December is Coming

Well I don't want to pass right over Thanksgiving - that is a very important holiday for me, but I do want to remind you about Ali Edwards Annual December Daily Project and if you haven't been to her website lately she's already in December Daily prep mode. So head on over there and start gathering your supplies and deciding how you'd like to document a very magical time of the year in your life.

I'm still trying to decide if I'm going all digital this year or a combination of paper and digi or go all old school with paper and glue. :) We'll see, but no matter what HAVE FUN!

December Daily: December 1st

Today is the first day of December and for me that officially marks the beginning of the Christmas season, we are now in full swing at the Burton household and I look forward to sharing all of our holiday moments throughout this season.

Our Christmas Tree is up and for the most part the apartment is decorated, gifts are being purchased and holiday gatherings are being planned.

I am following along with Ali's December Daily Project and will be posting my progress throughout this month.

I need to post about Thanksgiving and then move on into December. I would love to know how many of you are planning on documenting the season and how you plan on doing it.

wrapping up December with a big red bow

December, as I'm sure for everyone else, has been a very busy month. Fer and I celebrated our 11th wedding anniversary and are still going strong, we experienced some of Christmas in our new home and traveled to Miami to spend Christmas with Fer's family. While in Miami we managed to make use of every minute we were there and visit our friends who we have missed very much since our move to Atlanta. Instead of doing individual posts on each event I'm going to wrap up 2008 in this post and move ON to 2009!

First our anniversary dinner, Fer took me to the best place in Atlanta for a view of the city and beyond. The Sun Dial Restaurant which is on top of the Westin hotel here in Downtown Atlanta, the restaurant spins around (slowly, sort of) and takes an hour to see the whole 360 view of the city and it was great.

Amazing views.

Centennial Park, see the Olympic rings all lit up.

we had shrimp and grits for an appetizer, YUMMOOO.

traffic

Then we went to check out Stone Mountain's Christmas Village, it was a pretty cold day when we went to see it but we made the best of it especially with Hot Cocoa in hand. The village is beautifully decorated and we were even able to see the Polar Express 4-D show which was pretty cool, I have to admit I've never seen that move but now I want to.

and then Christmas Eve, which we spent a Viviana and Michael's house.

That's a wrap.

Gift Giving

Most years, when I have time, cookies are the gifts that I prepare for our friends and family. In a previous post I shared with you the cookie line up for this year, here is how I packaged them up as gifts.


I bought a box (50) of these kraft colored boxes from Nashville Wraps, they are the perfect size for any baked goods and I really like the naturalness of the kraft color. I tried two different ribbons as you can see in the picture below. The green and red one was the winner as you may have guessed. To keep them on the box I measured them to size and stapled it together on the bottom. I'm planning to use the twine for when I give gifts throughout the year.
Here's the cookie packaging station.
I separated each type of cookie with cupcake wrappers and I wrapped the peppermint bark in cellphone bags.
All wrapped up and ready to go.

Merry Christmas.

Cookie Factory

This is what I've been up to lately, it's a lot of work but all worth it in the end.

This years cookie line up was:

Gingerbread Cookies
Noel Nut Balls
Candy Cane Cookies (which thanks to the 70 degree weather this week did not form into candy canes but I'll say pepperment drops)
Spritz Cookies

Also:
Mom's Homemade Fudge
Peppermint Bark

It was funny I was looking forward to baking cookies up here in Atlanta this year because it's always so hot in Miami and the cookies are sometimes not so easy to work with but of all weeks for it to be nice in warm in Atlanta had to be cookie baking week. LOL I almost had to put the air conditioning on, I tell ya.

