Today is my 100th post! Thank you to my wonderful family for their support and to you--my dear blogging friends--for making my blogging experience marvelous so far! If it is the Lord's will, may the next hundred (or more!) posts be an encouragement to you as we continue on through these "Seasons of Humility."
Now we didn't exactly make it to 50 followers before today, but that's alright! If you stick with me through the rest of this post, I'll have a special giveaway for this special occasion anyway! =)
The picture above is actually a New Year's picture, but we keep the Christmas decorations up for a while after Christmas at our home! Today's Christmas tradition topic is . . . food!
What better way to celebrate this blog's 100th post than talking about food? And isn't Christmas a grand time for food? My mom makes fudge around Christmas-time, which is absolutely delicious! I just love chocolate desserts! (I must get that from my mom!)
And then there's Christmas Eve dinner. Last year we went out to dinner at this beautiful restaurant called The Sunset. It has a gorgeous view, and a lovely interior (pictured at right). No matter where you are, if family and good food are involved, it's sure to be a wonderful time! And Christmas dinner is always a festive affair! I love eating a fantastic home-cooked meal as everyone is gathered around the dining room table. Do you go out to dinner on either Christmas or Christmas Eve, or do you have both meals at home? And do you have a traditional main course for either of the meals? For instance, we usually have ham for Christmas dinner. Yum!I would love to
hear about your favorite Christmas foods and/or Christmas memories having to do with food! And if you leave a comment with your e-mail address, you will be entered in a drawing for the book pictured at left. It's a dessert cookbook from Nestle Toll House! From cookies, to cakes, to chocolate mousse, to fudge . . . it's all in here! (Giveaway is for U.S. residents only. I apologize to my international friends!)Click HERE to see this recipe book on Amazon.com. Winner will be announced on Saturday, July 24. Thank you all again for making my first 100 posts so fun!
25 comments:
Yum. Christmas food. You're making me hungry and I've just had breakfast. I'm a vegetarian so I concentrate on finding interesting veggie side dishes to go with my family's traditional Christmas fare. Like Maple Glazed Carrots or Roasted Root Vegetable Meledy. I love stuffing though (as long as it hasn't been cooked inside the turkey) so I make cranberry stuffing in a casserole dish and every loves it.
Oh -- and dessert -- must have trifle (very Irish, don't you know?) and vegetarian mince meat pie (made with green tomatoes!)
100 posts! Congrats and well done, Amber!! :)
Congrats on your 100th post! The one favorite Christmas foods is my mom's Rocky Road Candy. It's like fudge and everyone loves it, but it's ridiculously easy to make. We give it out as gifts.
s(dot)bofferding(at)hotmail(dot)com
Good morning, everyone! :)
KAV: Well, glad to hear that my writing was that powerful! ;) Those vegetarian dishes sound interesting. Do you ever feel like you have a hard time coming up with different meal options, or is it pretty easy? I confess I'm a picky eater, but it's fun to hear from someone else that is braver (and much more healthy!) than me. :)
And I'll enter you for the drawing unless you tell me not to. ;)
CERELLA: Thank you so, so much! Your support has meant so very much to me! And isn't it fitting to be talking about food today? ;) Thank you for also becoming a follower!
Oh, and I'll enter you in the drawing, too, since your e-mail should be easy to find. ;) Just let me know if you would rather not be entered, but in my opinion a dessert cookbook would be fun to give away to the author of LFY in Hershey Pennsylvania!
SARA: Thank you!!! And that sounds like a neat Christmas food! :) I especially like the sound of: "it's ridiculously easy to make"!
Thanks for your entry!
