Merry CHRISTmas Eve (and happy baking memories)!

Merry CHRISTmas eve to all of our blog friends! We are having a great holiday, as we are driving a grand triangle visiting different family groups. Our children and grandchildren were all together to take our annual Christmas card picture. As our group gets bigger, it's getting harder to get them all to look at the camera and smile at the same time.

While we have spent an unusually long time in the Midwest this fall, we are enjoying unusually nice weather. That allows us to play outside and take pictures without wearing coats.

We got to spend time with our son and daughter-in-law in Oklahoma City right before Christmas. We had some beautiful weather days that we enjoyed with them. One of those days was while we were taking care of our grandchildren. They love spending time with Aunt Claire and Uncle Blake!

We made some baking memories when we decorated Christmas-stocking-shaped rice krispies, with a record number of sprinkles on them.

We've been spending time in the Oklahoma City area, where we get to spend time with both of Denisa's sisters. We love getting together and baking Christmas memories! We had two different sessions of baking and decorating Christmas cookies with their grandchildren.

Carter missed the group session, so Aunt Connie had a private cookie decorating time just for her. That's probably why Carter told her, "I love you, Aunt Connie!"

One of our family Christmas traditions is baking tiny German cookies called peppernuts. The ingredients include a long list of spices. They really do have pepper in them, as well as ginger, cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, and allspice. All measured up in a bowl, those spices made for a uniquely pretty picture.

After mixing up the ingredients, the dough is rolled into snake-like pieces. Then they are cut into tiny cookies that are placed on a cookie sheet to bake. Mark worked on one end of this baking sheet, while Denisa filled the other end. Do you care to guess who is the organized baker with straight rows, and who put her pieces in willy-nilly fashion wherever they would fit?

After several hours of cutting and baking, we had a large bowl of German peppernuts ready to give away to our relatives that can appreciate these unique peppery Christmas treats. That's a big batch of baking memories right there!

If you look at the picture above, you'll see a row of Gingerbread houses on the counter. Those weren't made from one of those kits you buy at Target. Those were cut using paper patterns from the sheets of freshly baked gingerbread fresh out of the oven. 

After the pieces cool, they are assembled into houses with tasty decorations. That's another family tradition at Denisa's sister's house where they are baking memories.

While our house on wheels doesn't have the kind of kitchen for those big projects, we enjoy helping with them during the holidays in other kitchens. We are also starting new holiday traditions of baking memories that even a three-year-old can enjoy. It wasn't decorated as carefully as the picture on the box, but we baked this Christmas tree ourselves. It looks like Carter has some of her Gram's willy-nilly baking genes.

Now we are heading towards Kansas City for Christmas Eve. After stopping at Mark's brother's house to enjoy a few hours with their children and ten grandchildren, we will spend Christmas eve and day with our own grandchildren and their parents. In the meantime, we wish you a Merry CHRISTmas eve (and happy baking memories)!