Happy Friday Friends!
For my five today I thought I'd share some of the recent fun (on the 25th of course) we had celebrating Christmas in July.... for one day only!
ONE
On the 25th my Mom and one of my daughter's friends came over and we got the Christmas music going and played it all day long! Nothing like Christmas music to put you in a great mood. ;) And it's extra fun when it feels almost "naughty" as it was 85* F outside. Our fun began with my daughter doing a fashion show of some of her new school clothes (I'm just posting a few) and new headbands that she had made.
TWO
I didn't get a photo of the after, but during that morning I also got a big bone-in skin-on turkey breast slow cooking away in the crock pot. It's a yummy and easy recipe where you cook up some onion and celery in butter and toss it with easy boxed stuffing and dried cranberry and water or broth and let the turkey slow cook over it all day. I rub an herbed butter all over the top of the turkey skin and place some under the skin. All the yummy drippings go down onto that stuffing. Kind of an easy version of a holiday meal! You can find the recipe here. We had a wonderful dinner that night of turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, gravy, corn and cranberry sauce. Loved it!! And leftover turkey melt sandwiches the next day of course.
THREE
We worked on some fun holiday crafts together that we can keep for when the true season comes around. It was fun to think holiday thoughts while we sang Christmas carols and worked on these.
FOUR
Of course it wouldn't be Christmas without some baking. Thankfully we have air conditioning, so we fired up the oven and did some easy Christmas cut-outs. If you look closely you can see we did still celebrate a bit of summer too with a butterfly cookie cutter and a flower cookie cutter - to go along with the star, snowman and tree.
And what are Christmas cookies without cream cheese frosting and sprinkles?
And I even indulged in baking some holiday bars that are favorites of my Mom and me. They use almond paste and almond extract and have that subtle Christamsy cherry flavor. I usually only make them at Christmastime - so it was SO fun to taste them in July! Here's the recipe out of a favorite Taste of Home Fall and holiday baking magazine I picked up many years ago:
FIVE