~Amber
I'm a vegetarian, like Kav, but it looks like she may go healthier than me!! I cooked the first couple of years of marriage, but until Holden gets a little older, I gave that up. We go to so many Christmas meals and get so many leftovers, there's no point in me cooking. My momma and mother in law both cook me a vegetarian version of dressing, and take a portion of some of the dishes out for me before adding the meat. And my sweet tooth gets plenty of sugar. My favorite @ holidays is pecan pie! On average, we end up going to 4 different meals at Christmas(usually only 2 on the day of Chrsitmas, though).
bluerose_shelnut(at)yahoo(dot)com
KAV: OK, I feel like the most insensitive person in the world! I keep forgetting that you're not a U.S. resident and offering to enter you in the giveaways... Could I be more cruel? If I was a bit more wealthy and not going to college, then I would not hesitate to enter you, Kav! I'm so sorry! :(
BLUEROSE: I might just be the only one around here who isn't a vegetarian... ;) Just kidding! I'm sure eating a lot of vegetables has got to boost the healthy factor, regardless of what else you eat! That's really sweet of your mom and your mother-in-law, and that's good that you're still getting some sugar in, too! ;) I don't want to feel like the only not-entirely-healthy-eater around here...
Thanks for your entry and for stopping by!
~Amber
LOL -- no worries, Amber. I don't mind not being in the draw. Besides, with all my wiley librar skills I'm sure I can get that cookbook on interlibrary loan from somewhere!
And Whooohooo Bluerose -- another veggie in the group. :-)
KAV: Oh, thank you for not being upset with me! I can't believe it took me this long to make the connection, and then I realized that the reason you weren't leaving your e-mail was because you weren't a US resident! Boy, how embarrassing! But thank you again for being so nice about it! :)
~Amber
Amber,
WOOHOO!!! Congrats on your 100th post!! I started my blog in March too :). Here's to your next 100 great posts, Lord willing!!
This cookbook looks great. First I saw the pic and I wondered hmmm...how is that going to be in the mail after a week (thinking it was the break & bake cookies).
julesreffner(at)gmail(dot)com
Julia,
Thank you!!! Your encouragement means so much to me!
And way to make me laugh! It is a little hard to tell from the picture what exactly it is, isn't it? ;) It's kind of hard to describe, but the book is actually a "board book" (as Amazon.com describes it)--all the pages are hard and thick, which it makes it quite durable. And it makes you feel like a kid again when you look through it! ;)
Thanks for your entry!
~Amber
Ohhhh food :D
My grandma always makes treats for her neighbor friends, and one treat I absolutely LOVE are butterscotch haystacks! She takes the chinese noodle crunchy things, and melts butterscotch chips over them :) YUMMY! We don't usually have a fancy Christmas Eve dinner, but we always have ham on Christmas day :)
Oh and I'd like to be entered!
pinkdaddysgirl[at]msn[dot]com
Ariel,
Your grandma sounds really sweet, and that's great that you have such tasty memories! ;) And it's fun to hear of someone else who has the ham-for-Christmas-dinner tradition!
Thanks for your entry!
~Amber
:) Glad to make you chuckle.
We love Nuts & Bolts. They're expensive but a Reffner family tradition. Also we have my Great-Grandmother's butter cookie cutouts from the beginning of the 20th century. They are so good...a whole pound of butter and the kids decorate them with egg whites and sprinkles.
Julia,
All I can say to the description of your great-grandmother's butter cookie cookouts is: YUM! :)
~Amber
YAY!!! Happy 100th post, Amber!!! I'm so happy for you, my friend! But I'm so sorry you didn't make the 50 followers goal :( Don't worry though, I know they'll come in time :) Praying for MANY more posts and MANY more followers!!!
And, as far as my favorite Christmas food, there's just too many to list! But one of my favorites, which is also a favorite memory from childhood, is the batches and batches of cookies my mom and I always make! My mom is an AMAZING baker, and cook, for that matter. She can just look at a recipe and tell you if it will work or not, or know just how to tweak it to make it right. Like I told Laura, I'm just praying when the apple fell, it stayed close to the tree, LOL ;)
Anyway, we make about 10 different kinds, and then put them into assorted trays to give as gifts to family and friends (well, as long as my dad and brother don't eat them all first!). I'll never forget the year we made over 2,000 cookies :0 Yes, 2,000! We actually had a lot of people order 1 or 2 pound trays of them that year. It was a wonderful memory, a little chaotic, but fun none the less :)
I LOVE them all, but my favorites are the butter balls, teatime tassies, and the chocolate peanut butter middles- there's actually peanut butter fudge in the middle of them :D YUM!!
