Tunes for Christmas Baking

Having now had a couple of days to recover from marathon baking, I have decided to give the McCormick’s double chocolate chunk mint cookies another try (I’ll update with a picture if they turn out well). While I’ve been doing all of this baking I’ve had Christmas songs playing loudly through the house…frequently on Pandora, but also on my IPod. I thought I would share a few of my favorite songs.

One of my new favorites. I don’t know why, but it just gives me the warm fuzzies.

This is one of my all-time favorite hymns and while I don’t typically think of it as a Christmas song, I love it on Sufjan Steven’s Christmas album.

I am one of those people who will only listen to Christmas music from after Thanksgiving through the end of the year…this is one the first song I want to hear when i bust out the Christmas tunes.

This song is from the middle of Andrew Peterson’s “Behold the Lamb of God: The True Tale of the Coming of Christ.” I love this whole album. I’ve seen Mr. Peterson on his Christmas tour performing this album from start to finish twice. When I need a reminder of why I celebrate Christmas, this album is what I listen too. I love this song in particular because I always found “Silent Night” to be a ridiculous notion.

This is not a Christmas song, but when it comes on it always makes me happy. Besides, the spiritual heritage of Christianity comes from Judaism so…

As it is the season of giving I thought I would highlight a charity/aid organization that helps children in need: Sweet Sleep. This is a faith-based organization that provides beds and mosquito netting for orphaned and abandoned children. Don’t forget to give…in this busy season of the year, sometimes the most precious thing you can give is a little of your time.

Tis the Season of Giving

After my fun experiment making German food the other day, my family has been living on leftovers. Between the German food and the Thanksgiving fare, we have enough food to last for several days. As the cook, I consider leftovers to be my friend!

 

Since I don’t have to cook, we’ve been having a Gilmore Girls marathon. This was THE show in our house when it was on the air. As much as I love to watch the antics of Rory and Lorelei, I must have something to keep my hands busy. So, I pulled out my trusty laptop and have been playing some more. I did some research on how to make a fan video. Trust me when I say: it is going to be quite some time before I share the fruits of that labor. Although I do have a good idea of where my video is going.  As you can see to the right…I also made another gif. This time it stars my favorite tall, dark and handsome evil henchman.

I’m still learning to play around with Photoshop to remove the background from a picture. If you have ever done this, you know that it is super easy when you have a white background. In my experience thus far, any other kind of background, other than white, takes a lot of work to remove. I am getting the hang of it. Also, learning to merge picture and making them the right size to merge together is taking a lot of work (fun work, but work).

As I’ve seen on several other blogs, it is the season of giving. It is the time of year when we focus most on the gifts we are most grateful for in our lives. As we give and receive gifts from those we love, it is also a time to remember those who are less fortunate than ourselves. So, I’m asking that you give…even its just a few cents to the Salvation Army bell ringers! One of my favorite organizations to give to is World Vision. At this time of year you can give gifts such as a goat and two chickens, which provides a family with both sustainable nutrition and income. Also, if you make purchases through Amazon or Amazon UK through the richardarmitagenet.com links a donation is made to the actors favored charities. If you are a Richard Armitage fan, you can give to his favorite charities through the Just Giving page.