With a little more than a week left before Christmas, I don’t know about you, but I know I am still scrambling to finish up my gift buying and baking.  Ok, I’ll admit, I just started this week! As I figure out my last minute preparations I have come across some really great gift ideas and recipes that I’d like to try this holiday season and share with you all.

Christmas Treats & Baking:

How does this fudge from Cheeseslave look?  Made with all real food ingredients, I know my family is going to love it and so will yours!

Light and flakey goodness!

The Christmas season is upon us once again.  Most everyone has a twinkle in their eye and the excitement of the season is hard to contain — unless you are Scrooge!  Getting together with family and friends, having parties, making crafts, decorating and celebrating the birth of Christ are all ways we love to celebrate.  But I believe that one of the most significant ways in which we celebrate this special occasion is with food!  This has been demonstrated world wide, whether you celebrate Christmas, Hannuka, Kwanza or anything in between!  It is one of the few times each year where we invest a lot of time and effort into making elaborate and rich dishes to indulge in with friends and family.

Well, the holidays are officially behind us and a new year has begun. I wanted to share with you all some of the holiday treats we made and what we ate at our Christmas dinner. I tried a few new things and I’m glad I did, because I have a new favorite! I’d like to share with you a recipe for a fabulous green bean casserole. I had heard of people making this dish over Thanksgiving or Christmas, but I had never made it or even tried it myself, until this year. I don’t think I would have made this yummy side dish if I hadn’t taken A Happy & Healthy Holidays, from The Nourished Kitchen. This series was great by the way, and I now have a whole repertoire of wholesome holiday recipes.  Some of the other recipes I tried included the chocolate fudge, sprouted flour gingerbread cookies, roasted chestnuts, and cinnamon-molasses cookies.  From the Cheeseslave blog, I also made her recipes for raw eggnog, sprouted flour shortbread, and bacon-wrapped dates.  On Christmas day we went over to my moms house.   For dinner she made a traditional roast turkey, stuffing with giblets, mashed yams and squash, mashed potatoes with gravy, green bean casserole and caesar salad.  For dessert we had eggnog cheesecake and Christmas cookies.  Ok, I’m getting hungry now!

The holidays are quickly approaching, and I am excited!  I love Christmas but let’s face it, it can be stressful and a lot of work! What if you could remove some of that stress for yourself and provide a healthy holiday season to your loved ones?  It is especially important for us to nourish ourselves well during this time.  I realized the date and in a panic I said to my husband, “Oh my gosh, it’s almost time to put up the Christmas tree!”.  We just finally got all of the Halloween decorations put away.  I know, it’s shameful!  I am not one to start decorating for Christmas until it is officially December.  I just can’t do it.  There isn’t even snow on the ground yet!  In fact, I haven’t even started my Christmas shopping yet.  What can I say?  Sometimes I procrastinate.  Not because I’m lazy and don’t want to do it.  It’s just that I’ve got so much else going on.  There just aren’t enough hours in the day.