Seasonal Picture Fun *anybody can join!

[travelmel]

Melissa,
I decided to put my turkey day cake over here too!!!!

We decorated for Christmas yesterday. I will take some pictures & post them over here. I didn't put everything up as we will be gone for 9 days, but I put up enough to put us in the spirit.

Thanks for showing off your cake on the Seasonal thread! I'm looking forward to the Christmas stuff coming up....

I'm also gonna double post this Thanksgiving tid-bit as it was originally for the pumpkin/gourd thread... but, here goes!

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Proof that the feud has ended!

Pictured above: Sweet Potato's (we can't leave yam enough alone.), Pumpkin Trifle, and Twi-nips (yep, Twi-nips)

But really, let's not get trifiling about it!

The trifle turned out very well. I followed the directions, for the most part! The directions called for cook and serve pudding but I accidently bought "instant" so I beefed it up with half a brick of cream cheese

The cookies on top are a cinammon crisp. They're REALLY good. After they sat, however, they became soggy. I would prefer to crumble them over the desert in single serve doses.

Rootabuddies!

I boiled the rutabega's until tender then I mashed them with a fork. I like some chunkiness so I don't "puree." I added some butter, some chinese five spice (nutmeg would surely have been fine), and some cracked pepper (but I use the "combo peppercorns" that have rose corns... they have more of a nutmegg-y taste and, as you can see, I like that.).

The sweet potato's (*actually, beauregard yams... but really NOT yams as yams were a giant root from the carribean islands that didn't exist on the mainland of the US so when the carribean people came here they saw these things and called them yams.) I just quartered them, boiled them, threw brown sugar and butter bits over them, shot some OJ on top of that and threw them in the oven. I forgot the marshmallows this year!

If these two can get along, there's hope for the Hatkins and the McGourds.

Smile gal darnit!

Turkey and Wine.. just like in my siggie

The turkey my DMIL makes. It's in some kind of cheesecloth bag and then 2 or 3 bottles of red wine are basted over it all day. It makes for a tremedously moist (and drunken) turkey. J/K about the drunken, you can't even taste it! HOWEVER! It makes the gravy more of a "burgandy sauce." Next year I'm considering making the dinner at my house just so I can have beige gravy back on the menu!

I also made a green bean casserole this year. I tried to get fancy and use fresh green beans but they were hard. A real disappointment for me, a hardcore GBC person.

Hope your holidays were happy ones! We were very thankful, indeed.

EDIT: My DH is too funny. He saw the pic below and said, "Ahhhh... look at that couple."

".... of chins on my face."

​

 

[DisneyLaura]

That picture is awesome. I agree Christmas card!

A

nybody tree cutters? We get an 8-9 foot pine for $10 here in Oregon. No, that's not a typo.

We don't cut our own tree but we buy one already cut for $40

Next is a cut and paste from my TR... sorry for the repeat....
Here is a little back ground about my avatar....I am cutting and pasting this post from one I posted on the "remember when" thread...
puff'n what??

I REMEMBER THIS SHOW!

Just a quick note:

I wanted to let you know that my DDB (age 12) and I saw the movie "The Secret Life of Bee's"

It stars Dakota Fanning, Queen Latifa and others. It's produced by Will and Jada Smith. It takes place in the south circa 1964.

I want to see this too

Next year I'm considering making the dinner at my house just so I can have beige gravy back on the menu!

My DH's cousin told us that he heard at work to mix Bisquick with the turkey drippings instead of flour.

 

[travelmel]

That picture is awesome. I agree Christmas card! You are too kind!

We don't cut our own tree but we buy one already cut for $40

Ouch, I haven't spent that kind of money on a tree in years!
Actually, what I remember is the $109 trees in California and that was over 10 years ago!

I REMEMBER THIS SHOW!

My DD's have the entire Puff boxed set. I highly recommend it!

I want to see this too

Did you read the book? It's a great movie. A teency bit mellowdramatic but hey... it's kinda a sappy story. I loved it. My DD12 cried, too. Maybe for the first time in a movie. I'm not sure about that though.


My DH's cousin told us that he heard at work to mix Bisquick with the turkey drippings instead of flour.

Wow! That is incredibley interesting news! I am SO going to try that.. perhaps with a roasted chicken so I can do it right away! Thanks for the really awesome tip!

