Simple Christmas ~ Food Gift Baskets

We put together two food baskets for our family Christmas grab bag.   Since I had picked my dad, and Jacob had picked Uncle Matt, we knew that we should use only food items, and nothing that had to be cooked or baked.  Too bad we didn't pick one of the girls in the family, but there are only three, and I'm one of them!

Here's what Jacob and I did for our recipients.

The first item in each basket would be my maple-sugared almonds.  Click here to see how I decorated the lids to these ordinary jars.

The basket on the left was for my dad, and the one on the right is for Jacob's Uncle Matt.  Each basket was 99 cents at Goodwill!

To Uncle Matt's basket, we added a jar of pickled jalapeños, because he likes spicy things.

As each item was added, we set it in front of its basket and checked it off our lists.

Above, here was what we ended up with!  Here's the list:

• Whole-Wheat Banana Bread Loaf
• Outrageous Chocolate Chip Cookies
• Maple-Sugared Almonds
• Grape Preserves (made with agar)
• Lightly Sweetened Applesauce
• Peach Preserves (made with agar)
• "Chock-Full" Granola (we usually call this Gourmet Granola)

You may not be able to see it, but for the canned products--applesauce and preserves--I made circular labels and used Mod Podge to affix them to the tops of the jars.  Then I painted a thin coat of Mod Podge over the label and the lid, and let that dry overnight.

Since we waited until Christmas morning to actually package these up into each basket, I'm sad to say I have no actual pictures of the put-together baskets!  For the filler, I used tissue paper--oh, and I totally ran out after doing one basket!!  Can you believe that??  Fernando ran upstairs to the wrapping paper box and came down with lime green paper and royal blue paper.  Argh.  So what I did was use white and lime green in one basket, and white and blue in the other basket.  They actually turned out beautiful, whew!  Here they are, in wrapping paper under the foyer table at my parents' house:

When my dad opened his basket, he showed off his maple-sugared almonds--he had sampled a ruined batch I had made the week before and loved them.  Ruined = didn't dry right because I messed up the recipe so they stayed messy-sticky, but they still tasted super awesome!  Notice the lime green paper!!

Finally, here's Uncle Matt opening his blue and white gift basket:

Although our family members knew we didn't have any money to spend on even the $20 gift limit, Matt commented that the items in the basket were probably worth around $50.  He's probably right, but it was our pleasure to give these gifts this year!


Back to life,
Christine

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Simple Christmas ~ Decorative Jars for Food Gifts

Since some of the gifts we gave at Christmas were homemade food items, I wanted to make sure they were packaged beautifully.  This may have presented a problem budget-wise, but I have Pinterest to thank for this idea!

Original idea from Pinterest:  Click here to go to the link

Items Needed

Mod Podge - matte finish
foam brush
various glass jars, thoroughly cleaned and dried
scrapbook paper -- the thinner kind, not the cardstock quality; most patterned paper will work

First, I set the jar lid on the back side of the scrapbook paper--and I used leftover scrap scrapbook paper--and traced around the jar lid with a pencil.  Then, I free-hand sketched a circle about an inch or so wider than the first circle.  I cut out each piece around the wider circle.

Then, I snipped into the circle at about 1/4" widths, cutting up to the inner circle and stopping, all the way around the circle.  No need to measure here!

This is the Mod Podge I bought below.  I had no idea there were so many varieties!  I brushed the Mod Podge (no need to go heavy) in the inner circle, covering it with a thin layer.  Then I set the lid on, picked it up, and smoothed the paper over the lid.  The paper shifted every now and then, so I did this carefully.  Pretty soon it began to set and I could really work on smoothing the paper, pushing it into the crevices around the lid.  (Sorry I don't have a picture of that step!)

I set one lid aside to really dry, then repeated the above step with the next lids, one by one.  Then it was time to fold over all those little strips cut around the circle.  First, apply a thin layer of Mod Podge to maybe three or four strips, then work them up and over the edge of the lid, pressing them in, over, under, and around the edge.

