Merry and Bright

Our family celebrated our Savior's birth and all the festivities that surround it.  We purposefully try to keep things low key and simple.  We had a nice worship service on Christmas Eve, entitled Jesus, the Light of the World.  At the end of the service, everyone comes up and lights a candle on the tree to signify Matthew 5:16.  It is an old tradition at our church and is always a moving service.

Way out in the country in Hathaway, Louisiana, there is a family that puts up lots of Christmas lights - 4 acres of lights to be exact.  We walked around and looked at all of the beautiful lights.

It is amazing that people will put in the time and effort and expense to put up lights for the community to enjoy.  Truly a sight to see!  My photos just don't do it justice.

We had already made tamales, but had some baking to do.  First we made pumpkin empanadas and almond crescents.  Then we made Gingerbread men.  We always get a kick out of decorating them.

Here is a special one I made for Benjamin.  It is a Benjamin Gingerbread man CT scan, showing the titanium rods in his spine and legs.  

Then we made baklava.  This is a favorite dish of ours.  It is tedious with 10 individual layers of phyllo dough followed by a mixture of pecans, coconut, sugars and spices, followed by 10 more layers of phyllo and another layer of the pecan mixture and 10 more layers of phyllo dough.  We slice it and bake it.  Then we pour a diluted honey solution over it and let it soak in overnight.

The resulting confection is a sticky-sweet delicious dessert.  Look at the flaky layers.

We enjoyed spending time with family and being thankful for the many blessings in our lives, first and foremost, the birth of the Messiah, Jesus!

Time to Bake

The island in our kitchen is one of our favorite places to hang out.  Our college kids were home and we decided to do a little baking, so we all gathered round the island and pitched in.  Tricia is from South Texas and comes from a Mexican heritage.  One of the things that is traditionally baked around this time in the Hispanic culture is a special cookie called Pan de Polvo.

Tricia used a recipe that's been handed down in her family to make a batch or two of Pan de Polvo for us. These little cookies are delicious and melt in your mouth.  Polvo means "dust" or "powder" in Spanish and I'm guessing that they are named Bread of Powder or Dust because they melt in your mouth or maybe it is because of the dusting of sugary spices that get sprinkled on top.

Here's what you need to make it:

3 cups flour
1 cup butter
1/4 cup sugar
1 dash salt
1/4 cup anise/cinnamon tea

Blend the softened butter, sugar, and tea until soft.  Gradually add flour & salt to the mixture.  Handle and mix with your hands, then pat down and roll out.

Rolling it out

Then using little cookie cutters, cut out little round cookies out.

Cutting out the cookies

Arrange on a tray and put them in an oven pre-heated to 350 degrees.  You want to leave them in until they are just lightly brown, or about 12 minutes.  

Pop them in the oven

When you take them out of the oven, allow them to cool for just a bit.  While they are still a little warm, you will want to coat them in a sugar and cinnamon mixture.

Piping hot out of the oven

And here they are in a tin, ready to be eaten.  They really do melt in your mouth.  This tin didn't last long at all!

Pan de Polvo!

We also made Gingerbread men & women.  I love the way molasses smells. 

We cut them out.

Put them in the oven and bake them and when they've cooled, Laura Lee started decorating the little guys and gals.

She got pretty creative with some of the decorating...

Now the only thing left to do is eat 'em up.