A Little Bit About a Lot of Things

This was an especially long holiday break – what felt like 30,303.948.505,404,980 days long. We didn’t go away and only had a few day things planned. Keep it simple. That’s what I kept telling myself. So on the one hand, vacation went by very quickly, but on the other hand, the days dragged on.

In the theme of keeping it simple, I wanted to show you our awesome console table, that we actually go a while ago, but just dressed up for the holidays. It’s from a company called Vinna Home and Kitchen and they have these amazing modern console tables. They can make your table in any number of stain colors and any variety of sizes. Home delivery was white glove and we couldn’t have been more satisfied with the customer service. We bought two to run the length of our couch.

With all the baking that I did this year for friends and teachers etc. I didn’t make cookies for Santa – we outsourced. Thanks Cookie Monstah for the assist! We left Santa with options!

Their Burlington location is a breeze to get to, and they have a great selection. I loved that they asked me when I was ordering if I wanted to put the peanut butter cookies in a separate box (even though I didn’t have allergies, I’m not sure I would have even thought of it if I were getting these as gifts – which I did get one box for friends as long as I was here!) And how cute is the artwork on the box by Elissa Surabian?!?! She is a local chalkboard artist, you may have seen her work around town!

Speaking of friends, for my best gal pals and neighbors, I picked up some of our favorite cookies. It’s a tradition that I get them gingerbread girls or boys from The Gingerbread Construction Co. and for a little glam I picked up these cute holiday gift sets by Essie.

In an effort to make alllll of the Christmas magic happen in such a short amount of time – here is a look at everyone’s “stockings”. We tried to do fewer presents this year, and more “experiences”. For example, we paired each big with a little and they got to go into the city to do a fun gingerbread house decorating event. One pair went to the Langham Hotel and one pair went to Eastern Standard Kitchen. Stay tuned to see how much fun we had there in another post.

Back to our “stockings”. We use Sea Bags bucket bags instead of a traditional stocking. I think it started from our apartment days when we didn’t actually have a mantel, but can’t actually remember. I feel like every year the ante is “upped” and just because it fits in a stocking doesn’t mean it should go in a stocking 🙂 I mean, when I was a kid, it was like candy and toothbrushes, and now I look, and I am totally guilty of this, I’m putting in $30 Owala water bottles (insert eye roll). I mean, but at least they don’t leak in the kid’s backpacks, right?

So for the big we got an Owala, a fun Stanley key chain/ornament whatever, a gold bubble necklace from Anthropologie, books for her Yoto Box, a cute Caboodles kit because it reminded me of my childhood, and a Squishmallow mystery bag.

For the youngest we picked up a Bluey brush, a Squishmallow surprise mystery bag, some holiday nail stickers, a Yoto story, some fun glow in the dark bandaids from Welly, Squishmallow hair claws, a monogram necklace and some fun ooly metallic pens.

For our oldest, we picked out various boxes of sports cards, a bunch of new Yoto stories, some Burt’s Bees lip balm, and an autographed version of the new book, The Bletchley Riddle, by Ruta Sepetys.

Dad was pretty straightforward, a few bags of his favorite coffee beans, a new razor, and some hair putty. Things are almost as fun when you are a dad as when you are a mom…..almost.

And finally, for the other little, we picked up an Owala with a boot, a new Pokemon book and a little sweet treat. Not pictured were a few Beyblades that came in last minute!

Remember when this blog was about food?! Right, me too. Stopped in to Lola’s pre-Christmas week to get one of their amazing chocolate chip ricotta pies. Not going to lie, I also picked up some frozen meals to give as gifts. We all have that one “uncle” who can’t cook and gets take out every night of the week (oh, wait, that’s just us?) and we figured a weeks worth of home (just not my home) cooked meals would be a great way to start his new year off right! I picked up a few for us to throw in the freezer as well, because let’s be honest, after a huge ramp up and all the Christmas magic we moms are making, once Christmas is over, come December 26th, I know that at least I don’t want to do ANY cooking!

Since we were home all vacation, we picked up quite a few friend’s mail. One of those perks was that they brought us home treats from their travels – and these beauties were some of the favorites from Standard Baking Company in Portland, ME.

