going to take my remaining free time. So I chose to pass.
While I was able to send out Christmas cards this year, in many past years it’s been one project too many. I lost my Christmas card address labels document when I changed to a new computer; I finally reconstructed the list this year. Next year will be easier.
Planning for this Year
There are 11 months until the holidays come around again. So, there’s plenty of time to do some holiday preparations in advance. Here are some holiday tips for planning ahead.
All year round:
- Look for small gifts for Christmas crackers or Advent calendars
- Search for ideas for holiday table settings and menus. For example, the snowmen centerpiece can be made well in advance. (Dismantle heads and arms for easier storage.) Keep a running digital or paper file of ideas.
September/October:
- Make Christmas crackers
- Gather cookie recipes
Early November (after Halloween and before Thanksgiving):
- Start baking cookies, breads, and desserts for freezing–I’m thinking with the grandkids’ busy schedules, it makes the most sense to have cut out and pre-baked cookies for them to decorate.
- And, if I want to give Christmas cookies to the neighbors or to have a post-holiday party, I should start in early November to bake and freeze.
Next Week: New Craft Ideas
Once I’ve finally put Christmas behind, as I have this week, I like to decorate the house with fresh flowers, to mentally turn the page. Where I had snow globes and nutcrackers, I have vases of tulips and stargazer lilies.
Next week, we’ll start on new craft ideas for the grandkids.
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]]>Not only was the Christmas centerpiece festive. The grandkids were invited to pluck off the cookies to eat them for dessert!
How I Designed the Christmas Centerpiece
I planned to build the cookie trees on a Styrofoam cone base. For sanitation, I wrapped the cones with clingy plastic wrap–I used the Kirkland brand from Costco. Another option is Glad Press’n Seal cling film. Unless the plastic wrap seals tightly, the weight of the cookies will pull the wrap off the cone.
Once each Styrofoam cone base was securely covered, I simply slathered it with icing and attached the cookies.
But there’s a bit more to this….
Prepping the Centerpiece
Before you construct the centerpiece, here are a few good things to know:
How to Bake the Cookies
My grandkids don’t like gingerbread so I made Chocolate Cutout Cookies that resemble gingerbread.
Larger “gingerbread” men need to be shaped to fit the curvature of the Styrofoam cone; most of the smaller cookies can be baked flat.
- Step 1: Make the molds. To do this, wrap heavy-duty aluminum foil around a Styrofoam cone; remove Styrofoam, and stuff the cavity loosely with crumpled foil so it holds its shape. (Don’t put Styrofoam in the oven; heat can release harmful chemicals.)
- Step 2: Roll out and cut the cookies. Drape the larger ones on the foil mold and set on a baking sheet. I used a recipe that didn’t require greasing.
- Step 3: Bake the cookies and cool. You can’t bake more than a few cookies at a time on the mold. Cool cookies on the mold until firm to retain their curved shape. Bake the smaller cookies flat and cool on a wire rack.
- Step 4: Pipe icing. Pipe the faces and clothes with white icing.
Assemble the Christmas Centerpiece
Materials Needed
- Styrofoam cones
- Clingy plastic wrap (see note above)
- 1 to 3 candy canes as a topper for each tree (about 3.5 inches tall)
- Icing (I used Lemon Royal Icing); any stiff icing will do
- Pre-shaped and baked cookies (I used Chocolate Cutout Cookies)
- Small red and green candies (such as mini M&Ms)
- Ramekins or other small bowls with flat bottoms to use as the base for each tree
- Small candy canes to make a candy cane tree (optional)
- Red candy heart cookie decorations (optional)
Tools Needed
- Wooden chopstick or metal skewer
- Small offset spatula to spread the icing
Method
- Step 1: Cover the Styrofoam cones with plastic wrap and secure tightly.
- Step 2: Using a wooden chopstick or a metal skewer, make one to three small holes at the top of the cone; then insert a candy cane in each hole.
