Despite all the books and blogs and plans to keep Christ in Christmas, it makes the most sense to me to get back to the original story and engrave that in our children’s hearts.
I was in fifth grade when I memorized the Christmas story, and I can still recite it today. My recitation ability is not a free pass into heaven (Jesus did that.), but it does keep the truth of Christmas close to my heart throughout the year and the years.
If you help your children learn the Christmas story, they will remember it almost word for word for the rest of their lives. It will be a reminder in their middle years and a comfort in their golden years, and chances are strong that they will teach it to your grandchildren.
Here’s where to find the Christmas story. Open your Bible…or your Bible app.
The birth story is in Luke 2. The magi story is in Matthew 2.
Select which of the following sections of the story you want your family to memorize, or tackle them all:
Matthew 1:18-25; Matthew 2:1-12; Luke 1:26-38; Luke 2:1-20.
Here are a few tips to help memorize as easily as possible.
Make it part of your routine. Read it over before bed, in the morning, after lunch and before naps if you’re lucky enough to get one…I mean if your children still take one.
Involve the youngest children with a verse or two, if that’s all they can handle. A great one for the littles is “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to men on whom His favor rests.”
If it seems too overwhelming, give each child a few verses to memorize instead of the whole story, and switch it up next year.
Have your kids copy the verses down by hand to engage more senses in the memorization process.
Have family members read the verses into a recording device or find a recorded version and play it back several times a day, reciting along as they can.
Set a weekly goal with a weekly recitation day.
Set an ultimate goal of reciting on Christmas Eve or day or reciting for relatives, if that will motivate your child. If that will terrorize them, never mind.
Memorization, recitation, and copywork are all effective educational tools. Even spelling lists (which don’t exist in my family) can be swapped out in favor of the Christmas story. Focus those subjects on Luke 2 and Matthew 2 for the next few weeks of school leading up to Christmas.
It’s one of the greatest Christmas gifts you can give to your children.
This post goes out to Facebook fan Jessica. Good luck and have fun with your first major Thanksgiving cooking!
I love to prep as much of my major cooking ahead of time as possible, especially for Thanksgiving, Christmas, and Easter. (I’ve even fed the family breakfast before bed to get a jumpstart on the next day. Note to self: bad idea.) Sometimes my prep backfires, like when my pre-peeled potatoes turn brown.
If I were to ask my husband about that phenomenon, he would draw on his pre-med training and say something all science-y, like the browning is caused when the polyphenol oxidase enzyme is released from the potato’s cells upon cutting. The enzyme immediately begins reacting with the oxygen in the air to turn the phenol compounds within the tuber brown in a process called oxidation.
Oxidation, shmoxishmation. I just call it ugly. They’re still perfectly edible, mind you, but they aren’t perfectly pretty. I like my taters to be pretty before I mash them into an unrecognizable pulp.
Here’s how you can get a jump start on your potatoes without the ugly.
How to Keep Potatoes from Turning Brown
Peel and rinse the potatoes. (So far so simple.)
Place them (whole, sliced, or diced) in a bowl, pot, bucket, trough, whatever, and cover them completely with water. Completely! Taters in, air out.
Store the bowl in the refrigerator. (I cheat on this step if I don’t have room in the frig. Shhh.)
That’s it! Told ya it was simple. Simpler than that whole polyphenol oxidase thingie.
Notes:
I only do this overnight. Some people claim you can do this up to three days in advance as long as you replace the water and rinse the potatoes daily. Some people might be right about that. (See the comment section for other opinions.)
Others add a splash of lemon juice to keep potatoes from turning brown. This is a good practice for something that might be sitting in open air. Scientifically, however, the browning occurs when the potatoes come in contact with the oxygen in the air, which is an impossibility when the tubers are immersed in water whose oxygen is firmly bonded to hydrogen and won’t be oxidizing any taters. I save my lemons for lemon pie. Mmmm…pie.
I know you’re all itching to know why potatoes don’t turn brown after they’re cooked. Well, if I were to bother my pretty little head about such things, I would tell you that heat denatures the enzyme, rendering it inert, so it no longer reacts with the oxygen to transform the phenol compounds. (Heat kills enzymes.) But all that science just gives me a rash.
Another alternative: crockpot mashed potatoes
My dear blog friend Stacy from Stacy Makes Cents has a recipe for crockpot garlic mashed potatoes in her e-cookbook, Crock On. Crocking your taters would entirely free you up from even having to think about them. It would almost be like having a personal chef make the potatoes for you, and all you had to do was eat them. Crockpots are neat like that.
