Christmas Wrap-Up

Isure hope you all enjoyed Christmas as much as we did.  It comes and goes so fast, doesn’t it?!  We don’t do a lot of tearing open gifts on Christmas morning anymore, since there aren’t any little ones around our house.  In fact, buying a lot of Christmas presents isn’t that important to us at all these days.  I really have everything I need or want, to be honest.  My hubby did give me a $100 giftcard to Home Depot, which I have earmarked for a project in the New Year, so you’ll get to see what happens with that one.

Two of Peter’s children got to join us for a few days and it was just a time to be together and relax.  Oh, and of course we did a lot of eating. I cooked the entire Christmas meal this year and there were 6 of us around the table.

I did find a spot for the moss wreaths here on the railing after I found some pretty ribbon in my stash.  It’s just a simple look, but I love it. I think I’ll add one wreath to each of my guestrooms after the Holidays, since they are natural and pretty all year long.

I set the dining table with the new plates from TJ Maxx, mixing in 2 of my every day white ones with it too.

I’m really glad I picked up these plates, I know I’ll enjoy them for years to come.  The silverplate flatware I found earlier this year at an estate sale has come in handy for the Holidays too.  With 16 place settings, it was plenty for our Christmas party.

On to the food, I cooked for a couple of days and everything turned out great, to my relief.  I got out my tried and true church cookbook from my dad’s church that he pastored and I grew up in in Marietta.  The Women’s Ministry put out cookbooks 2 years and I have both of them.  You know there are great recipes in here and you can see it is well used.  I’ll share these 2 with you.

This year, I decided to do a squash casserole and knew that I could count on this one to be tasty.  It’s Aunt Fanny’s Baked Squash from Aunt Fanny’s Cabin in Atlanta and it was entered in the church cookbook by a sweet lady in the church, Sis. Juanita Gothard.  She was the sweetest lady and sadly, passed away a few years ago. But, her family was an anchor family in our church and she could cook up a storm.  She had her own catering business and was such an elegant Southern lady to the core.  We called everyone growing up at church, Brother and Sister So and So, did any of you do that in your church too??  Those were special times and I miss them and treasure them dearly.

I started taking some pics as I was cooking it, then dropped the ball and totally didn’t get a finished one, but I’ll give you the recipe.  If any of you grew up in Atlanta, you probably remember Aunt Fanny’s Cabin in the Smyrna area.  It was a landmark for many years and a true Southern experience.  Sadly, it closed many years ago.  The original old home was later moved and reopened as the Smyrna Welcome Center.

Aunt Fanny’s Baked Squash

(Aunt Fanny’s Cabin)

3 lbs. yellow squash

1/2 cup chopped onion

1/2 cup cracker meal or bread crumbs (I used more and just sprinkled Italian bread crumbs generously on top)

1/2 tsp. black pepper

2 eggs

1 stick butter

1 T. sugar

1 tsp. salt

Wash and cut squash. Boil until tender, drain thoroughly, then mash.  Add all ingredients except 1/2 of butter to squash.  Melt remaining butter.  Pour mixture in baking dish, then spread melted butter over top, sprinkle with bread crumbs.  Bake in 375* oven for approx. one hour or until brown on top.

Sweet Potato Souffle

2 lb. 8 oz. can sweet potatoes (I used my Dad’s fresh sweet potatoes that he grew in his garden, see above pic)

1/2 cup milk

1 cup sugar

1/3 cup butter

1/2 tsp. salt

1 tsp. vanilla

2 eggs

Heat potatoes and mash.  Mix other ingredients with potatoes and put in greased baking dish.  Mix in bowl:

1 cup brown sugar

1/3 cup flour

Sprinkle over potatoes.  Sprinkle enough chopped pecans to cover top.  Melt about 1/2 stick butter and pour over top.  Bake 350* for 35 minutes.

Another favorite around here, the Hash Brown Potato Casserole is popular for the Holidays. I got this one from my old friend in Atlanta, Vicki.

Hash Brown Potato Casserole

32 oz. bag hash browns (defrost)

16 oz. sour cream

1/2 cup chopped onion

1 tsp. salt

1 tsp. pepper

1 can cream of chicken soup

2 cups grated cheese ( I usually use cheddar)

1/2 cup melted butter

Put all ingredients in bowl and mix well.  Pour out in 9×13 baking dish.  Smooth out the top.

Topping:

Crumble 2 cups corn flakes and 1/4 cup melted butter. Put on top of potatoes and bake at 350* for 1 hour.

You can see the baked squash to the right of the cranberry salad on my plate.   and yes I ate every bite. Here’s our menu:

Baked Smithfield ham

Sweet Potato souffle

Baked Squash

Hash Brown casserole

Tossed green salad

Collard greens from our little garden

Cranberry congealed salad

Rolls

Dessert was red velvet cupcakes and cookies.

And here’s the whole gang.  They don’t like to get their pic taken so I had to snap in a hurry.  From Left:  Grandma Eleanor, Peter’s son, Ben (23), his daughter, Stacey (25), Peter, and Mom Barbara.  We all enjoyed the meal so much.  Peter is wearing the new Bama shirt I gave him for Christmas.

I did a tiny little video with Grandma Eleanor and Peter’s mom and 2 kids, so you can get a brief look here.  Nobody likes my camera for some reason.

Christmas with the family from Rhoda on Vimeo.

Peter’s kids had plans for Christmas evening with other family members that are in Alabama, so we went over to eat with our friends, Rick and Debbie and had another meal with them.  It was nice to just sit around their fire chatting and relaxing.  Great way to end the day.

So after all the cooking and relaxing, I was ready to hit a few stores on Saturday a.m. to see what was out there in the after Christmas sales.  And I did make it to my spin class, which I definitely needed after all the food.

I always love Target and usually head there first and they had plenty left at 1/2 off.  I then stopped by Michaels and they were already at 75% off and brought home a few more lime green and red things. 

Those cute little lime birds were only 89 cents and most of the sparkly picks were 17 cents.  Love those deals after Christmas.  I found a pretty mercury glass seashell at Homegoods, the only one I found.  The little Pout sign was from Steinmart, the only thing I found there and only $1.25.  It’s hard to say no when things are marked that cheap.

Target had all these pretty bright and colorful ornaments and I scored all of these at 1/2 off.  I have a 4 foot tabletop tree that I normally put downstairs in our den that I didn’t put up this year.  I used the white and gold ornaments that I usually put on it on the cute Ballards tree that I now have in the foyer, so that tree was ornament-less this year.  But,  next year, it’s going to go ALL retro and colorful with these ornaments.  I can’t wait!   It’s so fun to put them away and bring them out for the next Christmas.

How was your Christmas?  Was it merry and bright too?  Tell me all about what your family did to celebrate.

Did you go to any after Christmas sales??

Several of you have asked that I do some posts about organizing and storing Christmas decor, so I promise I will do that.  I’m not an expert, but I do have a nice large attic with a plywood floor and that is where all of my Christmas goes, but I’ll take some pics along the way and we’ll ALL discuss organizing, how about that?!

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