My family member who'd been sick passed away unexpectedly yesterday evening, on Christmas Day. I say unexpectedly because even though she was very sick, we didn't think she'd go quite this soon. Thank God I got to see her Christmas Eve.

Thank you all so much for your Christmas wishes. I'll write again when I can.

Can't believe Christmas is almost here. My baking's finally done (I ended up making three more kinds of cookies), the house is clean and the gift wrapping - well, it's not finished, but it will be tomorrow. Now I get to relax somewhat and look forward to seeing my entire family and enjoying lots of great food and company.

I'll catch up with all my PMs next week, promise!

A very Merry Christmas to those of you who celebrate the holiday. Oh, and here's a pic of those Holiday Fruit Drops I gave you the recipe for. They're sooo good!

Thought I'd have time this week to get back "into" NN, but it just didn't work out. Too much to do and too many places to go. Unlike last year, D and I aren't hosting any parties or anything this holiday season except Christmas dinner, but we've been invited to lots and are trying to attend everything. Crazy!

I spent all day Thursday baking my Holiday Fruit Drops, made a double recipe and got 14 dozen cookies out of it. I thought that would do me this year, but since I usually bring homemade baked goods as my hostess gift, I need to bake more. I'll try to do that tomorrow, I guess.

Here's the recipe in case you're interested. I've been making these for about 20 years, and they're still D's and my favorite Christmas cookie.

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HOLIDAY FRUIT DROPS

1 cup shortening
2 cups brown sugar (packed)
2 eggs
1/2 cup buttermilk
3-1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 tsp. soda
1 tsp. salt
1-1/2 cups broken pecans (approx. 2 – 6 oz. bags)
2 cups red candied cherries, quartered (1 lg. or 2 sm. containers)
2 cups cut-up dates (I use a bag of pre-cut sugared dates)

Mix shortening, sugar and eggs well. Stir in buttermilk. Blend flour, soda and salt; stir in. Stir in pecans, cherries and dates. Chill at least 1 hour.

Heat oven to 350°. Drop heaping teaspoonfuls of dough about 2” apart on lightly greased baking sheet. Bake 6-7 minutes then turn baking sheet in oven and place a pecan half on each cookie. Bake another 6 minutes or until almost no imprint remains when touched lightly. Makes 7-8 dozen cookies.

(NOTE: These cookies keep beautifully and actually improve with storage. I make them up to two weeks before Christmas and keep them in a large Tupperware container, separating layers with waxed paper and putting a piece of bread on the top layer to retain freshness [I change the bread every couple of days].)

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And BTW why is there pro football on Saturday night???

Yikes, I've only been gone from NN a week or two but I've missed so much! Besides Taking-Back-the-Site Day, I've missed so many pics, so many blogs, and so many messages. I'll be busy until Christmas just trying to catch up on all of them!

At least I've got my holiday preparations well in hand. Haven't quite finished the shopping but all the decorating's done as are the cards, and I decided to cut back on my cookie baking this year and just make a double batch of one kind of Christmas cookie - my best one, Holiday Fruit Drops - so that took a load off. I'm not used to having to run a business at holiday time, either. It's been crazy! But things have calmed down a bit so I'm back to perving and posting on NN. Speaking of, I'll be posting a new pic tomorrow night.

Hope all your Christmas preps are coming along, too. It's good to be back! xoxo

...Christmas is exactly four weeks from today! I haven't bought a single gift yet (heck, I don't even have a single idea for a single gift yet), I haven't gotten Christmas cards or stamps, haven't brought out any decorations, haven't bought my cookie baking supplies and haven't begun to think about my annual wrestling match with Brunhilde, our huge mean tough artificial tree.

Some of our neighbors have already put up their outdoor lights and decorations...and I haven't done a thing! No, Christmas can't be just four weeks away, I'M NOT READY!!!

Well, actually, one Turkey Day and one Ham Day. We're celebrating Thanksgiving on both Thursday and Sunday this year. Two families, long story. We're having ham with all the fixin's tomorrow and turkey with all the fixin's on Sunday. Looking forward to lots of good food, good weather, good company.

A very Happy Thanksgiving to all you American NN'ers!!!

Two years ago today - the Sunday before Thanksgiving - it snowed where I live. Not just a light, early morning dusting that was gone almost as soon as it hit the ground, but a genuine all-day-long snowstorm. It was so awesome! D and I went outside in the afternoon and played in the snow (much to the amusement of our neighbors, I'm sure) and made a rather lumpy looking snowman, the base of which hadn't yet melted by Thanksgiving day. Good times.

And now today, two years later, the weather's sunny and clear with a high in the 80's. What a difference!!!

I just posted another pic from my Saucy Secretary set. While shooting that, I had to wear a necktie for about an hour and let me tell you, that was 59 minutes too long! Yikes, I felt like I was being choked the whole time! How do you guys handle having to wear ties???

Yeah, yeah, I know, we gals have to wear bras and they can be super uncomfortable sometimes, but it's a lot easier to deal with something tight around your chest than something tight around your neck.

Just one more reason why I'm glad I'm a woman.

Re some of the comments on my last blog, just wanted to pass on something about acronyms that most people don't know.

*twisting my hair up into a bun and putting on my dark-rimmed, English-teacher eyeglasses*

An acronym is a word formed from the first - or the first few - letters of a series of words. To be an acronym, a series of letters must be spoken as a word, not as individual letters. As an example, NATO is an acronym, NBC is not.

So, MVP and MLB aren't really acronyms after all.

Anybody want to stay after class to go over this again?

Just read that the MVP of this year's Little League World Series is 2" taller than the MVP of the MLB World Series, David Eckstein! And what's funny about it, when Eckstein played for the Angels D and I always used to say he looked like a Little Leaguer out there! lol But though he's small in stature, he's got big hustle and a big heart and he deserved the MVP award.

So I guess it's true, size really doesn't matter, huh?