Words for Moms

I have yet to read Mike Huckabee’s book called A Simple Christmas,  but the title reminds me of the importance of keeping our Christmas simple. This year things were tighter, and it was probably easier to do so. As we have children, we feel obligations to do things for children, to make memories for them. As they move from babies to toddler, start establishing simple routines for Christmas day and you will be surprised how much they appreciate these little things when they are grown up.

It doesn’t take a lot to make Christmas special. If you get wound up in all the trimmings, it is easy to make Christmas miserable for everyone.

Our trees have always been simple. For a couple years I had a 7 foot tree. It broke, and I was glad to replace it with a smaller one. It took so long to put that tree together, and I was tired. Since we have a bunch of boys in our house, the decorating all falls on my shoulders, especially now that they are older, so I have learned to keep things simple.

When the children were small, decorating the tree was an event. We used many home made decorations. In one house, we really didn’t have good place for a tree, except for in front of a book case. Now, as the children look through my decoration box, there are memories associated with many of the decorations.

We always attend the Christmas Eve service at church. I try a make a simple, but nice supper before we go. This is not the time to fuss with food. On Christmas morning, we have cinnamon rolls for breakfast, then we read the Christmas story in the Bible, and then we attend to the celebrations of Christmas. This has been the routine since the children were small. Now that they are adults or close to it, we still follow it. We just don’t get up as early on Christmas morning!!

I try to prepare as much of the Christmas meal ahead of time. Christmas day is a not a day to cook. Lately, we smoke our turkey Christmas Eve, and that makes things easy Christmas day.

There are few foods I cook every year. They are Christmas treats. One easy recipe that is a big treat are “cookless cookies”.

Mix and bring to a boil (don’t cook past a boil or they become sugary and dry):
1/2 cup milk
1 cup margarine
2 cups white sugar
Add one drop vanilla.
Remove from heat and add to the following mixture:
3 cups oatmeal
1 cup coconut
9 tbs. coca
Drop by teaspoon onto a flat surface. Refrigerate. They make be a bit gooey out of fridge, but they are very good.