Once I worked all the way around, I set the lid on a piece of waxed paper to dry, then repeated the process with the next lid.

Once all my lids were dry, I carefully held one lid with my fingers from underneath, and spread a thin layer of Mod Podge over the top and around the sides of the lid.  It looks pretty much like glue.  Try not to apply too thick a coat--you may get bubbles which will dry into it.  I did get a few bubbles, but they didn't seem to matter.

Once the entire lid and sides are coated, carefully set it down on the waxed paper to thoroughly dry.  Each drying process takes maybe 15 minutes or so, but for this final step--coating the tops and sides--I let the glue dry overnight.  Below is one finished, dried-overnight lid!

I had made some maple-sugared almonds, which went into a few of the jars.

Isn't it the prettiest thing?  I almost didn't want to give it away.  For the label, I created a chart in Microsoft Word with a triple border, chose the Nauvoo font for the writing, centered it, printed it out on printer paper, cut it out, and taped it to the jar with clear packing tape.

This was just one of the food items we packed in gift baskets for two very special people whom two of us had picked in our family grab bag.


Back to life,
Christine

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Here We Come A-Caroling!

Well, the house was as decorated as it was going to get.  And just in time, too!  We hosted a neighborhood caroling party, where we invited several families over for a fun afternoon, plus whoever wanted to could go door-to-door down our street and sing carols for our neighbors.

The carolers spent a long time out on their afternoon trip (they went out again after dinner, those brave souls!), and I captured them caroling to us when they returned.

Back inside, we laid out all the food--boy was there a lot!!--and everyone got their bodies warmed and their bellies filled.  And then it was time for some more fun, in the form of indoor music--jamming style!   Our musicians:

Our listeners:

And our sibling dancers, too!

There were a few music lessons sprinkled in:

Heather learns the bodhran.

Dale (above) and Caleb (below) show how it's done.

And Dale gave a young boy a lesson, too!

An afternoon of music, with great friends and family, and great food.  Christmastime doesn't get any better; this was all the gift we wanted.


Back to life,
Christine

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Simple Christmas ~ More Decorating Ideas

After making tabletop trees for my fireplace mantel, I was officially in decorating mode.  Here are a few things I did to Christmas-ify my home.

I placed the tabletop trees on our mantel, along with a serving dish filled with three pillar candles.

Yep, only one pillar candle is lit in the below image.  I was burning them so they'd be three different heights.  I think I was on an asymmetrical decorating kick at that point.

Then I heard or read about how places like Home Depot just give away the Christmas tree trimmings they trim off the trees that they sell.  I decided to check it out, and our Home Depot sales guys told me to take the whole box--which I didn't do, since the box was about five feet cubed!!

I did take a large box of trimmings, mostly Frasier fir because they're soft to the touch and smell oh so good.  Some trimmings went along the back of my mantel, above.

I found these IKEA candles in my box of candles.  They were bought probably at a garage sale for pennies on the dollar.  The blue decorative Styrofoam balls from my tree decorations ended up in a large vase, also on my mantel.

I have two strips of plastic garland that I hang in my foyer.  The 3M hooks were still hanging from the previous year, so I didn't have to buy more Command® adhesive.  Yay!  I have pretty wire garland that I wrap around the stairwell.

I thought about filling the trifle bowl, below, with tree ornaments, but my ornaments are all too big to fit prettily inside, so I ditched that idea.

Then I found one last IKEA pillar candle!  Into the bowl it went.

The white Styrofoam balls from my decorative trees filled around the candle.

More pine boughs made their way over the clock in my living room.  I didn't like it initially...

...but then I used twisters to attach some more branches so the boughs would hang further down, and it worked!

That's about it for decorating.  Just a little here and there, enough to feel a little festive.  One doesn't need all the decorations to celebrate the birth of the Savior!  It was enough, and I was happy.


Back to life,
Christine

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