Read my review about Crock Onhere, or, if you want the recipe for crockpot mashed potatoes for Thanksgiving and don’t want to bother with any ol’ reviews in case it talks about phenols and denaturing enzymes (which it doesn’t),buy it now for $5, or get it on Kindle. That’s how I’m making our mashed potatoes this year.
One more Thanksgiving tip:
Brine your turkey! It’s simple and makes all the difference for a juicy bird. Here’s how.
Jessica, I hope this tip for keeping potatoes from turning brown helps you out! Happy Thanksgiving! (Have a question? Submit it in the contact me section.)
I love a good, juicy ham on Easter and Christmas (and any day in between). Too often the hams we’ve had are dry, expensive and sickeningly sweet, even when we bought the high-priced, big name hams from the ham store. It’s enough to make a person sit down and cry into her taters. Therefore, we took it upon ourselves to find the cheapest, tastiest method of preparing ham that we could…just for you. You’re welcome.
optional ingredients for an optional sauce – ours only requires brown sugar and a sauce pan
Which ham should I buy?
The most convenient ham is, naturally, the spiral-sliced. Our experience with spiral cut, however, is that they dry out very easily. Because they are already cut, the heat has more surface area from which to draw moisture. Nothing can prevent moisture loss to some extent, not even the reams of aluminum foil we use to try and prevent its drying out.
For that reason, we buy unsliced ham, which, to our delight, is cheaper. I like the shank, because it is often the cheapest of all and not too difficult to slice. You can also grab yourself a nice butt which will work just as well for the same price or just a few pennies a pound more, depending on your store. According to our old butcher, the shank and butt are essentially the whole ham (which is the leg) chopped in half to form the separate cuts. With such little difference, I go for whichever is cheaper. (Here’s more than you ever wanted to know about ham cuts.)
Watch for a sale around the major holidays and you’ll really score big with your ol’ pigskin.
How do I cook the ham?
Preheat your oven to 350.
Put the ham in a pretty (okay, so it doesn’t have to be pretty) roasting pan with the bone side down, fat side up.
Add one cup of water to the pan. (Some experts say not to do this, but I do it…so there, experts!)
Cover it completely with aluminum foil. But aluminum foil will kill you! I know, but this ham is so juicy, you’ll die happy.
Cook to the proper temperature as explained below, and immediately remove it from the oven.
Let the ham rest covered for 20 minutes or so before slicing, so the juices redistribute throughout the ham.
How long do I cook the ham?
If the ham is pre-cooked, heat it to an internal temperature of 110-140 (Fahrenheit) and pull it from the oven, depending on how warm you want your ham. (If it’s fully cooked, you can theoretically eat it cold.)
If the ham is not pre-cooked or only partially cooked, heat it to 150-155 (Fahrenheit) and pull immediately. I know the meat police say 160, but it will continue cooking 5-10 degrees after you pull it. I pull at 150. If you wait for 160, you may have a dry ham. You’ve been warned.
Use a meat thermometer! Insert it well into the meat, but not touching the bone. if you don’t have a meat thermometer and you cook meat, buy one. If you don’t want to buy one, you’ll be cooking roughly 20-30 minutes per pound, but I won’t guarantee that your stove doesn’t run hot and that you won’t be eating a football. In that case, I wash my hands of your ham.
I won’t even go there! Okay, maybe just a little. There are as many ham glaze recipes out there as there are cooks to prepare them. Personally, I don’t like to be knocked out by an overwhelming shot of sugar, bourbon, cloves, or pineapple when all I really want is a nice big mouthful of meat. I want to taste the ham! Is that so wrong?!
Are you with me? It’s okay if you’re not, because you can do a quick search on any recipe site for half a gazillion glazes. Here are 68 glaze recipes from my favorite recipe site, AllRecipes.com. Read the reviews and pick your favorite…but might I recommend you keep it simple?
Because my husband likes the option of a subtle sweetness with his ham, and others in my family like the option of eating ham without going into a diabetic coma, this is the method he whipped up:
The Simple Homemaker’s Husband’s Simple Ham Sauce
Pour the pan drippings into a saucepan.
Add 1/4 cup or so of brown sugar or honey (depending on how sweet you want it and how much juice you have).
Heat it on the stove stirring to dissolve the sugar or honey, and testing for the sweetness level you’re looking for.
Adjust with water if it’s too salty or thick, and sugar or honey if you want a sweeter juice. Taste as you go and adjust gradually.
Serve it on the side as an optional au jus.
It is simple and delicious, but doesn’t coat the ham with sugar, which many people in my family can’t (or won’t) eat.
Insert your knife parallel to the bone and cut entirely around it. (Remember, the two L’s in the word “parallel” are parallel to each other, if you forgot your basic math.)