And! Thanks for stopping by to chat!

 

[tiggerfan1]

Hi, Travelmel! Tiggerfan1 here. I thought I'd post my T-day pumpkin report here on your thread, too. My Christmas decoration pics are coming soon!






Inspired by the Pioneer Woman's blog...............

~*~ Confessions of a Tigger Fan ~*~


How I Offended the Food Gods and the Sweet Potatoes






Warning: Beware of crappy pictures. I am not the greatest photographer.








It was a bright, sunny Thanksgiving morning here in the State of Confusion when I started to fix breakfast. I wanted to try one of the recipes from this thread, so I decided to make pumpkin french toast. I figured it would be easy to prepare and could be made in advance. Here's a picture of it:




Pumpkin French Toast w/ Maple Syrup

(The pumpkin french toast was really good. Braided challah was my choice of bread. I used half-and-half instead of cream and added an extra tablespoon of sugar. Oh, and I used 1/2 tsp. of pumpkin pie spice and 1/4 tsp. cinnamon instead of following the recipe. The french toast came out really well. It doesn't have a big pumpkin taste, but it's still good. I will definitely be making this again. )




This year, my family and I had Thanksgiving with my aunt (she's not really related to me, but I still call her my aunt) and some of her family members. My aunt, whom I will refer to as Aunt M, made the turkey, pumpkin crunch cake, pound cake and several side dishes. My Aunt M is an amazing cook. Her turkey was so tasty and moist. I wish I had gotten a picture of it.




We had two kinds of sweet potatoes this year. My Aunt M and her folks prefer candied sweet potatoes (w/ no marshmallows), while my family and I like sweet potato casserole (w/ lots of marshmallows). Unfortunately, putting marshmallows on sweet potatoes is considered to be highly offensive to the food gods. Making green bean casserole can also incur their wrath. (I am an unabashed green bean casserole lover. ) How did I offend the sweet potatoes, you ask? Well..........I forgot to take a picture of them!!! I was so focused on the pumpkin stuff that I neglected the poor little sweet potatoes. If you read about the pumpkin-turnip/rutabega feud, you'd understand my concern. To avoid a potential feud between the sweet potatoes and the pumpkins, I decided to post pictures that looked similar to what we had.


My aunt's candied sweet potatoes looked a lot like Travelmel's. (Sorry, Travelmel, I hope you don't mind me "borrowing" your picture!)

My sweet potato casserole looked a lot like the picture below. The only difference is that my sweet potatoes had more streusel topping and marshmallows on it. It doesn't look very pretty in my opinion, but it tastes good!

I repeat, this is NOT my own picture!







For dessert, we had..........



My Aunt M's pumpkin crunch cake

(Here's an up-close-and-personal picture of a piece of pumpkin crunch cake.)

My pumpkin-swirl brownies:

(These brownies were pretty good. To be honest, I think that I should have made my chocolate-pumpkin marble cake instead. These brownies took forever to bake and it ended up looking more like a cake instead of a brownie. The pieces were HUGE. As you can see, I didn't do a very good job of marbling these brownies. Yeah, I may not make these again. If I do, I'll probably have to tweak the recipe a little. Sorry Smitten Kitchen blog lady! I still adore your recipes, though! )




My pumpkin pie:

The graham cracker crust was made especially for me by the Keebler elves.


(As you can see, I used a store-bought pie crust. I also used the same old Libby's recipe instead of trying a new recipe from this thread. Yup, I offended the food gods once again. To punish me for my laziness, they decided to mess with my pumpkin pie. Before I baked the pie, I put it on a cookie sheet so that it would be easier to put in and take out of the oven. I also assumed that it would keep the pie pan nice and level. When I went to check on the half-baked pie about 20 minutes later, I noticed that something didn't look right. Upon further inspection, I noticed that the pie was slightly tilted and the filling was uneven!!! I was so upset, but I just let my uneven pie continue to bake. While the pie was cooling, I racked my brain trying to figure out how to deal with this mistake. I didn't have time to make another pie. Finally, I decided to hide the uneven filling with whipped cream. It did the trick. No one knew that there was anything wrong with the pie.........and they never will. )



