Christmas Eve

Tasty Tuesday–Festive Feasts and Holiday Baking

Time for a last look back at the festive feasting season!

We started Thanksgiving week by baking…Christmas Funfetti cupcakes? There’s never a bad time for Funfetti!

Of course, the main attraction Thanksgiving week was the turkey dinner:

And seven pies!

We celebrated Nikolaustag with chicken Döner Kebab and gingerbread tiramisu:

The next special dinner was a week later, for Santa Lucia Day, featuring potato pancakes and kielbasa, with cranberry fluff for dessert…and let’s not forget the lussekattes for breakfast!

We had a gingerbread layer cake filled with gingerbread mousse and frosted with molasses cream cheese frosting on Christmas Eve:

And our favorite cherry coffee cake for breakfast on Christmas Day:

But the best meal of the year is the Christmas Day pick-out dinner!

For our “fancy” Christmas dinner, we had bolognese, breaded artichokes, and fresh baked Italian bread:

In keeping with the Italian theme, we had cannoli for dessert:

On New Year’s Eve, we had black bean soup and corn bread:

And our traditional hot chocolate bar, of course!

Our New Year’s Day dinner was enjoyed a day late…I made pork medallions and spaetzle:

And we had a Glühwein-Kuchen for dessert:

We also had a special “Lord of the Rings Day” celebration (on Tolkien’s birthday!), featuring one of the fanciest chicken recipes I make, and “Westfarthing Fairings” from the Recipes from the World of Tolkien cookbook:

For the last feast of the season, Ryan’s birthday dinner, (which also happens to be Epiphany), we had fry bread and chili:

And Boston Cream Pie for dessert:

We did lots of other baking along the way, including a pair of Italian Christmas cookies for Christmas school:

And all of our favorite fancy Christmas cookies…chocolate crinkles, linzer augen, chocolate peppermint, raspberry almond thumbprints, peppermint meltaways, and fig thumbprints:

With the addition of a few of the pudding cookies Bunny made, they created a beautiful Bunter Teller!

For our New Year’s Eve hot chocolate bar, we baked two kinds of hot chocolate cookies:

In addition to the Christmas cracker candy I usually make, we also tried a new recipe that had sliced almonds on top:

And on the last day of Christmas, we baked and decorated sugar and gingerbread cookies:

I made a couple of bonus pies along the way, too:

And a bevy of festive drinks, including standards like egg nog and wassail, and some frappe kits from Aldi:

And just as we made a special dessert at the beginning of Thanksgiving week, we ended Epiphany week with a carrot cake:

I think that’s it for festive feasts and holiday baking…I’m ready to close the Markel bakery for a bit!

Festive Fashion and a Fashionable Gift

It’s already time for a look back at this year’s festive fashions for Christmas Eve and Day!

My Christmas Eve outfit is often the same…a red, white, and green dress with a velvet bodice and full skirt with a harlequin print. It’s probably the most festive pieces in my wardrobe! I added my standard Christmas Eve accessories including a sparkly brooch and a stack of Splendette Duchess Bangles.

After church I changed into a Miss Candyfloss dressing gown:

For Christmas Day I wore a dirndl with my newest Rare Dirndl apron and a Miss Candyfloss Clarisse-Gia blouse, plus a different stack of Splendette Duchess Bangles, an Erstwilder brooch worn as a necklace, and my sparkly brooch (again):

I changed into a different Miss Candyfloss gown when we got home:

And then I had to change up my accessories, too, because I received a gorgeous RockLove Jewelry necklace for Christmas, and I couldn’t wait to wear it!

I love that I have sartorial traditions to look forward to every Christmas!

Christmas 2025

It doesn’t seem possible, but Christmas Eve and Day have come and gone already!

Our celebration started on Christmas Eve morning, with Christmas Crunch:

I made time early in the day to deliver gifts to all of my neighbors on Gloriana, and also chased Roald around my island for a bit, trying to get the perfect picture (which I did).

Bunny had to work in the morning, but when she got home, she put the finishing touches on this year’s Advent Lego project, Rivendell:

And then we went to my second-favorite service of the entire church year, Christmas Eve candlelight:

Candlelight being a relative term, as it was still fairly light out when the service was over. We didn’t stop by the city of St. Louis Christmas tree downtown this year, so it was pretty bright for our drive through the Way of Lights!

When we got home, I made wassail, which was a bit of a change for us…I think it may become a new tradition!

