Our son finished decorating the outside of the house with lights last weekend. He loves doing it. It reminds me a little bit of Snoopy’s dog house in A Charlie Brown Christmas, LOL. I’ll have to see if I can get a picture of it to post.
Last night we picked out our Christmas tree. This will be our last year with a natural tree — they are getting too expensive around here. Next year, we are budgeting for a fake tree. I am a little sad; we have always had a real tree at Christmas since I was a baby. I told my husband I would agree to a fake tree only if we could budget for one that really looked real. Those are a little more expensive, but there are a few places around that sell nice ones. We will decorate it this weekend, along with the inside of the house.
I have really cut back on Christmas baking since the children started moving out. This year, because of the gluten allergy, I will make some fudge and coconut joys, and I might try my husband’s favorite Christmas cookie with rice flour, and see if I can fiddle with the recipe enough to get it to turn out. His favorite is what I grew up calling Russian teacakes — the little cookie balls of flour, sugar, butter, and pecans, rolled in powdered sugar. I know they have different names in different parts of the country. My favorites are gingerbread men, and my Grandma’s sour cream sugar cookies. I might experiment a bit with those too, with rice flour, and see if a cut out cookie is possible.
I always made two desserts for Christmas day; one the traditional Christmas day dessert for my husband’s family, a pineapple upside down cake (I have a very elegant version from Country Living magazine years ago) and one the traditional Christmas day dessert for my family, a ginger honey Christmas cake. This year I am also making a mincemeat pie in memory of my Grandma. So I have a few weeks to experiment with rice flour substituting for wheat flour in cake recipes.
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