I also made apple dumplings for dessert. I have no pictures of them because I only took pictures of the pumpkin stuff. You can see a picture of the dumplings on the Pioneer Woman's site, which is where I got the recipe. (The PW's apple dumplings look a lot prettier than mine did, anyway.) http://thepioneerwoman.com/cooking/2008/02/apple_dumplings/


Although PW's apple dumplings looked delicious, I couldn't bring myself to use all that butter, sugar and Mountain Dew. That's totally ironic because I use lots of butter and sugar in my chocolate-pumpkin marble cake. Hmmm....maybe it was the Mountain Dew that that scared me. Anyway, I used half the amount of butter and sugar and used apple cider instead of Mountain Dew. It still came out good. Oh, by the way, I also made stuffing based on PW's half cornbread/half french bread stuffing recipe. It turned out really well!




Well, although there were a couple of mishaps along the way, we all still had a great Thanksgiving. Thanks for letting me share my Thanksgiving with you all. It felt good to get that confession off my chest. The sweet potatoes have forgiven me and are no longer offended. Wish me luck as I try to appease the food gods. ​

 

[travelmel]

Hi, Travelmel! Tiggerfan1 here. [/CENTER]

To the All Things Seasonal Thread! ​

I know, huh! our threads sorta pair together well, don't they??

Thanks for your great Thanksgiving Day addition!

 

[Disneygrl36]

Wow great looking Thanksgiving food.
I would have been happy to eat with you guys.

I will post a few Christmas decorations to start getting us in the mood.
We put up our tree on Thanksgiving day.

Here are some close ups of the tree..........It is not all Disney all the time, but there is a lot of Disney on the tree. We usually put up a smaller tree in our dining room too that I decorate with all wooden Disney ornaments I have, but since we are going to be in California for 9 days this season we decided not to put that tree up this year.

Kermit is waiting to go on the tree after our trip since we haven't officially visited the Jim Henson studios yet.

The reason for the season.......I have had this Precious Moments nativity for a long time.

Kemit is waiting to go on the tree since we haven't officially visited the Jim Henson Studios yet.

And my kitchen window just like at Halloween......I try to decorate it for all the seasons.

Not much outside this year because of the trip too......we usually do icicle lights & wreaths on the dormer windows etc. This year just the flag & wreath.

Enjoy............hope to see some others decorations soon.

 

[travelmel]

Thanks for the great Ornament pics! I love your Minnie Mickey star topper

Woo hoo, Kermit riding onto a tree near you!

 

[tiggerfan1]

Travelmel- Thanks for the welcome! What a gorgeous welcome picture! How did you make that?


Disneygrl36- Thanks! You can have Thankgiving with us next year. You can enjoy a meal in Oregon with Travelmel and then come here to the State of Confusion for another feast.

I love your Christmas decorations! That Precious Moments nativity scene is so adorable. I definitely want to get that some day.


My Christmas pics will be posted in a bit.

 

[tiggerfan1]

OK, here are a couple of my Christmas pics. Unfortunately, my pictures aren't the greatest. Many of my pictures came out really blurry. I took pictures of the Christmas tree, but when I saw the larger images on the computer screen, they weren't very good. I'll try to get some better shots later.



Our gigantic wreath inside the house (Seriously, it's huge.)

My Christmas stocking

This is a Coca-Cola polar bear that we got a few years ago. When you press the button, he plays a jazzy version of "Jingle Bells" on the double bass. It's so cool!

Here's my Christmas tissue box. It's so cute! I love it!

Sadly, these were the best of the bunch. Bad camera + bad photographer = no-so-good pictures. I'm going to ask Santa for a better camera for Christmas. I also really want to improve my photography skills. That'll be my New Year's resolution.

 

[travelmel]

LOL

I gave a tissue box like that as a gift to a 79 yr old friend of mine. She loved it!

They're so pretty these days

As for the welcome...

1) there is a "welcome" graphic that I cut and pasted..

2) then I type the words in

3) then I highlight each word and change the color -per word

4) then I highlight all the words and enlarge them

5) hen I added the mickey graphic

6) then I highlight EVERYTHING and center it.

Easy as pie!

thanks for posting your decorations. I have to get on the ball but we've been busy helping my DMIL put up her Snow Village (I accidentally typed Snot instead of Snow at first... ).

