Holiday Vacation 2011 Recap-Part One-Christmas and Christmas-ish activities

Wow, so I think this is the longest blog vacation I've ever taken.  It just sort of happened.  Around mid December I was struck with an intense cold that lasted until past Christmas.  Then I was off work for a week and a half so I just decided to let the blog rest for awhile.  But I'm back.  My vacation was officially over at 6AM today when I woke up for work.  But my vacation was awesome so I'd like to hand out some awards to my friends and family for making it so good.

Today we will discuss Fristmas, Christmas and the 1st Annual (yeah I'm going there-it should definitely be yearly) Post-Christmas Extravaganza....

Later I will recap New Years and my husband's birthday.

Best Baking-I'm going to go ahead and call this a tie between B and I.  I was too ill to prepare the Gingerbread dough the night before we made the cookies so B followed my recipe and I coached him through it.  There was a slight mix up between baking soda and baking powder but we worked through it.  Then I used my new cake ball maker to whip up these brownie peppermint cake balls.  They might have been slightly hard but look how cute they are.

Best Holiday Decor in my House-Another tie between B and I.  B for single-handedly bringing in the tree by himself and setting it up on the tree stand.  Me, for acquiring Christmas decor over the years and sitting it around the house.

Best attempt to open/eat his own Christmas presents-Hobie!  Christmas is really about the kids, right.  Hobie really enjoyed opening his presents on Fristmas*.  He wasn't bad at gift giving either.  He managed to get B and I some much needed new salt and pepper shakers.

Most Photogenic-My brother and sister.  My brother gets it for actually agreeing to be in a photo and look at the camera and L-Fab is always great in photos!

 Best Couple-Obviously B and sleeping Hobie win best couple.  Always.

Best Inter-family Mingling-This goes to B's family below and my family (in the next pic).  It was the first time we had members of both our families hang out together on Christmas.  Plus B's family forced me to watch A Christmas Story which is good since I've never actually seen that movie all the way through (Crazy, I know).

Best Feast-My mom wins the Best Feast award for preparing billions of dishes for Christmas eve dinner as well as multiple meats.  She even made a few vegan dishes for my mother-in-law.  My Aunt gets runner up for the December 23rd holiday meal she made us.  Delightful.

Best Post Christmas Gathering goes to me and all my homies who met up on December 27th for some good times.  Special Shout out to the Young's for their guest appearance all the way from Vegas.

I was so excited to fit everyone in our freshly
painted basement!

Special shoutout to me for deciding not to cook a bunch of food and instead just get 3 Stouffers Lasagnas and some wine and beer.

Special shoutout award to Curly J aka the Brayer for suggesting we play Dirty Santa (aka White Elephant) and for bringing this awesome Sweet Talking Ken Doll as one of the prizes.  It was hysterical and fun playing with my closest friends.  (Curly T, you better be able to describe the whole second season of Parks and Rec to me next time I see you).

No special shoutout to Shanzles for bringing this wreath made of plastic bags (although it did come with a Starbucks gift card so not the worst gift ever.)

Best Holiday Craft-Shanzles.  Shannon previously failed at beach craft hour but came back strong with these cute book themed Christmas ornament.  You are officially redeemed!

Overall, it was an amazing break but I'm so happy to be back at work today.  FALSE.  I am not happy to be back at work today (but I am grateful that my University totally shuts down between Christmas and New Year's so I don't have to work).

I will return later this week with part deux of my holiday recap.  You can't wait!

*Fristmas is the made up holiday B and I share where we open up our Christmas presents to each other a few days before real Christmas and then eat some sort of delightful breakfast or dinner together.

What to Get Your Brother for His Birthday...

All Pictures from Zingermans

Do you know what the hardest thing ever is?  It's trying to figure out what to give your brother for his birthday.  I mean first of all, he is a guy.  Second of all, he is your brother.  You can't pick out clothes for your brother (well I can't).  You already gave him Modern Family Season 1 for Christmas and you are pretty sure he already has access to the TV shows and movies he wants to watch.  Video games and other technology are expensive and how would you even know what to get.  Plus he lives in another state probably (or sometimes another country) and is not good at giving you his address but even when he does, big things are hard to ship.

Then there was that year you thought you'd come up with a good idea for a gift.  Turns out he did not really want the new TLC CD (the band, not the tv channel) even though it featured the hit single  "Waterfalls" (it's in your head now isn't it?  "Please stick to the rivers and the lakes that ya used to.").   He also apparently did not enjoy the hand stenciled t-shirt you gave him a few years back.   Well at least you never saw him wear it.

pic from wiki

You can take the easy way out and get him a gift card (I'm not going to lie, that's what I usually do).  Or you can just make one of those agreements where you decide not to give each other anything at all (but he's in grad school and jobless for the next few months so you feel like you should be nice).  Or you can just think really hard, in your brain and come up with something pretty good, like I think I did this year.

Meat
Cheese
Mustard
Brownies
Huzzah!

Yeah even though my Valentine's Day box of food is long gone, I'm still perusing Zingerman's on the daily, plotting my next purchase.  Then it hit me.  My brother likes food.  I'm pretty sure he likes salami.  I think his favorite sandwich is an Italian Sub (that might have salami on it).  And I've definitely seen him eat chunks of cheese straight out of the fridge at my parent's house.  So yeah I'll make him a box of food from Zingerman's.  Score!

And I think he liked it, unless he's just trying to appease me.  He wrote this in an email to my parents "J-M gave me one of the most exciting gifts I have received in quite some time - hard salami, gourmet cheese, gourmet mustard, and an excellent brownie.  Great work." 

Yay, go me!

PS-I'll be back tomorrow with the details on this weekend's birthday scavenger hunt extravaganza.

The B Mug!

Remember when I tried to make Martha Stewart's supposedly very easy etched snowflake glasses?  Yeah? Remember how it was a total failure?  I do not like total craft failures so I plugged along with a different method that day that worked out a lot better.  So I present to you the B Mug...

I made this wonderful etched glass Beer mug for B for his birthday.  As you can see from the beer residue on the bottom, he used it. 

Making this was not as hard as I thought it would be.

Etched Glass Mug

Supplies-Contact paper (I found this in the home improvement section of Wal-Mart), Beer Mug (or any glass), Exacto Knife, Etching Cream (from Michael's), Computer/Printer

-I typed up a big 'B' in Microsoft word and then picked a font I liked and printed it out.

-Then I took a small piece of contact paper and traced over it with a marker.

-Then I peeled the back off the contact paper and stuck it to the mug (where I wanted the 'B' to be)

-I then carved out the 'B' with the Exacto knife (be careful because of the two holes in the B that you have to keep on the glass in order for the 'B' to look right)

-Then I painted a THICK layer of the Exacto cream on and left it on for about 2 minutes.

-Then I washed it all off.

It came out a lot better than the snowflake glasses.  Be careful with the etching cream.  You are supposed to wear gloves (I guess, so you don't accidentally etch your hand).  I would follow the directions on whatever cream you get.  We found that it was important to use a thick layer in order for it to work.

I also made my family some etched juice glasses for Christmas morning breakfast.  Those came out pretty good too. 

Are you happy that I turned my Martha Stewart Craft fail day in to a success?

Did you hand make any Christmas gifts?