- Step 3: Spread the icing on the cone, a section at a time, and secure the cookies to the cone, section by section. Fill in spaces with M&Ms.
- Step 4: Allow the icing to dry completely. Then turn ramekin upside down and spread with icing. Position the styrofoam cone on the icing and allow to dry.
Here’s another fun Christmas tree table centerpiece.
Notes:
- The small gingerbread shapes baked flat, will stick out beyond the cone closer to the top where the cone narrows. I’m fine with that. If you want the cookies to hug the cone, you’ll have to bake the small cookies on your foil mold.
- My cookie recipe didn’t require greasing. If yours does, I expect you’ll need to grease the cone before baking cookies on it to prevent sticking.
- For the candy cane version, cover the iced cone with small candy canes. Intersperse with red hearts or mini M&Ms.
- Instead of gingerbread people, you could bake small spritz cookies in holiday shapes and cover the Styrofoam cone with them.
To Finish the Centerpiece
I laid down a “runner” of Christmas tree sprigs–discarded branches that I picked up from a Christmas tree lot, washed, dried, and trimmed. Then I added tall candles and tea lights. Next, glittery gold balls, and a string of battery-operated fairy lights along the length of the “runner” added sparkle.
While the kids headed straight for the edible centerpieces, the adults enjoyed Bûche de Nöel, a yule log cake, that I make every year for Christmas Eve dinner.
Next week, we’ll work on more holiday projects.
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]]>The post Great Ways to be Flexible for a Covid Christmas appeared first on Call Me Grandma.
]]>In my mind, the answer was yes, but I didn’t want to raise her hopes since we were navigating another Covid Christmas.
The answer, as it turned out, is no. One of our family members tested positive for breakthrough Covid on Sunday. The most important thing is, symptoms have been mild, and happily, we learned last night that the rest of the family tested negative.
Our Christmas Tradition
Our normal custom is to gather for Christmas Eve dinner at our house, which is a fancy dinner when the kids get dressed up. My greatest joy is designing a festive table setting.
On Christmas Day, the family returns for breakfast, we open presents together, and they stay all day through dinner.
Last year our plans were upended when we encountered our first Covid Christmas, so we did a Christmas Eve zoom gathering. The next day, we watched the kids open their presents remotely.
Facing another unsettled Christmas again this year, we have been putting our creative minds together to salvage our original plans. Since the parents maintain a positive and constructive attitude, the grandkids are taking any disappointments in stride.
Here are some ways we are revising our plans.
The Nutcracker Event
Since they would be missing the performance of the Nutcracker at the Opera House this year, the kids saw their Nutcracker ballet in the garage, using a projector and a screen my son had invested in a few months ago. He had bought the equipment so we could all watch movies together safely outdoors if the Covid situation worsened. With popcorn and hot cocoa, the kids enjoyed their own private showing.
Christmas Cookie Bake
I was planning on doing a Christmas cookie bake with the kids during their winter break. Since that was out, I suggested that I could make the dough and icing for them. It turned out that wasn’t going to work, either, because a single parent, working full-time from home, couldn’t also keep an eye on a hot oven.
So, Plan C: Make and bake the cookies, and send them with the decorating ingredients. To keep it simple for the parent, I provided everything: baked cookies, colored icing, icing spreaders (one small offset spatula and one regular), white icing in a piping bag, and various sprinkles.
Children will be more excited and motivated if all the elements are packaged attractively. So, I used a basket lined with a red plaid napkin, filled the basket with the cookie fixings, and then wrapped it with cellophane and a red ribbon. A sprig of Christmas tree greens from the Christmas tree lot added a festive touch.
The Snowman Cookies
As a treat, I sent along a snowman cookie for each child. This is a variation of the Super Simple Butter Cookie recipe I posted a few weeks ago.
