Christmas Is Coming!

I've spent the last few days getting ready for Christmas. We finally got our Christmas tree, decorated it and put our lights up outside the house. We got all of our Christmas decorations up as well, which is, well, quite a feat. Christmas is my favorite holiday. It's Alan's favorite holiday too. We LOVE Christmas! We have quite a collection of Christmas "stuff" and we also received a lot of my grandma's Christmas things. Now our house is transformed. We have more Christmas decorations than we know what to do with! I love it. I also love having so many of my grandma's things--I am reminded of her everywhere I look. Today I made Christmas goodies. (I hate that word, but I think it's better than "treats.") I made Peppermint Bark, Toffee and Sugar Cookies. Nate and Abbie helped decorate the sugar cookies this afternoon and had a blast. My toffee didn't turn out as well. It still tastes great, but I realized after the fact that my candy thermometer was not working right--The paper with the temperatures had slid out of place inside the thermometer. Hence, my toffee is definitely not hard crack. It's more like soft. Oh well. Now I have a reason to make more! More baking tomorrow! Here are some pictures:

I love this Nativity plate.

Our ginormous Christmas tree! (We have always been big-tree people, but we were a little shocked at how big this tree was once we got it home)

My grandma's angel Our Christmas Village My Hibiscus tree is about to bloom! Our window seat with our candle advent calendar

This is our Nativity collection. The majority of these were from my grandma. They are from all over the world.

This is what the drying rack (over a cookie sheet) looked like after all of our Christmas cookies were iced and left to dry there. My first attempt at Peppermint Bark. Yum! My not-quite-cooked Toffee Decorated Sugar Cookies!