Slice perpendicular to the bone to make nice slices that should fall away from the bone. (You will be cutting into the length of the bone, not the end…obviously.) Do this on either side of the bone.
There will be quite a bit of meat left on the bone, just as with the store-bought spiral cuts. I like to gnaw on this when nobody’s looking remove this meat later with a small knife and use it for any number of recipes needing diced ham, including scrambled eggs, bean or potato soups, fried rice, quiche, breakfast potatoes, salad.
Save the bone and toss it into a soup, crock of beans, or pot of jambalaya.
Here’s the boring printable version of how to bake a ham:
How To Bake a Simple Ham
Author: Christy, The Simple Homemaker
Prep time:
Total time:
A simple, juicy, affordable ham that will not put you into a diabetic coma…at least, I hope it won’t.
Ingredients
a ham
pan
one cup water (optional)
aluminum foil
meat thermometer
oven
optional ingredients for an optional sauce – ours only requires brown sugar and a sauce pan
Instructions
Preheat your oven to 350.
Put the ham in a pretty (okay, so it doesn’t have to be pretty) roasting pan with the bone side down, fat side up.
Add one cup of water to the pan. (Some experts say not to do this, but I do it…so there, experts!)
Cover it completely with aluminum foil. But aluminum foil will kill you! I know, but this ham is so juicy, you’ll die happy.
Cook to 150 using a meat thermometer if your ham is uncooked or partially cooked. If it’s fully cooked, warm it to your desired temperature, but no warmer than 140 or you may dry it out. Blech.
Immediately remove it from the oven.
Let the ham rest covered for 20 minutes or so before slicing, so the juices redistribute throughout the ham.
Remove the drippings to a saucepan over low heat. Stir in 1/4 cup brown sugar or honey, taste, and add more if desired to sweeten the juices to your desired sweetness. Serve on the side so everybody is happy!
3.1.09
I hope your ham turns out as juicy and delicious (and affordable) as ours! Good luck!
Let me know what you think, including your best pointers on how to bake a ham…a simple ham.
But if you talk about scoring the outside in cross hatches, stuffing cloves all over, dousing it in bourbon, and then adding pineapple and maraschino cherries, I’ll know you didn’t really read this post and don’t embrace my “simple” philosophy. (Wink.)
I’m embarrassed to admit that I have no pictures of our own hams. Years of ham baking and experimentation, and nothing to show for it but full tummies. Special thanks to all the photographers credited above…but our hams look juicier. A-hem.
Our decorations stay up until after Three King’s Day, a.k.a. Epiphany, a.k.a. There Isn’t a Single Needle Left on This Tree. Why? Because I love Christmas, and I especially love the laid back days after Christmas, so why not celebrate all twelve of them!
I know many people like to get the decor put away tout d’suite, because it feels clean. To each their own.
Here are some tips to make the whole process smoother on the take-down side of things this year, and on the put-back-up side of things next year, because you know you’re going to blink three times and it will be Christmas again.
8 Tips for Taking Down Christmas Decorations
1. Put your decorations in containers that are labeled by location. Pull out the family room decoration box when you want to decorate the family room, the music room when you want to decorate the music room, the pantry when you want to decorate the pantry–doesn’t everyone decorate the pantry? It’s called cookie ingredients and lots and lots of sprinkles! In my opinion, it’s worth buying decent containers to store Christmas decorations, because honestly people, despite what Clement Clark Moore says, there usually is a mouse stirring.
2. Wrap the lights and garland around a piece of cardboard or an extension cord winder-upper (official name) to prevent the strands from getting tangled.
3. Write new ornaments down in a notebook to remember where they came from and what they represent. It’s a fun lifelong Christmas journal. Store it in the ornament box.
4. Purge any decorations you didn’t use or that don’t bring you joy…like the nativity with the green faces where everyone looks like they’re bursting with food poisoning instead of bursting with joy.
5. Wrap decorations in newspaper, tissue paper, shopping bags, paper towels–whatever it takes to keep them safe. Do this as you take them down and place them immediately in the container for that room. We keep the hooks on, because it makes the next year easier.
6. Write a list of anything you need for next year. Place it inside the first box you open.
7. If you really dislike the unfestive nature of undecorating the house, make it a party!The Young family sets out all the leftover Christmas cookies and makes a party of it. (You have to try their Grandma’s fruitcake–oh my! So good!) Play music, put something yummy in the crockpot, chase your littles with the vacuum cleaner, and celebrate the end of the season with some hot cocoa and those jumbo-sized marshmallows. Fun fun fun!
