Christmas spirit

I don't know about y'all, but we are in the Christmas spirit here at the Bullard hacienda. We are looking forward to a quiet, stress-free holiday with just our little family of 3, along with a few dear friends who will be joining us for dinner and a simple celebration. We have been getting organized, wrapping a few gifts, and ordering food. (I love online grocery shopping and delivery, especially the week of Christmas when the grocery store is a mad house!) Menu planning is not my strong point, but I've been able to decide on a few meals for the week and even prep for some of them. Today we’re making up a big pot of beef/veggie stew to get us through the next few days. Luckily, for the big Christmas dinner, our friends are pitching in and bringing lots of yummy dishes and treats.

A few days ago, we decided to make one of our holiday favorites, candied pecans and almonds. We were kicking ourselves for not picking up a huge bag of pecans while we were in Oklahoma… they are, as we soon discovered, something of a commodity here. They cost somewhere in the range of $15-$18 per pound. We would prefer to do all pecans; the extra surface area allows for more yumminess in every crevice. As it happens, we’re not rolling in the dough, so we had to supplement with almonds. Here’s Asher helping mama stir the pot:

Yesterday, we tackled Pioneer Woman’s cinnamon rolls. A few friends are coming over Christmas Eve to have Christmas dinner, but in order to sustain us while we cook and make merry, we will be starting out the day with plenty of cinnamon rolls soaked in icing. This is our second time to make PW’s famous treat. The first time we tried it we didn’t own a rolling pin, so it was very challenging and the rolls didn’t end up being very pretty. This time around was much easier, but it was a HUGE mess, which Asher enjoyed very much.

There are so many things wrong with the cinnamon rolls… they are not nutritious, not even just a little bit. They are full of butter and sugar and all the things that are right (and wrong?) with the world:

And they are oh-so-yummy.

Even Asher is in the Christmas spirit. We sat him down in front of the tree with the presents; this is him right in the middle of quoting the Christmas story from Luke 2. We were so proud.