Thank you Amber, for a little taste of Christmas in July ;) Merry blogging!!
Blessings,
Amanda Stanley
Woohoo! 100 posts is so cool! COngrats!
As for my fave food I would have to say cutout cookies!!!! I'm still a kid at heart and I just love to make little Santa and candycane cookies and then decorate them with colored icing! yum.
XOXO~ Renee
Congrats on 100 posts!
I have to admit the food is one of my favorite parts of Christmas. Our Christmas dinner is a traditional one, turkey and dressing (or stuffing as it's called in some parts of the country), ham, etc. The important things to me are the stuffing and macaroni salad.
On Christmas Eve, we used to have ham sandwiches, but we changed that in the last few years. I am never at my parents house on New Years Eve any more, and we used to have a small sandwich tray from the local grocery store on New Years Eve. I have requested to have that on Christmas Eve the last few years, and we have. So Christmas Eve is sandwiches, macaroni salad, potato salad, chips, and dip.
As for desserts, my mom always makes a fruit salad which my grandfather loves. She also makes a fresh apple cake, and usually something chocolate for me.
mchapman (at) windstream (dot) net
Wow, ya'll are making me hungry! (I should probably go eat dinner soon...) :)
AMANDA: Thank you so much!!! It really doesn't matter if I have 50 followers or not--I just thought it would be fun to have my 100th post and 50 followers at the same time. I like coordination like that. ;)
Cookies...YUMMMY!!! And 2,000?! Are you serious? That's incredible! I'm sure your family and friends were grateful for your efforts and generosity. :) And those chocolate peanut butter middles sound delicious! I LOVE chocolate and peanut butter!
Thanks so much for stopping by and sharing with us about the cookies!
RENEE: Thank you! How fun to have you commenting on my 100th post--you who were my first commenter. :) Thanks for all of the support over these past few months! Here's to a wonderful, continuing friendship!
And aren't we all just kids at heart? I love cookies with icing, and now I really wish I had some! ;)
MICHELLE: Thank you! :)
And yes, food is a great part of the holiday season! I love turkey, but for some reason we've always had ham on Christmas (I guess turkey is reserved for Thanksgiving!). Your meals sound like a lot of fun, and that's neat that you have a more casual meal for Christmas Eve and then a grander meal for Christmas. :)
I can't blame you in the slightest for wanting something chocolate for dessert, too--I totally concur! Thank you, also, for your entry!
~Amber
Heehee....
WOOHOO! WOOT!! 100 posts!!!!!
I'm a loser because I didn't do anything for my one hundred....now I'm over by about 25
: (
Ah well...that's life these days...
Congrats!
Hannah
Hannah,
Thank you for celebrating with me! :) And you are NOT a loser! Getting ready for graduation and then getting ready for college is enough to keep anyone busy. You can celebrate 150 or 200. ;) And I'll add a belated "YIPPEE!!!" for your 100th post so we can have a mini celebration!
~Amber
Lol....well that was fun!! *wink* If you were here, we could've had a real partay! Orrrrrr....gone for a road trip! I got some advise that the best and first thing to do when you get a new car is to go on a road trip...well I never did with my old red car and haven't with this one!
Thanks for the mini celebration,
Hannah
Hannah,
Glad you enjoyed it! ;) Of course, you deserve a much longer and wilder celebration, but we can reserve that for your 150th post! And a road trip would have been fun (as long as you were driving!). Hope you get a chance to go on one soon!
~Amber
And look how far you've come since I made that first comment! ;-) Your blog is sooo pretty and you always have wonderful posts! I'm so glad we "met."
XOXO~ Renee
Renee,
Thank you! Your encouragement, as well as that of others, has been especially appreciated, and I don't know what I would have done without you! I'm so glad we "met," too! :D
~Amber
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