To:Snow From: A Southerner

Dear Snowfall,

How lovely you were!

Thank you so much for arriving on Christmas Day!

The first white Christmas here in 127 years!  Four whole inches!

You made this year a once-in-a-lifetime experience for this southern girl.

Everything looks soft and quiet sheltered beneath you.

But now,

we’ve played 11,000 games of rummy,

eaten all the eggs,

and used almost all the half and half.

I really needed to get to the after-Christmas sale to buy wrapping paper at 75%off,

and (shhhhh), we’re running a little low on toilet paper.

You’ve been so beautiful.

Now go away.

Love,

A Southerner

(Ginger)

J.O.Y.

Jesus

Only

You

would make

a manger

and

my heart

Your dwelling place

Your Holy of Holies

I worship You.

You are my joy.

Jesus

Only

You

Hope your Christmas was merry and bright!

Ginger

Diary of a Mom: Four Things Before Christmas

1. Ill child seems to feel somewhat better today.  Shhhh… don’t tell her this post is about food.

2.  Remember my whole thing about simplifying?  I love to bake and would happily make 7,000 batches of Christmas goodies.  Instead, I picked one to be my signature Christmas cookie, and if nothing else gets done, so be it.

Mint Chocolate Snaps

1 (6oz) pkg semi-sweet chocolate chips, melted

1/2 cup + 1 1/2 T shortening

3/4 cup sugar

1 egg

1/4 cup light corn syrup

1tsp vanilla

1 tsp peppermint extract

2 cups all-purpose flour

1tsp baking soda

1/4 tsp salt

1/4 cup crushed peppermint candy

More sugar

Cream shortening and sugar; beat until light and fluffy.  Beat in melted chocolate.  Add eggs, corn syrup, and extracts; beat well.  Combine dry ingredients and mix in .  Add peppermint.  (Dough will be stiff.  You may stir dry ingredients with a wooden spoon if you don’t have a stand mixer. ) 

Roll into one-inch balls and roll in extra sugar.  Place 2 inches apart on ungreased cookie sheets.  Bake at 350* for 12-15 minutes.  Cool on wire racks.

3. Photo above taken with my Christmas present to myself, a Nikon D5000.  When I explained to the salesclerk that this camera would not be upgraded for a LONG time, she assured I wouldn’t outgrow this one for a while.  Since I can barely turn it on now, I’d say that’s true!

4. Looking forward to Siesta Memory Challenge next year at Beth Moore’s blog.  I ordered the cool spiral.  Make it one of your resolutions next year, too!

Merry Christmas!

(Planning to post once more before Saturday)

Ginger

Linking up here and here.

Diary of a Mom:5 Days before Christmas

Anyone else ever watched “Mame”?

 

(image from elco.k12)

You know, the movie with Lucille Ball with that song, “We need a little Christmas”? 

Well, we’re needing a bit of Christmas around here today.

I have one sick girl.

First day of Christmas break.  Away at a small-group sleep-over, and the evil stomach bug strikes.

Rats.

She wants to feel like eating pecan pies again.

Pray it’s short-lived and not shared!

May there be much Christmas around your house today!

Blessings,

Ginger

All that Glitters…

Hello, my name is Ginger

and I’m a recovering perfectionist.

Christmas decorating—or decorating of any kind—could be temptation beyond bearing for people like me.

But I’m learning simple is best for me.

Here’s the incomplete tour:

mantel with candles lit:

a favorite vase and ornaments:

Rudolph the Red-Nose Reindeer Antelope:

our tree:

my favorite tags—plain or metal-rimmed stamped with a monogram—cheap and easy:

These are simple pleasures of the season.

Be blessed,

Ginger

It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas

We’re on our second snow day here at the House.  While we probably won’t have a white Christmas, we are enjoying this brief glimpse at a Currier and Ives holiday.

 

(Photos by DD#2; mom did not care to venture out in 18* degree weather.)

When I pulled myself away from a Rosemunde Pilcher novel I’ve read about 3 times before, I went to the kitchen to stir up this granola.

It’s crunchy and nutty and not too sweet.

Add other stuff you like—dried fruit, for example—or take stuff away; flexibility is this mixture’s middle name.

Except it doesn’t have a last name. Whatever,

Granola

4 c. old-fashioned oats

1 c. coconut

3 c.  mixture walnuts, almonds, pecans, pumpkin seeds, dried fruit, and/or sunflower seeds

1/2 tsp each cinnamon and salt

1/2 cup oil

1/3 cup honey

1/2 tsp vanilla

Mix together dry ingredients in a large baking pan.  <Mix the wet ingredients, and pour over dry.  Stir to mix.  Bake at 325*  for 30 minutes, stirring every ten minutes or so.  Cool, stirring frequently.

My novel is calling.  This blog post took sooo much effort, you know.

Be blessed,

Ginger

linking up here and here

 

Scripture and a Snapshot: Light

I love that this verse says that

I can shine

because the Light of World,

my Emmanuel,

has brought His glory into me. 

Not just at Christmas.

Amen.

Be blessed today

(our first snow day!)

Ginger

Scripture and a Snapshot: Relentless

Over the last few months, God has been teaching me about belief in the face of unyielding circumstances.

Faith boils down to this: do I just believe in God--

or do I believe God?

You see, I’ve got some stuff in my life that is not.

More than once, I have cried out in prayer, “Lord, this situation won’t end.  It is relentless!”

His answer:

So am I.

My God will not relent

until He has made dead things living,

until He has called all things that are not

as though they are.

Until He has all of me.

Four years ago today, my father passed into heaven, an old man who spent –literally—all but a few weeks of his life running from Christ.

God did not relent until He had it all.

This Christmas, as you wait on God to do something only He can do, submit to the Father that won’t relent.

Be blessed today,

Ginger

Linking to Scripture and a Snapshot.

Once Upon a Mantel

One mantel.

Three stubborn, hard-headed strong-willed females.

15  30 45 minutes in the aisle of the dollar store.

One broken candlestick

One last trip back to dollar store to replace said candlestick

Lots of opinions later, here’s what we did:

DD#1 chose the word for the chalkboard:

She also insisted the seashell stay somewhere on the mantel.  Anyone have a beach house you’d  like to give her for Christmas? 

The famous dollar store apothecary jars set the stage.

Sparkly, shimmering (cheap) ornaments provide the pizazz.

Our stockings are mismatched, but they have history, so we keep them.  Big Red gets the one on the right with the fish. My mother made the one in the middle for me when I was in high school.

 

Greyley the cat gets the one with paws.  I do not buy presents for her.  Her stocking provides  symmetry for the arrangement.  Five stockings (two pointing one way, three pointing the other) put my OCD child over the edge.

Stockings for DD#2, DD#1, and my mom, who usually spends Christmas with us, finish out the other side.

(All photos taken in a hurry in my dark house. Sorry.)

A Christmas mantel.  It makes me smile.

Be blessed today.

Ginger