Getting Ready For The Holidays

So here we are again in the middle of December.  Now is about the time it all begins to sink in for me and I realize all the stuff I still have to do.  At least the decorations are up minus a few pieces that broke or just stopped working (like my old set of outdoor lights).

Last year I did the big clean out of all the old decorations, keeping the sentimental things, and passing on or donating items that we no longer like or use.  I had one wreath that had lived a long life and was now somewhat damaged. At least I was able to save some of the pieces off of it it to reuse somewhere else.

I like to store my Christmas "stuff" in plastic bins to keep out all that dust and I reuse all types of boxes and tins to store ornaments, decorations and lights.  The delicate "stuff" get wrapped in the left over tissue paper from all the Christmas's that came before.  

I also seem to always get a craving for Christmas crafts come December and always end up making at least one or two.  This year it was the dryer ball gnomes that I made in the last blog but I also made a couple of other things too.

The first was the felt grey and white snowflakes and the white snowflake garland.  The white snowflakes were originally all linked together and I just cut them off and attached them to some twine.

The second is a Dollar store lantern (which I might end up painting white if I have the time) with a few things I already had. I used a large pine cone, berries and mini lights on the inside and leftover ribbon and a little Volkswagen clip (also from the Dollar store) for the top.  I've been on the lookout for something for the front door and just haven't found anything yet.  So at least there is a little something out there until I can find what I'm actually looking for. 

Snow flakes everywhere..

A little something for the front door.

So now that that's all done. I can turn to getting some baking done (among other things).

And yes, I will be making my favourite Almond Flour Gingerbread Cookies that I originally posted in my December 2017 blog.

Almond Flour Gingerbread Cookies  

    (This recipe makes about 20-24 cookies depending on the size of your cookie cutter)

2 3/4 cups Almond flour              8 pitted Dates

1/2 tsp Baking Powder                 3 Tbsp melted butter

1 tsp Cinnamon                            1 1/2 Tbsp Brown Rice Syrup

1/4 tsp Ginger                              1 Egg White

1/4 tsp Nutmeg                            1 tsp Vanilla (sugar free)

In a food processor mix  Almond Flour, Dates, Baking Powder, Nutmeg, Ginger and Cinnamon.  Blend everything until it's nice and crumbly.  Then add Brown Rice Syrup, melted Butter, Vanilla, and Egg White, mix until well combined and dough begins to form into a ball.

Remove dough and place it between two pieces of wax paper. Roll it out with rolling pin until it's about 1/8 inch or so thick.  Place the dough in the fridge for about an hour or 15-20 minutes in the freezer.

Once the dough is nice and cold you can take it out and remove the top layer of wax paper. Using a cookie cutter cut dough into desired shapes. Gather up remaining dough and using the top later of wax paper again roll dough out and cut.

It's a sticky dough so use a little almond flour to help cut out shapes and the wax paper to transfer cookies to a baking sheet.

Bake at 250 for 25-35 minutes or until browned on the bottoms.  (Note: They freeze very well.)