Christmas

This is my long overdue Christmas post, and now since it's so late, it's been condensed. I'll try to share my favorite recipes in time for next year.

So, I did do some baking this year, which was unexpected. I had been working so much, I didn't think I would have any time to. I didn't make all the regulars, but I think I did most of them. I missed out on Nanaimo Bars and Shortbread...but I have a million sugar cookies left over. I did two batches because it took that many tries to get a hang of decorating with royal icing. My first attempts were pretty ugly - but these are getting there...




Though I still have containers full of sugar cookies in my fridge.

I did a favorite of Hubby's - chocolate covered pretzles. Those take forever, but they are so good! I crushed up some Werther's Originals and candy canes to sprinkle on top.


I did a rocky road fudge (the Canadian version) and chocolate marshmallows too. The marshmallows were so good! Rocky Road in Australia means something awful - they add these weird red jelly ju-jube bits to the peanuts and marshmallow. It's gross. It makes Rocky Road more suitable for kids instead of adults, in my mind at least.

I made my Grandmother's Jam-Jam recipe too, and we are still enjoying those as well. They keep really well, and seem to get better with age. The jam keeps them nice and moist. I changed it up, and added some sanding sugar for decoration. These are quite small - bite sized, but I did plain regular sized ones as well.


I made buttertarts too, and those were a hit, surprisingly. I love them, even though I'm usually not a fan of raisins in baking, along with a lot of other people. I wasn't sure if the Australians would like these, but most said these were their favorite item. I just came across this blog post! Perfect! And now these are on my list...

Next year I am going to bake smaller batches of everything, or give more away. I gave some away for gifts, but still ended up with too much left over. I say this every year though. Here's an example of the baskets I made up:


I also decorated a tree, which was an unexpected activity too. First off, we don't have many decorations, as they are still in Canada, and we also didn't have a fake tree. They are pretty expensive out here. I ended up getting a coupon in the mail for $40 off if you spend $100, AND I waited so long to get decorations, everything was 50% off! I barely managed to spend the hundred bucks, but ended up with a 6' tree, lights, and decorations galore! It wasn't up for that long, but next year I will be ahead of the game.





We had a nice family dinner on Christmas Eve, and spent time together at the beach on Christmas Day. We played lots of games over the holidays and had a great time relaxing. As usual, it goes really fast though, and I didn't feel like we had much of a holiday at all. Christmas is so different here. It's still a great time, I just miss home the most at Christmas.




We also had a small showing of homemade fireworks :)