Christmas Recap-Gifts and Recipes

Good morning readers! I hope you all had a fantastic Christmas, we sure did! Now I am getting organized for the new year and putting away a little bit of Christmas decorations at a time, or "de-Christmasing the house" as a friend called it. The day after Christmas I put away our gifts. Yesterday I put away Camden's little tree and the wrapping paper. Today I will put away the mantel decorations. Tomorrow will be the porch decorations. I'll work on the big Christmas tree as time permits. Anna wants to keep her tree up as long as possible so we might still have it up come Valentine's Day!

Source:
Home-storage-solutions-101.com
I'm seriously considering this!

 Looking back on Christmas, I had good feedback on the teacher gifts I had made and I thought the food I brought to the Christmas Eve dinner turned out great, especially since there was none left! That's always a good sign that a recipe is a keeper. I made sausage balls and here is the low down.

Source: faithfulprovisions.com

3 Ingredient Sausage Balls
1 lb. sausage, hot or mild, your choice
1 cup sharp cheddar cheese, not the fine grate but regular
1 1/2 cups Bisquick
Preheat oven to 350.

Note: I was telling a co-worker about making sausage balls and she gave me some tips. Made sure your ingredients are room temperature so I did that. Work in by hand the sausage, Bisquick, and cheese together in a big bowl. Another tip: don't overwork the ingredients. Roughly shape into balls and put on a cookie sheet. Bake at 350 for 15-18 minutes (watch and make sure they are done, but not burnt). These made a lot, maybe 40? And every last one was eaten! 

Cute!

For teacher gifts this year, I bought these cute note cards from Walmart (made by Hallmark) and wrote a thank you to Camden's teachers. Anna did her own thank you notes, so thank you Anna for one less thing Mommy had to do!

I will be doing these again!

I bought a bag of Ghirardelli wrapped chocolates and tied them to the outside of the envelope with gold shiny curling ribbon. I used a small piece of double sided tape to stick the wrapper to the envelope. Voila! Easy peasy! The teachers liked these too and it was something other than another apple-themed gift, a mug, or a candle. Who doesn't love chocolate and a nice thank you note they can keep?

Until the next post,
Melissa
XOXO