Christmas Blessings from an American Farm Family

A very merry and blessed Christmas to you

Thanks to a great blogger buddy(thanks Judi Graff), I have a new media gadget to show off, so I have updated the blog to showcase our farm family highlights of 2011!

Does anything say Merry Christmas like a little red tractor with a green wreath on it?

As we gather for this blessed holiday, I as well as the rest of my farm family, hope the holidays are a time of love and togetherness for you.  I'd love to know what your special traditions are, so please feel free to email me and share what makes your holiday special.  As for us, this year we needed to shake things up a bit and my family seems to let me be the crazy event planner (sometimes they wonder what I'm getting them into -but generally they co-operate).  And what are we planning this year?  Well being German descendants, we usually open gifts on Christmas Eve day, so we are doing a "progressive Christmas Eve Dinner" with my side of the family (along with a couple of college kids who couldn't make it home for the holidays) and we will open gifts at each of the homes we visit.  This way we get to see each other's houses all decorated up and spend the day together laughing, eating and enjoying each other and more eating.  We all will gather and start out at 8am for coffee & pastries/fruit at my baby brother's house, then about 10:30am we will arrive at my other brother's house for hors d' oeuvres (thankfully this brother is no longer single as a few years back we came to his house for hors d' oeuvres and he set out a head of broccoli and a head of cauliflower still complete in the bunch with a bowl of dip.....  =) and my youngest daughter said "you are such a bachelor", poor guy),  then around 1pm it's off to my oldest daughter's house for salad, there the little ones will go down for a nap, then around 4:30pm we will head to my house for the main part of the dinner (turkey, ham, potatoes, stuffing & gravy).  Shortly before 7pm, we'll head to church, then about 8:20pmish we'll end up at  my mom's house for dessert and finish off the day. 

Christmas morning finds Farmer Joe & me having breakfast at our oldest daughter's house where we can see what Santa brought the little girls. Then later on that day we will gather for a dinner with Farmer's Joe & Jay's side of the family as his sister Laurie & family will be here from Seattle.  Lots of eating seems to be the main theme here.  Just thinking about it makes me feel like I'd gained 5 lbs. =)

As always, here is a taste tempting treat..... Pumpkin Truffles.  If you know me well, you will find out I don't like complicated recipes with lots of steps, so I modified the recipe for ease - so make sure and read the tip  on dusting the truffles with cocoa powder.  The recipe is on the OMG  Dessert page.  I hope you get to make it and enjoy it. It goes really well with a good glass of red wine!

Pumpkin Truffles

It just isn't Christmas until you see the local Christmas play at church.  Of course, the cutest little kids were the "cows" (yes I'm a bit partial) and  make sure and watch the video where one of the cows was mis-behaving during one of the songs, more on that at the At Home page.

Last minute instructions before the play

As always, many thanks for stopping in and I hope you  share your special holiday traditions with me (idahofarmwife@gmail.com).  Who knows, maybe we will copy what you do as we are always looking to do something new for the holidays.  I will be taking some time off and won't be posting until mid-January. I am looking forward to 2012 and hope the new year finds you happy and healthy. All my best, Gayle.