Good Housekeeping says this about how to take down a Christmas tree. You know, though, if you plan ahead for next year, try this:
Place a huge black contractor’s bag under the tree–set the tree stand in the middle of the bag. The tree skirt will cover the bag, unless your theme is black–like silent night, you know–in which case you’re all set. After you’ve taken off all the ornaments, lift the tree a bit, remove the tree stand, and pull the bag up around the tree. The needles should stay in there, unless you have a 14-foot tree like my brother. In that case, just get out the vacuum.
Print out this post and place it in your decoration box. Why? Because you’ll forget. You know you will.
When do you take down your Christmas decorations? Have any tips?
When I was a wee lass, we woke from our dreams of dancing sugarplums to a Christmas morning breakfast of 27 varieties of Christmas cookies: fudge, snickerdoodles, chocolate-covered pretzels, chocolate crackles, spritz, and 22 others, including my personal favorite, pecan fingers. Drooool! It was this ol’ gal’s a child’s dream breakfast! Yeah, my mom rocked the motherhood thing! Because she had done all the baking ahead of time, there was no cooking for Mom on Christmas morning. Smart mom!
It turns out I’m not quite as much fun as my mom on Christmas morning. Translation: no cookies for breakfast. Bummer. I know, I know…but it’s a blood sugar thing. Christmas breakfast at The Simple Home must meet these basic requirements:
1) Minimal sweeteners
2) Protein for blood sugar or I will turn Grinch-green!
3) Carbs to stick to the ribs all morning
4) Little to no work in the morning, because I’m a Christmas morning lazy butt nobody wants to wait around for me to cook when there are stockings to pillage.
5) Delicious!
Here are some of my top ideas for a breakfast that fits all (or at least most) of the TSHM criteria for a Christmas morning breakfast.
5 Christmas Morning Breakfast Ideas
1) Gingerbread waffles–personally, I don’t have time for waffles on Christmas morning, because we have chocolate-filled stockings waiting. Still, doesn’t this recipe from At The Picket Fence look divine. I would make them ahead of time and pop them in the toaster on Christmas morning–brilliant! (Yup, I just patted my own back. Pathetic.) Just so you know, if you use margarine instead of butter I will disown you, and if you’re not family, I will make you family and then disown you, and you know I’m insanely serious about that.
2) Overnight crockpot oatmeal–this is healthy and kinda boring, but you can make it more exciting with these 40 topping ideas from This Chick Cooks. How about a big fat chocolate santa right in the middle of each bowl. Wheeeee! (Might as well just go with the cookies.) Here’s a recipe for crockpot oatmeal from Mommy’s Kitchen. Some of my kids would disown me if we had oatmeal at Christmas, and I know they’re insanely serious about that!
3) Overnight French toast—this recipe from Pioneer Woman has masses of sugar in it, which is in obvious violation of TSHM Christmas breakfast requirement number one, but who cares? (I know–eat the cookies!) I would use my super simple homemade bread recipe…or I would buy a 99-cent loaf of bakery bread any ol’ place and be happy. (Hey, did you notice that “toast” is not capitalized? Only “French” is proper and therefore capitalized. Take note. It matters…to nobody except me.)
4) Freezer smoothies–assemble the smoothie ingredients in advance as suggested in this post at Keeper of the Home. Skip the sweetener and have an extra cookie. Yum. If you have a wimpy blender, set the bags of fruit out to thaw for a while before blending. If you have a power monster, like a Vita-Mix or Blendtec, just grind those babies up.
5) Egg bake–this right here is our go-to Christmas morning breakfast…followed rapidly by a Christmas cookie tray. See, I’m fun. Wheeee! Our two favorite breakfast casserole recipes are from my grandma and from Father Tim in Jan Karon’s Mitford Cookbook and Kitchen Reader. Father Tim’s is appropriately titled Father Tim’s Christmas Morning Breakfast Casserole. We just call it delicious. Check it out here. If you want to go all out and make your own breakfast sausage, here’s the basic recipe we use; actually, we’ve changed it so much, there’s no resemblance. Sorry.
Last week you finished up everything that can be done ahead of time. You’re prepared for guests or travel, your gifts are ready to go under the tree, other gifts have been mailed, cards have been sent or intentionally abandoned, cookies fill your freezer or pantry, outfits are hanging up, the house is decorated, and everyone is smiling because you’ve been spending time with them and enjoying a stress-free holiday season.
Here comes my favorite mission and the reason you have everything ready early.
Contact someone on your love list. Your love list is a list of people you love–brilliant naming, I know. (You don’t need a real list—it’s in your head).
See if they need any help with anything—shopping, wrapping, decorating, addressing cards, cooking, baking, a ride to the store, or just some Christmas cheer. Or get in touch with a local church or shelter and see how you can help.