And we enjoyed a gingerbread layer cake with gingerbread mousse filling and molasses cream cheese frosting, and topped with sugared cranberries for dessert.

We also played our new Christmas Eve board game, Ticket to Ride Northern Lights. I lost spectacularly, but not as spectacularly as Ladybug won!

We watched the San Francisco Ballet Nutcracker and Rick Steves’ European Christmas, and then I filled the stockings and escorted Mary and Joseph to the stable. I hope there’s never a day when we don’t want to put up the Little People nativity, even though we no longer have any little people living in our home1

On Christmas Day morning, we enjoyed our favorite coffee cake:

And then we went back to church, nice and early so I could get some pictures in front of the beautiful church Christmas tree:

Our church is always beautiful, but there’s something extra special about it at Christmastime!

The family picture we took after the service is probably one of the nicest ones we’ve ever taken!

We opened presents when we got home, and then I got started on dinner, the best dinner of the year, the famed “Pick Out Dinner!”

Setting the table is pretty low-key compared to Thanksgiving, but I still like to make it look nice, including napkins folded like Christmas trees. I added a few small Christmas trees to our traditional centerpiece of the Advent wreath…they balanced out the additional candles I often add quite nicely!

We had quite the spread this year!

We spent the afternoon and evening watching Christmas movies, playing games, and building Lego sets. The weather was far too warm for Christmas (it felt, smelled, and sounded like Easter!), but thankfully the weather isn’t what makes for a good Christmas, and we had a lovely day. And luckily for us, Christmas lasts for 12 days, so we still have our “fancy” (although dialed back a bit this year thanks to rising grocery costs) dinner and more cookie baking to look forward to…and maybe even some colder weather! Merry Christmas!!!

Tasty Tuesday–Festive Feasts and Holiday Baking

Now that Epiphany has come and gone, I guess the holiday season is officially over (I’m still not taking my Christmas tree down yet, though!). Let’s take a look back at the festive feasts and holiday baking we enjoyed during the holidays!

As I did last year, I kicked off Thanksgiving week by making pumpkin-chocolate chip cookies:

Speaking of Thanksgiving, we enjoyed our traditional feast:

And TEN pies (the bonus cookie butter pie was still in the freezer)!

We had chicken döner and gingerbread whoopie pies for our postponed St. Nicholas Day dinner:

And for Santa Lucia Day, we had lussekattes, potato pancakes and kielbasa (a day late), and white-chocolate cranberry cupcakes:

We didn’t have a fancy dinner on Christmas Eve, but we did have a carrot cake filled with gingerbread mousse:

For Christmas Day breakfast we had our favorite coffee cake:

And the best meal of the year, the pick-out dinner!

I think our M*A*S*H Day dinner counts as a festive feast, because Tony Packo’s was a Christmas gift.

On New Year’s Eve, we had fondue:

And the hot chocolate bar:

New Year’s Day was a full German feast of schnitzel and spaetzle and red cabbage:

With a Black Forest cake for dessert:

We had one more turkey dinner while we waited for the first snowstorm of the year:

And our traditional snow day dinner of French toast the next day:

Our festive feasts always end with Ryan’s birthday dinner…this year, we had chili and fry bread:

And a Frango Mint cake for dessert!

Of course there was plenty of cookie baking, starting with the French Christmas cookies we made in school:

And all of our favorite Christmas cookies!

It made for a beautiful Bunter Teller!

We also enjoyed Christmas Tree Cake treats all season long, including both standard and big cakes, donuts, and ice cream:

And a few festive drinks along the way…wassail and eggnog:

This has been a great season of feasting…now it’s time to give the kitchen a break! (Who am I kidding…I’m already planning the next cake I’m going to bake!)

Christmas 2024

Advent went by so quickly, and here we are at Christmas already! Let’s take a look at this year’s celebration, starting with a Christmas lights walk Moose and I took Christmas Eve Eve…we think this should be our neighborhood’s official Christmas tree

Christmas Eve always starts with the Captain:

Chickadee finished our Lego Advent project, and Turkey and Moose played the first game of chess:

The Christmas Eve church service is my second favorite of the year…I think it’s interesting that my two favorite services both involve candlelight.

After church, we stopped by the city of St. Louis Christmas tree. It was rainy, which is unfortunate (so much for my dreams of a white Christmas), but at least that kept it from being too bright out, because it was still pretty early and should have been pretty light.

