this time the HoHoHo really has a fun factor...

If you ask most women and maybe men, what their favorite holiday is the answer is usually Christmas.  I'm no different.  I happily jump into the category of folk who get all gaga over the holiday season.  In the case of Christmas, it's the journey for me...preparing, making lists, shopping, finding the "perfect" gift, surprising someone who didn't think I knew what they secretly wanted, wrapping, putting bows and ribbons on packages or stuffing colored tissue into pretty holiday bags.  I love all of it.

Christmas 2014 had my family together: me, John, Jeff, Tyler, Lizzy and Eli.  It was, in a word decadent.

Our "Christmas Tradition" goes like this: We open gifts on Christmas Eve.. with tablet and pencil in hand, Santa Claus (Jeff in a silly Santa hat), disperses gifts to each of us.  We open the gifts one at a time and I write down who got the gift, what it is and who its from.  This takes a very long time, but  when it is all over, the mess has been cleared as we go, Christmas bags folded to be reused and we end up with piles of gifts in front of where we sit. FUN FACTOR X 10!!

 Adventure Time PJ's for Tyler

 Marine Corps jersey for John

 Seahawk shirts for the guys

 The PurpleVinyl MotherLove Bone album for Tyler

 Seahawk Russell Wilson jersey for Eli

 Grumpy Kitty T-shirt for Lizzy

 We asked Lizzy if she would go rob banks for us in her Morph suit.

 Grumpy Cat for Lizzy...but Tyler seems to love it!

 Eli loved his Adventure Time T-shirt!

 Tyler's family gift got two thumbs up:  a telescope.

This is just a random sampling of the "loot" we all hauled in....twas the night before Christmas and all was well....

...so good...Lizzy's mini fruit pies

Written December 2014

The Feast of Food.  Thanksgiving is no different in our home.  When we lived in the big house in the Battleground, WA woods, I'd spend two days before baking pies and cookies and making sure my menu and table settings were going to be "just perfect!"  I loved Thanksgiving in the big house surrounded by family, dogs and great food my Thanksgiving stretched into Sunday eating leftovers and remembering the holiday with gratitude. Which brings me to...

Gratitude.  To me, it's an action word.  I MUST do something to protect my gratitude for all that I am blessed with.  When we moved to Texas life as I knew it changed. Well, duh....Patricia.  I found myself sitting in my own self-pity party wondering if I would ever get my life back. Well, duh....Patricia. The answer to that is I have a life and it is continually being blessed and because of the many blessings I have been given. So...when life isn't exactly the way I would like it to be....when I'm not remembering it's Life on Life's terms, I make a gratitude list.

This Thanksgiving, 2014, I am grateful first and foremost for my family. This year, with all of us together since we moved in 2012, I was happy to plan menus with family, grocery shop, and help Lizzy learn how to make pies.

Lizzy mentioned that her favorite pie was berry....mixed berry to be exact:  raspberries, blackberries being at the TOP of her list. She's a girl of my own discriminate tastes in pies. The only problem is not everyone in our family likes berry pies.  Jeff wants my chocolate (which is to die for), Eli wants pumpkin and blueberry and John wants pumpkin and apple. What's a gal to do?

Lizzy and I watched a show on Food Network where the Pioneer Woman was making mini-pies or as they are called, Gillette's.  Perfect! Little individual berry pies leaving only pumpkin, apple and chocolate to make.

The directions to the Gillette's was really easy and Lizzy did not have any problem with them at all. In fact, the only problem she had was eating them before Thanksgiving....so she made another batch!

After rolling out and cutting pre-made pie dough, Lizzy puts the berry filling onto the dough.

Once loaded with filling, she crimped up the edges and left the centers open for goodness to bubble out. Then she used a pastry brush to brush melted butter over and then sprinkled granulated sugar over them.

These are little purses of glorious goodness in every bite...no wonder she had to make two batches!