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Showing posts from December, 2014

A Collection of Holiday Recipes ~ Food for the 12 Days!

Food plays an enormous role in our Christmas celebrations. We don’t just eat special foods on Christmas Eve or Christmas but we spread out special foods from December 24th through January 6th.  We don’t always eat the same foods on the same day each year but we do eat the same foods or this year a variation of the same foods. Every year we have Buffalo Style Chicken Wings . I think these are the best chicken wings in the universe and the only ones that come close are the ones from Buffalo Wild Wings.  Seriously, these are good.  Crispy, flavorful, and you make it as hot or mild as you like. We started out making these for Christmas Eve and then switched it over to New Year’s Eve. They’re great for Super Bowl Parties, if you do those kinds of things.  They’re also wonderful as a special movie night “junk food” dinner meal. I had to modify the 8 Minute Cheesecake this year to make it work for my husband and I. Same basic idea *but* I used heavy cream and whipped it myself in place of

Celebrating the 12 Days of Christmas

Celebrating the 12 days of Christmas is more of a Western tradition than an Eastern Tradition; however, many American Orthodox Christians view the time from December 25th through (and including) January 5th as the 12 Days of Christmas. January 6th is the Feast of Theophany. In the West, January 6th is Epiphany. Epiphany is the visit of the Magi or Wise Men and some view it as the 12th day of Christmas ( Dec 26 would then be day 1).  Theophany is the celebration of the Lord’s baptism in the Jordan river and the revealing of Jesus as the Son of God. Liturgically the Orthodox church does not celebrate 12 Days. I think I read it is 6 Days.  I think the “Leaving Taking of the Nativity” is Dec 29 or Dec 30?  January 1st is celebrated as the Circumcision of our Lord and it is also St. Basil’s Day. For my family we love that celebrating the Incarnation of God can be stretched out.  Without the Incarnation, there could be no redemption but that is a meaty topic for another time and place. W

SchoolhouseTeachers.com is on SALE!!

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**Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. Thank you for your support!** One of the perks or benefits of being a member of the Schoolhouse Review Crew is a Yearly Membership to SchoolhouseTeachers.com . This incredible members only resource is filled with lesson plans from preschool to high school and covering everything from basic core subjects like grammar, spelling and math to history and geography.  You’ll also find electives like foreign language, music (both theory and instrument!), filmmaking and more! New members of the Schoolhouse Review Crew are currently writing reviews of SchoolhouseTeachers.com.  Since I am not writing a review, I’m just going to drop this link right here so that you can go read *real* reviews of the Yearly Membership. Read Reviews of SchoolhouseTeachers.com from the Schoolhouse Review Crew! Since I love having a membership to SchoolhouseTeachers.com I just had to take a moment and tell you about this special deal that is happening right now!

Random 5 on Friday ~ December 12th Edition

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I’m not sure and I’m too lazy too look it up but I think this is the first edition that I’ve done for month of December. 1.  One of the things I always look forward to in late November/early December is a delivery of a box of citrus fruit from Texas. Every year my husband’s parents order oranges, grapefruits and tangelos from Texas.  These are the *best* I have ever tasted. I’ve already eaten two tangelos today! 2.  We started making some dietary changes for health reasons in June 2013 when Honeybear had a mild heart attack. Now, we’ve got another unexpected health diagnosis and have to radically change the way we eat. Honeybear got blood drawn for cardiology follow-up and ended up with a diagnosis of Type 2 Diabetes. We’ve been watching *my* sugars for quite some time but his diagnosis seemed to come out of nowhere. The doctor joked that now we have his and her glucose meters. 3. We have a lovely but quiet Thanksgiving here with just the six of us. We played the 50th Anniversary D

Mama ~ Our God Is a Baby!

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Sometimes children say the most profound and beautiful things. This afternoon Supergirl and were hanging out with my kindle.  She was chattering away and I was flipping through recipes.  Suddenly she was quiet.  She looked up at the Nativity Scene and said,  “Jesus is a baby.”  I nodded and replied yes this is the time of year when we remember Jesus as a baby. She pondered a moment longer and declared “Mama, our God is a baby!”  That stopped me.  I mean it isn’t new information but I had never quite thought about it in that light. Never took the time to think how amazing it is that God was a baby.  Most of the time when we hear “God” we think of God the Father.  Jesus is the Son.  But Supergirl is spot on.  Jesus is God so that means that our God is a baby. This little chatterbox was not finished yet with wisdom proclamations. She had one more for me today:  “He had to be our Savior.”   So often I wonder if she understands what she hears at church or the Sunday school lessons or my