Please make this a loving habit year round in honor of the Christ child, and not simply a holiday affection overflow.
It’ll be the best mission of all!
Next week I’m not sending you a mission, because you know what you still have to do, and that’s completely different for everyone. You have the last-minute (or festive minute as I prefer to call it) items to accomplish. Prepare any festive minute foods. Do a final clean up of your home—easy since you don’t keep clutter and you already prepared for guests. Curl six heads of long hair–or is that just on my list?
Then put your feet up and enjoy some cocoa while the rest of the world runs around in a flurry of last-minuteness. I’m so excited for you!
Second, stop kicking poor old Max. And don’t yell at your kids. And don’t be mean to your husband or your mother or the poor kid in Kohl’s trying to earn a little Christmas cash. Just be nice.
Third, I’m not going to lecture you on Jesus being the reason for the season and that Christmas is still Christmas even if you don’t have gifts for your kids. That is super true, of course. I mean, super-duper true. Super-de-duper-de true! (I lost my thesaurus.) But the fact is, you want to give your children presents–I get that, so let’s get it done.
Jump on my Festive Minute Train (that’s a nice way of saying Last Minute Train) and let’s get this Christmas prep chugging along.
Here’s what you’re going to do:
1. Get a piece of paper and a pencil…oh, and the budget you keep firmly attached to your body at all times.
2. Write down everything you need to get done. Ask my four-year-old about the differences between need and want.
3. Cross off the things you don’t really need to do. The cards can go. The fancy up-do appointment–really? Is it necessary? A manicure. Come on here. Let’s all just be real. Buying another new dress? What’s wrong with last year’s outfit? Cross those things off! Look, you’re halfway finished with your list and you’re still sitting on your keister!
4. Simplify the things you really want to do but are going to stress you out. You wanted to cut a tree, but Walmart has pre-cuts for 20 smackeroos. Just get one. You wanted to do a fancy Advent activity every night. If all you can get around to is reading Luke 2 and singing Away in a Manger, that’s beautiful! You really want to make cookies with the kids. So maybe you won’t get a dozen or so homemade cookies done, but you can follow Sandra Lee’s example and do semi-homemade. Dip some Oreos in chocolate and put sprinkles on them. Lovely! Dip pretzels in chocolate and drizzle a different color chocolate over the top. Dip anything in chocolate! Buy sugar cookie dough. Nobody’s judging, and if they are, they don’t get your cookies–send me their share.
5. Simplify the gifts. If it’s homemade and it isn’t nearing completion by now, forget about it. Gift cards might just be the way to go this year. Write it all down.If you are a visual person like I am, barricade yourself in a room, lay everything out, see what’s missing, and fill in the blanks. Buy it online. Done. Do it tonight!
6. Simplify wrapping. Homemade–forget it! Quick wrap is just fine, and so are gift bags, although I find them expensive. Let the kids help–happiness trumps perfection.
7. Make all the necessary phone calls and record everything on your calendar. Who’s hosting? Who’s bringing what? When are the kids’ programs? When is the office party? Write it all down.
8. Plan the menu for Christmas week. Just do it. Stop grumbling. Remember that enough is as good as a feast, so don’t go overboard. There’s no shame in ordering a ready-made meal from your grocery store. Serve it with a smile on your face and it’s all good. It’s all good!
9. Make a shopping list for groceries.
10. Shop. Don’t drop. Do shop. You have to get groceries anyway, so get your Christmas food at the same time.
11. Postpone anything (including school) that doesn’t have to do with Christmas until after the holidays…unless it’s paying bills or another time-sensitive necessity. Do brush your teeth.
12. Breathe! Sit and watch a movie with the kids and breathe.
13. Speaking of kids, let them decorate this year. Or just do the very basics. It doesn’t have to be Better Homes and Gardens. It does have to be Happy Home and Heart!
14. Do yourself a huge favor and get the laundry done this week. Clean all the church clothes and set them aside and don’t let anybody who’s been dipping things in chocolate anywhere near them.
15. Call your grandma or your mama. Don’t rush it–just let them talk while you listen. It will be the best present they get this Christmas…even better than the chocolate-dipped-Cheerios your kids are inspired to create while you’re on the phone.
That’s that. If you do one or two of these a day, you’re finished with a little breathing room for Christmas. Please please please don’t stress. Just start at the top and move down, repeating numbers 11, 12, and 15 at will.
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Peel and rinse the potatoes. (So far so simple.)
Store the bowl in the refrigerator. (I cheat on this step if I don’t have room in the frig. Shhh.)
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