Since I was baking so many cookies this year, I thought that maybe some people would be feeling like they were getting too many cookies this season (I mean, personally I NEVER feel that way….but maybe some people do). I figured I would try making cookie dough for friends. This way, they could make cookies when it was convenient for them. They could pull them out of the freezer and make one or make them all. So I found this great easy recipe by Melissa, from Design, Eat, Repeat and made her Freezer Cookie Dough. Super big hit. Some friends made them right away, some waited to make fresh cookies on Christmas, and some saved for later! I have made so many batches since, and keep them in my freezer – I grab when the kids are running out the door to play dates and I have nothing to bring – and it has saved the day in many instances! Here is the best part, you melt the butter, so no mixer required! Customize for the holidays using holiday m&m’s or even try and use that left over holiday candy as mix ins!

By the time I got around to making these cupcakes I don’t want to even tell you how many sticks of butter I had gone through already… but had to change things up from making so many cookies! I pick up sprinkles from every place I go – I even got these cute sugar snowflakes from Market Basket!

I love homemade gifts. I love seeing what people choose to give, or what their strong suits are. I love the thought and care that goes into something home made.Peppermint chocolate was a popular choice this year, which is totally up my alley. 10/10.

Our other neighbor brought us these adorable candy cane cookies and hot cocoa cookies, complete with full sized marshmallows. I applaud anything that you have to make two colors of dough for…I’m a strictly one bowl or it’s too much work kind of gal!

One friend brought us TWO boxes of cookies, maybe because we have so many people in our family 🙂 Don’t see me complaining though! The chocolate s’mores cookies were #1 with the kids. I think the exact quote was, “the marshmallows are perfectly cooked” and “we should invite them over for s’mores one time”.I mean, that was perfect because that distracted them from the other cookies haha. Anything with jelly is A+ in my book, but also, cut out cookies impress me, because, again, that extra step goes a long way! Extra points for the fancy divider in the box, way above and beyond.

Teacher gifts were basically Girl Scout cookies this year, but to the extra special ones, we gave a little something more, and I’m not talking about the corny puns. But we couldn’t just give a gift card, so these cute treasure boxes we had from Bullseye’s Playground at Target filled with Lindt chocolate, a gift card and a tag saying, “you’re a treasure” were just enough to brighten a few days! Top off with a classic ribbon and a little sparkle.

I do also love a good Chex Mix, and this year was no different. Made a large batch, although had to do it solo this year, Isabelle was not around to do the bag shaking! Silly easy to make and a crowd favorite. Put in a cute tin or tie up with a pretty bow in a cellophane bag and you have a great little holiday treat.

Speaking of gift giving, one of my go to gifts I love to give people with kids is a gingerbread cookie making kit. Wilson Farms sells these plain cookies on packs of 2, and icing in fun colors. I pick up bright colored candy and add to a fun basket, throw in some tissue or paper shred and VIOLA! Simple and fun holiday gift for the whole family that will get them a whole 5 minutes of peace. OK, maybe 3. And yes, that is the viral CVS nutcracker in the background that I got 40% off with a coupon 🙂

No holiday would be complete without a stop to Clear Flour Bread. I used to live in Brookline and have really good memories of all the delicious things they had during the holidays (and all the delicious smells). So we lucked out one day, when the weather was not too cold and the line was not too long, and picked up these delicious treats. Not shown are the four loaves of bread we also bought 🙂

And to end this post, a look at what we did for our holiday cookie box. We went very kid friendly this year. Although my son’s friend told me that he was very upset that I did not put the Pillsbury slice and bake Christmas tree cookies in the box. Way to keep me humble my friend, and on my toes. I’ll keep that in mind for next year! So getting back to this year.

Chocolate M&M Cookies by Cooking with Karli

Sparkling Shortbread Cookies by E2 Bakes Brooklyn

Holiday colored Rice Krispie Treats

Sugar Cookies drizzled with chocolate and dressed up with holiday sprinkles

Tags: dessert, gifts, holiday, recipes