Veterans Day 2022 was special this year as we marked it with a new memorial stone that included my husband and my son located at the Veterans Memorial on the courthouse square in Hermitage, Missouri. There was a ceremony and lots of people came on this beautiful fall day.
The next holiday was Thanksgiving and I cooked a grand dinner for my husband and daughter's family. I especially had fun decorating this year!
Shortly after Thanksgiving, the Christmas parades and events began. The first parade was on the square in Hermitage and it was the weekend we had our granddaughter. It was a delightful time with Santa and her only request was for a Barbie airplane. Kayleen also picked up a gallon bag of candy that was thrown out to the children during the parade. She also won a raffle that gave her a new stuffed toy, Peppa the Pig!
It was our lucky day again as Kayleen won a new scooter in a raffle and Keith and I each won a ham! The variety of homemade soups and desserts was amazing as was the numerous flavors of fresh made cotton candy.
So this weekend before Christmas was our time with our granddaughter again and she had many gifts to open from her grandpa and Babi. We were so filled with joy to share this precious time with the Christmas awe of a 5 year old! Bobi Kitty was always nearby and enjoyed the activities in an otherwise quiet house.
Kayleen was thrilled to receive a Barbie closet with extra clothes and a new Barbie that comes with accessories to fly in an airplane. She also got a Mousetrap game that we have played over and over. She knows (hopes) that Santa will bring her the Barbie Airplane to her house on Christmas Day. Of couse, I made sure that happened with the help of Amazon. My daughter and son-in-law sent me a video of her opening the present from "Santa." My heart again filled with joy!
My birthday is the week before Christmas also and I was thrilled to have Kayleen at my home to help me celebrate with Keith. We did what I usually do on my birthday and that is to make kolache. This was a special request from Kayleen as she loves this pastry from previous years at Christmas time. I always gift a box for her family.
I have wrote about this traditional family pastry a few other times in this blog and the recipe can be found by using the "Search this Blog" tool found on the right hand side in the beginning of the home page.
A few yaers ago, I made a decorative wall hanging of my mother's original kolache recipe on one side of her original wooden pastry board and my updated recipe on the other side and laminated it so it can be used to follow either recipe. With Keith's help, my mother's original wooden rolling pin was attached at the top to make it hang well along with hooks for aprons (one from my mother).
That evening was the Christmas light display drive-through a few miles from our home at the Damsite Park on Pomme de Terre Lake. It was even bigger than last year when it was first started! We also stopped on the square in Hermitage on the way home to watch and listen to the musical Christmas light show displayed on the Beauty/Barber Shop building. It was the best birthday for me in a long time!
After Kayleen went home, there was a snowfall. We didn't need to go anywhere so it was lovely and enjoyable with some snow left on Christmas morning at our house. Keith and I exchanged gifts and I cooked up one of the hams we won at the Urbana parade. It was a "Spa Christmas" for both of us as I received a gift certificate for my favorite Grove Spa in Springfield for a massage and a couple jigsaw puzzles of Italy to keep me busy for a couple winter months. I got Keith a new spa robe and slippers. We are nearly finished with our new hydo-thermal spa tub in our 2nd bathroom remodel. By the time I wrote this, we have already enjoyed it several times! I will write about it in more detail soon in another post. We love our spa time!
When Keith's birthday came around a week after Christmas, we celebrated with a lobster dinner I cooked from the seafood gift package we received from our son and daughter-in-law for Christmas. It also included some scallops and crab meat from Maine for a couple more seafood meals. There was also a gift certificate towards airfare to come visit them in their new home later this year. Our daughter and son-in-law had gifted us some hot chocolate bombs and a bottle of North Forest Kreme - Huckleberry Vanilla Liqueur for some amazing boozy hot chocolate! We have awesome children!
We drove around the light show at the lake that evening at the end of Keith's birthday. We saw it in a different way by ourselves this time and it was unforgetable thanks to Flora Farms which made his birthday very special!
Bobi Kitty enjoyed a whole container of treats we left open for a day as his present on Christmas Day. He also had the opportunity to play with all the boxes and wrappings.
Another precious gift my daughter sent me after Christmas was a photo of my granddaughter learning to make gravy from a roux which is very special as my daughter was about the same age when she took over that culinary skill in the kitchen. Kayleen also had lost her 2nd bottom front tooth recently which adds to this very special Winter Holiday Season!