To turn these slice-and-bake cookies into snowmen, frost them with white Lemon Royal Icing and pipe black icing dots (made by coloring some of the icing with Wilton black icing color) for the eyes and mouth. A sliver of orange gumdrop makes the nose.
I learned by trial and error that it’s best to start by piping the dots for the mouth first, then doing the eyes, for better positioning. Otherwise, it’s hard to get the mouth and eyes lined up properly.
Package each cookie in a food-safe cellophane bag; tie with ribbon and a spring of pine.
The Christmas Cookie Recipes
Here are the recipes I used, which have become among my favorites for the holidays:
- Taste of Home‘s Chocolate Cutout Cookies; recipe by Nancy Murphy. This recipe makes an easy-to-handle dough. This cookie’s brown color mimics gingerbread, but if no one is your family likes gingerbread, these are a more palatable option.
- Tara Teaspoon‘s Santa Face Sugar Cookies; I like how easy it is to manipulate the dough. I don’t make the Santa faces but use the dough to cut my own shapes. Upon chilling, the dough may be hard to roll, initially. You can break it up into smaller pieces, set the pieces close together, then roll to combine them into one piece.
- Lemon Royal Icing also from Tara Teaspoon; I’m not fond of sweet, sugary icing. The lemon juice in this recipe gives the icing a wonderful tartness to brighten the flavor. It dries shiny and hard. The perfect cookie icing. You can halve the recipe if you aren’t baking too many cookies. To divide 1/3 cup of the lemon juice in half, use 2 tablespoons plus 2 teaspoons.
The Christmas Cookie Activity
The children had fun decorating their cookies and needed no supervision, since the cookies were pre-baked and all the tools and ingredients they would need were provided for them in one basket.
At eight, Miss T is an experienced cookie baker and decorator, who could guide and help her little brother. The decorating provided an hour of entertainment and there are more cookies to decorate when they are ready to do another round.
Christmas Eve Dinner after Christmas
After some discussion, we decided to hold our Christmas Eve dinner after the quarantine period, with everyone taking a rapid test just before our get-together.
We’ll keep the family’s gifts under the tree and they will open them before dinner. At the start of the pandemic last year, we bought an artificial tree for the first time. Although reluctant to abandon the idea of a real tree, it seemed more convenient, not to have to rely on our sons to haul a 10-foot Noble Fir into the house each year. This year, with our postponed dinner, we’re glad to have the fake tree, which will not dry out or brown.
I’ll do my fancy table setting–I had already started on the snowflake-themed idea, anyway. And the kids will come dressed up in their Christmas outfits.
Each family will do its own, scaled-back menu for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day and I plan to provide a few extra dishes to send over. We’ll see how it goes.
Call Me Grandma on Vacation
Call Me Grandma will be on vacation for the next three weeks, returning on Wednesday, January 12, with more ways to nurture and educate kids through fun, food, and craft ideas.
Miss T, Little N, and I wish you the happiest of holidays. Thanks for visiting!
.
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]]>We had so much fun and we were so absorbed in the project, I was unaware of the time. That it was too much for a six-year-old only came to light when she went home and cried because she was so tired! (Yes, a fine grandma.)
Yesterday, we tried to replicate the experience over zoom. It takes a bit of planning and flexibility.
For young children, do as much as you can in advance, such as pre-making the dough and icing, so kids can get to the fun part. Be sure to have a parent around to help, as needed, to manage a hot oven and because it’s hard to solve some cookie baking issues remotely.
Be prepared to stop when the child starts flagging. Just have them wrap unrolled dough tightly in plastic wrap and refrigerate to make later.
Planning Ahead for Cookie Baking
While it’s a fun activity for kids, when you think about it, cookie baking–especially rolled cookies cut with cookie cutters–is a complicated process:
- First you make the cookie dough.
- Prepare the icing.
- Roll out and cut the cookies.
- Bake and cool the cookies.
- Ice and decorate.
Need a last-minute gift? Make 4-ingredient chocolate truffles.
