Christmas Made Easy, Part 4: Movies

Movies are a classic part of the Christmas holiday. The only hard part is that there are so many to choose from. So I'm going to make that choice a little easier and give you probably my favorite Christmas movie ever:



If you haven't seen this adaptation of A Christmas Carol, do yourself a favor. Albert Finney is the best Scrooge ever.

Sarah Allen

Christmas Made Easy, Part 3: Oh the weather outside is frightful

So look for the beauty in the ice...

Or find a little sunshine in the backyard...

And most of all, don't forget to sing!



Sarah Allen

P.S. Why yes, I did take those pictures myself. I'm letting myself think it took more than just dumb luck.

Also, don't forget the $15 Amazon gift-card easy-peasy Christmas giveaway going on here at the bloggy blog. There's only two days left, don't miss out!

Christmas Made Easy, Part 2: Russian Teacakes

These are a tradition in my family, and well worth the effort.

Ingredients: 

1 cup butter or margarine, softened

½ cup powdered sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla

2 ¼ cups Gold Medal® all-purpose flour

¾ cup finely chopped nuts

¼ teaspoon salt

Powdered sugar

Instructions:

-Heat oven to 400ºF.

-Mix butter, 1/2 cup powdered sugar and the vanilla in large bowl. Stir in flour, nuts and salt until dough holds together.

-Shape dough into 1-inch balls. Place about 1 inch apart on ungreased cookie sheet.

-Bake 10 to 12 minutes or until set but not brown. Remove from cookie sheet. Cool slightly on wire rack.

-Roll warm cookies in powdered sugar; cool on wire rack. Roll in powdered sugar again.

*Makes 4 dozen cookies

*Changes: In my family we nix the nuts, and instead wrap the dough around a Hershey's kiss before we bake it. That way its like a little present when you bite into it. My mom buys tons of different flavors like mint, cherry, hot cocoa, candy-cane, and of course regular chocolate. It's become quite a game to see which flavor we get. It's important to wrap the dough fully around the chocolate so its completely covered, but not too much bigger either. Too big, too much dough, too small, the chocolate melts through when you bake. That's why we don't do Rolo's anymore, although those were my favorite. This is what we do for my entire ward, meaning we do it for two days straight. We put on Christmas movies and do an assembly line with the littlest unwrapping kisses, mom and sister mixing dough, and the rest of us rolling the dough around the chocolate. Then we wrap each cookie in tin-foil, bag them, and deliver them around the neighborhood.

Last year we made over 1600. 

Sarah Allen

Christmas Made Easy, Part 1: Gift Shopping for Writers

This week, countdown week to Christmas, I'm going to feature a series of posts to hopefully take some of the stress and insanity out of the holiday season and bring things back to the fun and joyful side. First up, shopping for writers.

Really, writers are very easy to shop for. In fact, I'll just give you a list.

-Books. Always a good idea.
-Movies and music. Second to books, but a close second.
-Notebooks, pens, envelopes, stamps.
-Printer. Always need to print off stuff for editing and submissions.
-Time. (i.e. babysitting, cleaning, certificates to cafes, etc.)
-Fish or a turtle. Muses, you know.
-If not something live, a teddy bear. Someone to talk to. Or maybe that's just me.
-Plants. We need to get our oxygen somehow.

Not hard, right? Hope this helps!

Sarah Allen

Christmas Story Creative Writing Prompts

For fun:

Write about a reindeer other than Rudolph.

Write about the only present she didn't want.

Write about what elves do in the summer.

Write about the courtship of the Clauses.

Write about a Christmas tradition and where it came from.

Write about Christmas in China.

Write about Christmas at a fast food chain.

Write about Christmas from a pet's perspective.

Write about Scrooge from the Ghost of Christmas Past's perspective

Write about Christmas at a rest home.

Mix Christmas with another holiday, like Halloween or Valetine's or Presidents day.

Write about Santa in a ballet class.

Write about the sleigh stowaway.

Write about how Mrs. Clause spends Christmas Eve.
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Any other ideas?

Sarah Allen