Here's some pics from the baking extravaganza:

December Daily: Christmas in Atlanta

We're finally getting out and checking the sites in Atlanta that are all decorated for Christmas. This past weekend we went to a place called Atlantic Station, they have a lot of events here and it is very nicely decorated for the holidays. In the area which I believe they call "Central Park" since it's in the center of everything at Atlantic Station they have a huge Christmas tree nicely decorated. In that same area (on the weekends between 6-9pm) it snows every hour on the hour, it's really cool. We visited it with a few friends had some wine and tapas at a restaurant called The Grape and then went for a great dinner at a place called Strip; which is Steak, Seafood and Sushi. Yummy.

Check out the pictures below of our visit:

isn't this an awesome picture.

look it's snowing.

Orange Pinched Macaroons

Last week Martha had Pastry Chef Patrick Lemble from the acclaimed Four Season's Restaurant on her show sharing his recipe for Orange Pinched Macaroons. Well they seemed like the perfect cookie for me to try and see if I wanted to add them to my 2008 Christmas Cookie Collection so yesterday I tested the recipe.

They are delicious, but I'm not sure if they will make the cut for this years batch of holiday cookies. They are easy enough to make and they are delicious, I think they are perfect for exactly how the four seasons serves them as a delicious dessert after dinner but not necessarily as part of my cookie gifts. The other "down" side to them if you want to make a lot to give away, although the recipe does make 40 cookies and I think two per person would be a enough, is that you need 1 lb. of almond paste and that is not cheap around $10 for the pound. Now again the holidays are not a time to skimp on delicious ingredients but that's probably the ONLY down side to these cookies.

Here was the process and a few of my comments (helpful tips) in case you make them yourself.

when rolling out the dough into long snakes I suggest using a good amount of powdered sugar on your board because it is a fairly sticky dough. I used a bench scraper to work with the dough and to cut the pieces out. let the pieces that you have rolled in egg white and powdered sugar sit out for about 30 minutes, it seems you do this so that they dry a little and then they're not so sticky when you pinch them.

pinched and ready to go into the oven.

up close shot of the pinched cookies.

out of the oven. yummy and they were a hit with everyone who tried them. Happy Baking.

December Daily: more and more like christmas everyday

This will be a simple Christmas this year since it's just Fer and I so we didn't feel the need to go nuts with hauling home a big Christmas tree, etc. etc. But I'm thinking it may be one of our most beautiful Christmases yet - just in the simplicity of green and red and the white lights around the apartment. I love it.

December Daily - Day 3, 4 & 5

The past few days I haven't taken enough pictures to post them all individually so I'm lumping them all together. Today (day six) we're planning to get our tree so that should produce a great photo op. :)

Here's some pics from the past few days:

Day 3 purchased a few poinsettia plants

picked up a few of these cute appetizer plates at Target
Day 4 I worked on this thanksgiving album all day more on that later:

Day 5 did a little more decorating around the apartment and worked on yet another version of my blog banner. (yes I'm obsessed)

got these glasses at Ikea, added some kosher salt in the bottom of each for the snow effect and tea light candles in the salt.

December Daily Day 2

On the second day of Christmas.... fa la la la la ..... little by little we're getting in the Christmas spirit here in our home.

Here's some pictures of Day 2:

found these great snowflake lights at michaels, i love them.

strung the Christmas lights and garland out on the balcony, I think it looks great.

Gathered up my collection of Martha Stewart Magazines and cookbook books to begin selecting what type of cookies I'll be making this year for holiday gifts.

Capture the Moments of this holiday season!

I really enjoy reading Ali Edwards blog (as I have mentioned before) and I find her ideas of capturing the moment to be a constant inspiration to me to be present in all I do. She created a project called December Daily and has done it for a few years just like the "Week in the Life" project where you document something or as much as you want for everyday (in this case) of the holiday season... the 25 days of christmas.

So I'm following along and creating my own little scrapbook/journal for the 25 days of christmas. I will keep you posted on my blog of how things are going and in the next day or two will show the book I made to capture all my "moments" in.

Here's a few pics from day one:

first on the list purchase my christmas present - Merry Christmas to ME!

pull out all the christmas decorations:

it's beginning to look a lot like christmas