Proteidaes

I've had a busy few days getting caught up on baking! With just a week left before our Christmas Eve Feast, things are speeding up!!  At the request of little bro, vanilla-mint marshmallows! (alton brown's recipe!) Fudge!    Fondant cherry chocolates 😍 Chewy molasses cookies w candied ginger!  Book reviews ahead!! 

Oh boy, oh boy! It's Christmas tree day!  Well, it was Christmas tree day yesterday, but things got a little hectic and I was only feeling like the one post. 🥰 Blogger privilege in 2020: don't post if you don't want to!! I have to be honest, moving to New England has changed some things about Christmas trees for me. Alaska has LOVELY cedars, pines, and spruces, but none of them are very Christmas tree shaped ?? (the light access for 6-8 months of the year make them grow tall and lanky, not bushy and full! Also, we have a LOVELY little beetle problem that is slowly turning the taiga into a haunted forest I swear ...) We always bought our Chrsitmas trees pre-cut trees from a lot; these were not native species, but were shipped in from Washington and Oregon ... "fresh, never frozen!" The signs always proclaimed! And these trees were usually quite expensive ... but BOY did they look nice. The last few years my family has gone tree cutting from different "u-pick...

Two book reviews for you today! What a treat!!   

Not a lot going on today. The book I have for advent today is really cute, though -- I think you'll enjoy it!

Today's advent book has got me thinking about traditions.  One of my favorite family traditions is to make Christmas goodies throughout the month of December. While it's sometimes an arduous task (there have been years that we had 30+ unique treats for our Christmas feast!!), it is always exciting to reveal the efforts after squirreling them away for the entire month. It used to frustrate me so much to spend hours  each afternoon baking and decorating only to have my treasures boxed up and frozen as soon as I was done ... Nowadays, it feels more like banked effort. And it's fun to pull things out and share if you have surprise company.  (I'm going to be honest, the only "company" we ever had was grandma and grandpa lol ... but if you live in a family with four starving boys, a cookie can go a long way towards keeping the peace!)  This year in particular I have also been drawn to our Scandinavian traditions, specifically Hygge:    I recognize now that this c...

Snow has been on my mind these days.  The last few weeks have been weirdly warm here in sunny Vermont, and it just doesn't quite feel  like Christmas yet! I'm learning that I have very "essential" ideas of seasons, mostly built around the time my family spent in Alaska. (We have just recently moved to VT after living in AK for nearly 25 years! That's a long time!!) Wintertime to me has a very specific look that I find myself impatient for ... it's not necessarily a temperature thing? But more that I keep expecting the light to do certain things. It certainly gets dark early enough to make the nights feel long and cozy! But I am missing the reflective and colorful quality of snow at different times of day. (These photos were taken near the beginning of November ... I miss a good frosty morning!)  Here's today's question: do you have a favorite season? Tell me what you like about it! (Or what makes you cringe if you're feeling That Way.) Today's...