And then we drove through the Way of Lights.

When we got home, it was picture time. It’s the second year we’ve had LED lights on our Christmas tree, but I’m still not used to them…I can’t help but feel that they make the pictures look like they were taken in an aquarium!

Bunny came up with the idea for this year’s cake (carrot with a gingerbread mousse filling and cream cheese frosting), and we made it together…it was so delicious!

Of course I had to play Animal Crossing and check in with all my neighbors (especially Roald!).

We played a couple of games of Ticket to Ride: Nordic Countries while watching our traditional Christmas Eve shows (the San Francisco Ballet Nutcracker and Rick Steves’ European Christmas)…I was the winner of the game I played with 152 points, and completed every route in my hand (11 in total, I believe), plus used every train car and every card I had. I think that’s the Ticket to Ride equivalent of a complete game?

I filled the stockings, tracked Santa with NORAD (I made sure he got to both St. Louis and Chicago) and set up the nativity before bed.

Christmas Day always begins with our favorite coffee cake:

Since I wasn’t entirely happy with my very blue photos from Christmas Eve, I took some more pictures at church:

Christmas morning is such a beautiful service!

We got a very nice family photo afterwards:

After we got home and opened presents, I got to work on dinner. I decided to do things a little bit different this year. Instead of making a fancy dinner, which we all enjoy, but isn’t the highlight of the holiday for us, I focused all of my energy on the best meal of the year, the Pick Out Dinner. Since that was our main Christmas dinner, I set the table with the china, folded napkins like Christmas trees, and discovered that a Stammtisch sign I’ve been wanting for a while magically appeared on the table while I was working on the dinner.

Our dinner was our usual favorites, including an extended cheese board, jalapeño popper and Rotel dips, a shrimp ring, several kinds of sandwiches, mozzarella sticks, and buffalo Chex mix.

I love making salame roses!

It’s our favorite meal of the whole year!

After dinner, we watched White Christmas, A Charlie Brown Christmas, and the Disney World Christmas parade. And then Ryan and I played Ticket to Ride: Nordic Countries (using the new anniversary train cars we got for Christmas!), to determine who the house’s Ticket to Ride: Christmas champion is. Spoilers…not me! I scored almost 100 points less than I did in yesterday’s game (only 54!!!) and Ryan is the undisputed champion.

And so another Christmas has come and gone…but the 12 Days of Christmas is just beginning, and we still have some more fun planned! Merry Christmas!

Christmas 2023

Now that I’m feeling more like myself, it’s finally time for a look back at our Markel Family Christmas (and New Year’s) celebration!

But first, let me back up a bit. A few days before Christmas, I was trying to be helpful by assisting in moving a couch, and I ended up hurting my back. I managed to make it through the pain until the day after Christmas, when I finally gave in and went to the ER, where they said based on the x-rays, I had a bad muscle strain and a possible slightly slipped disc. Anyway, because of that, I had to tone done our celebration some, although Christmas Eve and Christmas Day were fairly normal.

Christmas Eve was fun because it was also Advent IV, which means we got to go to church in the morning, too!

There was our traditional Christmas Crunch to be had:

And the Fab Five finished the Lego Home Alone house:

And then we headed back to church for the Christmas Eve service, which was lovely as always!

We tried to stop by the St. Louis Christmas tree on the way home, as we have for the last few years, but there was simply no parking, so we went on our merry way, and drove though the Way of Lights only:

When we got home, I took pictures as always:

And we enjoyed a peppermint cake by the light of the fully lit Advent wreath:

I was really not feeling too well, so we didn’t play Ticket to Ride like we usually do, but I did find energy for Animal Crossing:

And I got the stockings filled with some help, and our Little People nativity scene set up:

On Christmas Day, we didn’t have to be up terribly early, so we took our time with stockings and coffee cake:

And then we headed back to church, for the third service in two days:

We managed a nice family picture even though I was still feeling pretty badly:

We took another shot at seeing the St. Louis Christmas tree on the way home, and it worked out perfectly, because there was no one there! It’s not quite the same as seeing it at night, but at least it was overcast!

When we got home, we opened presents:

And had our traditional “Pick out Dinner.”