Each step takes time, so think through in advance how you will accomplish each of them for your cookie baking event.
Best Tips and Tools for Baking with Kids
Before the project, I tried to anticipate potential problems and think of what kitchen tools and techniques could be possible solutions. Here are my tips:
- Roll the dough out between two sheets of lightly floured waxed paper or parchment paper. This allows the child to keep the rolling pin clean and to flip the rolled dough from one side to the other. Once the dough is rolled out to the right thickness, lightly flour the top of the dough and flip it. That way, when the child cuts out the cookies, the dough won’t be stuck to the bottom sheet, making it easier to remove the shapes.
- A powdered sugar shaker is great for sprinkling flour. It’s hard for a child to grab a small handful of flour to sprinkle evenly on the work surface.
- An adjustable rolling pin that enables you to roll out evenly to a specific thickness is helpful for children, to ensure even results at the proper thickness. The one shown in the photo above rolls to 1/16, 1/6, 1/4, and 3/8 inches, depending on the rings you put on the rolling pin. Here’s another version.
- A small offset spatula is ideal for frosting the cookies and easy for smaller hands.
A Checklist for your Cookie Baking Session
Here’s what you’ll need for your cookie baking project.
- Cookie dough, refrigerated and ready to roll out (see recipe suggestions below)
- Photocopy of the recipe for parents (for baking temperature, time, etc.)
- Icing, pre-tinted in different colors
- 4-inch offset spatula
- Powdered sugar shaker for flour
- Parchment paper or waxed paper, to roll out dough
- Cookie sheets
- Cookie cutters
- Various kinds of sprinkles and colored sugars
Aside from the cookie sheets, we sent everything on the list to Miss T’s house, because we live 15 minutes away. If you’re doing this cookie baking project long-distance, provide the checklist and recipes in advance so parents can make the dough and icing, and have all tools ready. You’ll have a corresponding set so you can work with the child.
Options for Cookie Baking Together
If your child is too young, not very handy in the kitchen, or has a short attention span, you might try these optional ways to enjoy cookie baking together:
- Plan on two sessions: one to roll and cut the cookies, bake, cool, and store them; and a session on a different day to decorate them.
- Bake cookies in different shapes. Send the cookies, along with icings and sprinkles and have just a cookie decorating day.
- Make and bake large gingerbread people. Provide the decorations for the features, the buttons, etc. Send icing bags or tube icing to pipe additional decorations and call it a day.
Make gingerbread houses from graham crackers with your grandchild over zoom.
Some Good Recipes for Kids
- Sugar Cookies: Elinor Klivan’s Celebration Sugar Cookies, from her book, Big, Fat Cookies, published by Chronicle Books, copyright 2005. I bought this book when it was first published, but I found the recipe online to share with you here. I like this recipe because it’s very forgiving of mistakes, and is easy for children to manipulate.
- Lemon Royal Icing from the website, Tara Teaspoon. Lemon juice gives this icing a wonderful tartness to brighten the flavor. It dries shiny and hard. The perfect cookie icing.
- Chocolate Cookies: Taste of Home‘s Chocolate Cutout Cookies and icing; recipe by Nancy Murphy. This is another easy-to-handle dough. My grandkids don’t like gingerbread, even when you tone down the spices. This cookie’s brown color mimics gingerbread, but kids will find it much more delicious.
See you Next Year!
“Call Me Grandma!” will be on winter break for the next three weeks, returning on Wednesday, January 20. Thank you for visiting my blog site this year. Best wishes for great holidays and a healthy and happy 2021!
During my absence, please check through our archives for other kid-pleasing activities you might have missed. And follow me on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter where I will be posting throughout my break.
And don’t forget to sign up for my email newsletter! When I return in January, I’ll send you a new idea each Wednesday for an activity or insight to nurture the little ones in your life.
The post How to Do Zoom Cookie Baking with Kids appeared first on Call Me Grandma.
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