A simple, easy, homemade gift

Here is a wonderful, fun, simple present which you can make anytime for gift giving. It’s perfect for anything from birthdays to Christmas to hostess gifts. What’s the gift? Cookies in a jar. Yes, I know, you’ve seen this before. Well so have I but I recently found this amazing website that has hundreds of different recipes. So pop on over and find the ones that are a perfect fit for your gift giving needs. http://mixesinajar.com/

Read Full Post »

Chocolate Covered Raisins

In looking at upcoming holidays, I discovered that tomorrow is National Chocolate Covered Raisin Day. Being a sucker for a fun holiday, and a big fan of raisins dunked in dark chocolate, I decided to try an experiment in honor of this holiday.

Read Full Post »

Coral Island Cookies

One of the great things about the holidays is traditions. You all know how much I love our cookie tradition. Well, in the blog chatter Kate Sanner told me how much she enjoys her annual tradition of baking all kinds of Christmas cookies. Kate’s tradition has been handed down through the generations along with some great recipes and she has been kind enough to share one of her favorites with us.

So if you love to bake and are looking for a new recipe, or if you are ready to create a great new tradition, give these cookies a try! And remember that cookies make great gifts. Just box them up, arrange on a plate or in a great container (Flee markets and garage sales are perfect for finding great plates and containers for giving baked goods!)

Read Full Post »

The great cookie debate

If you’ve ever heard me speak you probably know how much I love Cookie Day (the day that my girls and I bake our Christmas cookies). What you may not know is what cookies we bake that day. I used to be a little embarrassed to tell people about it because it didn’t seem very festive. But, since you’ve stopped by the blog I’ll confess: the truth is that we usually bake only 2 kinds of cookies;

Read Full Post »

The Recipe Box

The Dec 2009 issue of Real Simple magazine has responses from readers about how they saved money on gifts that holiday season. There were many ideas, some tried and true and some really creative new ones as well.

One built on some of my favorite gift giving ideas. I really love personal and home made gifts, baking often plays a role in our gift giving. This reader baked and gave away some of her favorite cookies but what I love is what she gave with it

Read Full Post »

Why “Cookie Day”?

I mentioned before that during one of our early Heart Filled Holidays conversations I discovered how important Cookie Day was to my family. As we were discussing what we would and wouldn’t be doing that year, and when it would all happen, my girls became very adamant about having a lot of time to bake. I was interesting to me. While I enjoy baking, it was really just one more thing that had to get done to prepare for Christmas. And, since it was something the girls could help with from a very young age, I had always included them.

But, for the girls, this had become so much more.

Read Full Post »

Cookie Day

Cookie day is one of our annual traditions. When I talk about enjoying my holidays or talk about what a great time I’m having getting ready, Cookie Day is always part of the excitement and great memories.

People ask me what makes this day so special. Well, we don’t do anything big or spectacularly different than our friends who bake for Christmas. We don’t have a big master plan. My girls and I just spend the day in the kitchen mixing, baking and, most importantly, talking. But there are a couple things we do that make this day incredible.

Read Full Post »