Happy New Year

 Wishing you and your family a happy, healthy 2012.

This I Know For Sure...

While 2011 was better than 2010, it still wasn't the greatest year I've had.  I will be glad to see it come to an end. 

I'm looking forward to all of the possibilities 2012 has to offer.  I hope it's a much better year than the last two years have been.  I hope everyone, including myself, who needs a better year financially, health-wise, etc receives it in 2012.

Katherine

What I'm Reading Wednesday

Just finished Serendipity by Carly Phillips last night.  It's the first book by her I've read.  I'll be reading more. :o)

I'm going to start Animal Magnetism by Jill Shalvis next.  I really enjoyed her Lucky Harbor series so I'm hoping I'll like this one just as much.

Happy Reading.
Katherine 

What I'm Reading Wednesday

To all of my friends and acquaintances who celebrate the holiday, I wish 

you a very Happy Hannukkah.

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I'm trying to read Only Mine by Susan Mallery but I've been so busy wrapping gifts, baking, and preparing for out of town family that I haven't had a chance to read very much of it. 

A Christmas Tradition

Everyone I know has at least one holiday tradition they look forward to every year from Black Friday shopping to family gatherings to attending that one special holiday party every year. 

I have two traditions I look forward to.  One is to watch Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer.  I’m well past the age of believing in Santa Claus and flying reindeer, but it’s just not Christmas if I don’t watch Rudolph.  Every year, the night it’s on, I get in bed, prop up my pillows, and snuggle under my big fluffy comforter and watch the cartoon while my cat curls up at my feet.  Of course, there’s always a cup of hot chocolate involved too.

The most important tradition though is making Christmas cookies with my mom.  She started teaching me to cook when I was four years old.  Every December we would make cut out cookies in various holiday shapes.  She would mix the dough on a Friday evening and put it in the refrigerator over night.   My brothers and sisters and I would take turns peering into the refrigerator at the bowl of dough and asking when it would be ready for baking.

Finally, Saturday afternoon would come and she’d pronounce it ready.  She would roll it out and place the cutters on the dough.  Each one of my siblings and I would get a turn to push the cutters down into the dough.  My mom would peel away the excess, put the cut out pieces onto a baking sheet and into the oven.  We’d repeat the process over and over until every scrap of dough had been formed into a cookie.

Rows and rows of angels, reindeers, snowmen, Christmas trees, holly leaves, tree ornaments, and Santa Claus cookies would fill one end of the table to cool then be packed away until the next day, the most important day of all – the day we would frost them. 

My mom would make the frosting and allow each one of us to stir drops of food coloring into bowls of white icing.  We’d have a rainbow of colors and little bottles of colored sugar to decorate the cookies with.  We’d spend the afternoon decorating the cookies, making sure the Santa cookies were frosted red and white to represent his suit, the snowmen white with a strip of yellow around his neck and down his stomach to represent his scarf.  Christmas trees had brown frosting for the trunk and green frosting for the leaves and a dot of yellow at the top for the star just to describe a few.  When we were finished, my mom would lay them on wax paper to set.  We would ooh and ah over them like they were the most magnificent cookies ever made.

My brothers and sisters are all married with children now and building their own holiday traditions but for two days every December my siblings and I gather together and make Christmas cut out cookies with my mom.  It’s a tradition I hope we’re able to continue for many years to come.

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On Tuesday, 12/20 I'll be talking about what a Christmas Orange means to me on the Authors by Moonlight blog.  Link: www.authorsbymoonlight.com

This I Know For Sure...

I am beyond thrilled that it's December 16th and here in upstate NY we've only had .03 of an inch of snow so far. Last year at this time we already had 43 inches.  What I really know for sure is that when it does decide to snow, we are going to get a lot of it to make up for the late start.
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Today, I'm at AJ's Tattered Pages talking about character names. Hope you'll stop by. Link: http://ajbooks.blogspot.com