HAPPY NEW YEAR!

WELCOME 2008!

Favorite Holiday Songs

Don't Christmas songs just put you in the holiday mood! I just added my favorite Christmas song to my playlist.....Silver Bells. Leave a comment naming your favorite Christmas song and telling why (if you want to) and I'll add it to the playlist. I think it is the Christmas and holiday images evoked by the lyrics of Silver Bells that makes it my favorite.

WEDNESDAY - FILLED COOKIES

These cookies are a family favorite, passed down from my great-grandmother, and are a Christmas tradition on my side of the family (although I've noticed that one of my stepsons seems to like them quite alot too)!

P.S. Santa LOVES these cookies!!!

FILLED COOKIES

Preheat oven to 350*. Spray cookie sheets with non-stick spray.

Ingredients:

1 cup sugar
1/2 cup shortening
2 eggs

Mix together and add 2 cups flour, 1 tsp. soda, 1 tablespoon heavy cream, 1/4 tsp. salt. Chill dough before rolling out.

Filling:

1/2 lb. dates,
1/2 cup chopped nuts (we use pecans)
1 cup sugar

Put ingredients in heavy saucepan and add water to cover. Cook until soft. Cool before filling cookies.

After the dough is chilled, roll out on a lightly floured dough board and cut into circles. You will need two circles for each cookie. Put a spoonful of the cooled filling mixture in the center of one circle. Cover with another circle and press edges together with a fork or with your fingers. You can make these cookies as small or large as you like; ours are about 2-3" in diameter. Bake until lightly brown, about 10-12 minutes.

Clipart from Clipartheaven.com.

MAKE MINE PINK COOKIE EXCHANGE

TEA COOKIES

This recipe was given to me by Sharon Stout, a lady I had the pleasure of working with in Oklahoma City in the late 1970s. They are a delicious shortbread type cookie and are wonderful with a cup of your favorite hot tea.

Mix well: 1 cup margarine
1 cup sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp. vanilla

Add: 1 T. water
3 tsp. baking powder
3 cups flour
1/2 tsp. salt

Roll out on floured board and cut with cookie cutter. Bake at 375* until lightly brown, about 10 minutes. Makes 4-5 dozen small cookies.

RECIPE OF THE WEEK

This week's recipe is a little different....you can't eat it! But in the spirit of getting ready for the holidays I thought this fun project might be one you would enjoy.

CINNAMON ORNAMENTS

Ingredients:

1 c. cinnamon
1 c. applesauce
1 T. white glue

Mix together until it forms a ball and can be rolled out with a rolling pin without being sticky. Before rolling, sprinkle counter with cinnamon to keep dough from sticking to the counter. Cut with cookie cutters in the shapes you like (I like stars). Make a hole for hanging in the top of each ornament with a straw or ice pick before baking. Dry in a 150F oven for about 3 hours, turning halfway through. They will shrink as they dry. After dry and cooled, thread ribbon or gold cord through the holes for hanging. Cinnamon ornaments will keep their fragrance for several years and can be refreshed with cinnamon fragrance oil.

Independence Day!!!

The following article is courtesy of J's Magic (http://jsmagic.net/)

"Independence Day is the birthday of the United States of America. It is celebrated on July 4th each year in the United States because it is the anniversary of the day on which the Declaration of Independence was adopted by the Continental Congress.

By the middle of the 1700s, the 13 colonies that made up part of England's empire in the New World were finding it difficult to be ruled by a king 3,000 miles across the Atlantic Ocean and they were tired of the taxes imposed upon them. But independence was a gradual and painful process. The colonists could not forget that they were British citizens and that they owed allegiance to King George III.

A "tea party" and a Massacre" were two events that hurried destiny along. In 1767, a tea company in India, owned by England, was losing money. To save the company, England levied a tax on tea sold in the colonies in 1773. Partly as a joke, Samuel Adams and other Bostonians dressed up as Indians and dumped a cargo of the India Company Tea into the Massachusetts Bay. King George III did not think it was funny, nor did he lift the tax on tea. In the Boston harbor, British soldiers were jeered and stoned by colonists who thought the soldiers had been sent to watch them. The soldiers fired into the crowd and killed a few citizens. The colonists exaggerated the number killed and called it a massacre.

Virginia took the first step toward independence by voting to set up a committee to represent the colonies. This First Continental Congress met in September of 1774 and drew up a list of grievances against the crown, which became the first draft of a document that would formally separate the colonies from England. George Washington took command of the Continental Army and began fighting the British in Massachusetts. For the next eight years, colonists fought fervently in the Revolutionary War.

In the meantime, a war of words was being waged in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. On July 2, 1776, the Second Continental Congress presented and debated a second draft of the list of grievances, and John Hancock, the president of the Second Continental Congress, was the first to sign. The document, called the Declaration of Independence, was deemed to be treasonous against the crown and the fifty-six men who signed it were in danger of being executed.

Independence Day is celebrated on July 4 because that is the day when the Continental Congress adopted the final draft of the Declaration of Independence. From July 8, 1776, until the next month, the document was read publicly and people celebrated whenever they heard it. The next year, in Philadelphia, bells rang and ships fired guns, candles and firecrackers were lighted. But the War of Independence dragged on until 1783, and in that year, Independence Day was made an official holiday. Ultimately, in 1941, Congress declared the 4th of July as a federal holiday and it has been celebrated as such ever since..."

I wish each of you, my readers, a safe and very happy 4th of July!