Ryan’s parents were scheduled to arrive the day after Christmas, and I was going to make our fancy Christmas dinner the day after that. But I was feeling pretty horrible on the 26th, so the fancy dinner was postponed, and like I said, I went to the hospital, and have spent the better part of the week between Christmas and New Year’s doing absolutely nothing, including not making our fancy New Year’s dinner, either. We did have our New Year’s Eve hot chocolate bar, though:

And I managed to be awake on 12-31-23 (how cool was that date?!?) to ring in 2024 on my island (although I wasn’t sure at all that would happen!).

And I finally made the gingerbread cake that was supposed to be the ending to our fancy Christmas dinner for New Year’s Day!

This wasn’t exactly the Christmas I wanted, because I really felt like I let my family down, but I suppose it will be one we remember, anyway, and we still have two fancy dinners to look forward to!

Sartorial Saturday…On a Monday–Festive Fashion 2023

Here’s a look back at my “Festive Fashions” this Christmas…I got really lucky this year, because Christmas Eve and Advent IV fell on the same date, so I got to wear two different outfits to two different church services. For the morning service, I wore my Tassie-Aurea dress from Miss Candyfloss. I accessorized with a sparkly hair comb from Vixen by Micheline Pitt, my most sparkly Christmas brooch, and a pair of Splendette Duchess bangles. I wanted to wear my cape with this dress, but it was just too warm!

For the evening service, I wore a very old dress from Igigi that used to be my every-Christmas-Eve look. I haven’t worn it since before the pandemic, but I decided that since I got to go retro in the morning, evening was a good time to just go glam. I accessorized with the same brooch and hair comb, and switched out my Splendette stack.

After we got home, I changed into my dark green Miss Candyfloss Chantilly-Pine dressing gown, as is my Christmas Eve custom. I kept the brooch and hair comb, and switched out my Splendette stack again, and added my newest Splendette beads.

This morning, I wore my red Everyday Dirndl from Rare Dirndl with my new Christmas apron. I mixed up the accessories, wearing an Edelweiss wrap bracelet-as-choker, and a Splendette stack and earrings, plus a wintry floral crown:

I really love coming up with festive looks, and this year was especially fun!

Christmas 2022

We’ve had another happy Markel Family Christmas!

Our celebration started, as always, on Christmas Eve, with Christmas Crunch for breakfast:

I played Animal Crossing early, because I knew that might be my only opportunity to deliver gifts for Jingle and say “Merry Christmas” to Roald:

The Fab Five completed this year’s Advent project, the Lego Disney Castle.

Speaking of Disney, Ladybug and I made red velvet Mickey Mouse waffles for lunch:

And then we went to church. It was quite early for us…3 p.m. It was definitely different to go to Christmas Eve church when it was still so bright out!

It was even bright when we stopped to see the city of St. Louis Christmas tree after church…but that made it easier to see the snow on the ground. We finally had a white (and very cold) Christmas!

It was also still pretty bright when we drove through the Way of Lights, but after all these years, it was kind of cool to see it in a different way:

I took lots of pictures when we got home:

And we enjoyed some cake:

We played a couple games of Ticket to Ride: Nordic Countries. I suffered one of my greatest losses of all-time in the first game!

The theme for this year’s Christmas jammies was (surprise, surprise) Mickey Mouse:

I still always set up the Little People nativity scene before bed:

We almost kind of got to sleep in on Christmas Day…but just barely. Stockings were the first order of business:

And then our traditional Christmas morning coffee cake:

And then we headed back to church for the Christmas Day service.

We found time for a nice family photo:

After we got home, we opened presents.

And then I got to work putting together the “pick out dinner.”

I was once again very pleased with how my charcuterie board turned out!

It’s such a fun and delicious meal!

We had another little reminder of our vacation when I burned the Christmas candle we picked up at Disney Springs:

Yesterday was a pretty quiet day because we waited for today for our fancy Christmas dinner. The table looked especially nice with our (kind of) new glasses added to the place settings:

For dinner, I made a beef tenderloin, which turned out beautifully. We also had sautéed mushrooms, hasselback potatoes, roast Brussel sprouts with a balsamic glaze and dried cranberries, our favorite cherry Jell-O, and rolls:

It was delicious and elegant!

For dessert I made a pair of yule logs. I tried a new recipe for a red and green variety, which was delicious, but not as pretty as I wanted it to be. I also made a favorite gingerbread variety, which was delicious and pretty!

The whole season of Advent went by quite quickly, and so has the beginning of the Christmas season, but I’m looking forward to making the most of the days ahead!