Mother Nature sure delivered the White Christmas for most of us. I bet she was getting just a bit tired of hearing all the conversation in that direction. I wonder if it could have gone down this way.

“Okay you whiny humans, I will give you that white stuff and you better be ready for it! First I am going to send down a big batch of cold, icy rain to cover everything so that it will all freeze into a big slippery mess. Then I will show you my snow machine! Those ski places think they have got the world under control but they only have the toy models. I think I will kick mine up on high and also turn on the wind machine and have that blow the snow in all directions. Probably best to start in early afternoon so that it’s at full operation for the after work travel time. Oh, and drop the temperatures down so nothing is even thinking about melting. I am thinking maybe about 12 hours or so on high setting should pack the snow into every side of the buildings and make the roads a super great mess. That should give them the White Christmas so they keep their mouths shut for a while. Can’t make all of them happy all the time anyway”.

The Christmas season is moving to the back of our minds and the New Year is on the brink of happening. We still have a lot of things to remind us of Christmas. Of course we got the snow that we ordered and reordered and the presents that arrived have all been opened. I see this year there are links that tell you how to reuse your wrapping paper. Well, big deal! I have been saving and ironing wrapping paper and tissue paper gift wrap for years and years. Sure, I was laughed at but I ended up with almost all of the supply that was available. I found it very relaxing to do the ironing in the gray, dark days of January. I had to do some sorting because at times the paper had some rips or tears. (This is also where you hope the gifter did not know about tape). Some of the paper had to be ironed on the back as you do not want to put a hot iron directly on the shiny side. After awhile you figure out if you need a lower or hotter temperature. Soon you have a nice stack of reusable wrapping paper. A tiny bit of saving the world has just happened.

I did not get any fruit cake and I did not make any so I am “fruitcake less” this year. Cookies were made and despite the fact that I have about a 4 foot high stack of cookie recipes and books, I pretty much end up making the same ones each year. I cruised through the cookie edition of both the Minneapolis Star Tribune and the Washington Post and picked out a “different = weird cookie recipe” from each one but did not make either one. It was great fun to pack and gift cookie packages and I still had enough left for future eating on our part. I tell myself I could do some of the “unmade” cookie recipes for Valentine’s Day. Father Dick, I bet you will put a few prayers into that idea! First cousin, Father Dick LOVES his cookies, and packages sent to him even get extra prayers for safe, quick delivery.

New for this year’s program of making and giving was the Hot Chocolate Bombs. They became the super hot tip and I bet the hot chocolate intake must have gone up 1,000 percent. I started off using my cake pop pan and it worked well for making the half chocolate pieces when they popped out of the pan. After awhile they got bucky and caused problems. They also were kinda smallish to put a lot of things inside the balls but I had a total fun time decorating them. As Daughter Nissa said, I had a new venue for using my decorating supplies. I have upgraded to silicone and have gotten a bigger sized mold to really put in the goodies including dried marshmallows, drink mix, caramel pieces, candy bar pieces, and even stemmed cherries! I better go and make one and see if they are still good!