Here's a pic of her snow village from a previous year. This thing is NO JOKE!

She's very about it having to be Area 51 or whatever...

More like Snow Planet!

DH Didn't like his pic on that one.

 

[travelmel]

While I'm at it... might as well share a couple more from 2005!

So I'm weird... I like to "Stage" my Santa presents.

Also of note are the Christmas Stockings.. we made them ourselves. I will post pics of mine and DH's later.

I am not crafty. I have the and DH makes it happen

We won these swords and shields at a White Elephant party... of course they were a bigger hit than the "real" gifts that year! LOL

Sir Bailey

Quick, Sir Bailey....your Dear Grandma is being held captive by your arch nemesis, "Lady Lizzie Borden!"

::

I cannot TELL You how funny I Find that picture. My DMIL... not so much.

Ok, just so you don't think my DD is psycho.. here's a cute pic to get that last image out of your head

​

 

[Disneygrl36]

Melissa........I loved your comment about Kermit riding onto a tree near you. You have the kind of sense of humor that I wish I had. Me=not so quick with the quips.

Thanks for the comments on my decorations Tiggerfan.......My Mom bought me my PM nativity probably about 10 years ago & I love it. I have a ton of PM's as I used to be really in to collecting them as well as my Disney stuff, but they are mostly in boxes in the closet now except for a special few so it's extra fun pulling out my nativity set every year.
P.S. I love your Kleenex....

Melissa........great pictures!! Now that is a snow village. Wow.

Oh I didn't put this up this year because of the trip.......but I will show you guys my very small Disney village & PM village (this isn't all of it but it was all I could fit on the table-I used to have a big bar area in my kitchen in a former house & could fill it up with the village).

 

[mariezp]

OMG, travelmel! Your MIL's Snow Village is as big as some store displays that I have seen! Where do people store all this stuff?

I love the pic of your "Lady Lizzie Borden!"!

Everybody has such pretty Christmas stuff! I need to get busy!

 

[ty&brenmom]

[COLOR="SeaGreen
So I'm weird... I like to "Stage" my Santa presents.

QUOTE]

Glad to see I am not the only weird one, I also "Stage" Santa presents, and they all have some theme that goes together. Makes it more fun for Santa​

 

[travelmel]

OMG, travelmel! Your MIL's Snow Village is as big as some store displays that I have seen! Where do people store all this stuff?

I love the pic of your "Lady Lizzie Borden!"!

Everybody has such pretty Christmas stuff! I need to get busy!

She stores it all in her rafters in the garage. We counted 75 storage boxes and 8 bags of "snow" came out this year. It's quite a process to get it all up!

I'm glad you liked my Ode to Norman Bates... ee eeee ee eee

Glad to see I am not the only weird one, I also "Stage" Santa presents, and they all have some theme that goes together. Makes it more fun for Santa

Do you capture it in a Kodak way?

 

[travelmel]

but I will show you guys my very small Disney village

I love your Disney village! So cute! Be careful.... maybe the PM and the Disney might have zoning issues??

 

[Luvmic49]

Great pictures and thread travelmel!!! Here is the link to our Disney Home pictures....keep up the good work.

http://photopost.wdwinfo.com/showgal...0/ppuser/33629

 

[travelmel]

Great pictures and thread travelmel!!! Here is the link to our Disney Home pictures....keep up the good work.

http://photopost.wdwinfo.com/showgal...0/ppuser/33629

That link didn't work for me.. I'm going to try and reprint it for you with the "url" symbols in place... let's see if that helps?

http://photopost.wdwinfo.com/showgal...0/ppuser/33629

EDIT: Nope.... that didn't help

Thanks for the encouragement and I'm glad you're enjoying this thread!! :::

 

[Luvmic49]

Sorry that one did not work travelmel....lets try it again.
Thanks

http://photopost.wdwinfo.com/showgallery.php/cat/500/ppuser/33629

 

[travelmel]

Oh My Merry Dis-Mas!!

WOW!!!


You guys have to see Luvmic49's YARD!

Yes, that is a monorail... And it DOES go through the Contemporary Resort!

The Link is in the above post... You have got to check these pics out!

There are many more wonderful pics in that link ​