King Arthur Movie Tristan

Kailana from The Written World and Marg from Adventures of an Intrepid Reader are hosting the Virtual Advent Tour again this year. I think this is a fun way for bloggers to share holiday memories and traditions. Thank you ladies for hosting!

Each day anyone who wants to participate takes turns sharing a treat with our friends here in blogland. For example it could be something about your family traditions, recipes, your country's holiday traditions, or a favourite Christmas memory, movie, book, song...anything you like. Even if you don't celebrate Christmas we would like to hear about what your family does during the holiday season, whether it be celebrating Hanukkah or Kwanzaa or whatever it is that you do during this time.

Every Christmas Eve I make sugar cookies with my children. These are the cookies they leave for Santa. Though both my children, ages 14 and 10, have caught on to the fact that mommy and daddy are Santa Claus, they still both help me with the cookies and decorate them for Santa to eat.



Here is my sugar cookie recipe. The best part about it is that once you make the dough, it's ready to make the cookies. You don't have to refridgerate it and wait.



INGREDIENTS

2 3/4 cups all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

1 cup butter, softened

1 1/2 cups white sugar

1 egg

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

wax paper

cookie cutters

rolling pin

cookie sheet for baking



FROSTING:

powdered sugar, water & food coloring



DIRECTIONS

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F.

In a small bowl, stir together flour, baking soda, and baking powder. Set aside.

In a large bowl, cream together the butter and sugar until smooth.
Beat in the egg and vanilla.
Gradually blend in the dry ingredients until it froms a dough. The dough is now ready.


This is the fun part:

Get ready to cut out the cookie dough into shapes.

Place the wax paper onto the kitchen table, put some dough and roll it out flat with the rolling pin. You might need to add some flour to the rolling pin so the dough won't stick.

Once the dough is flat, cut out shapes with the cookie cutters.

Place your cut out cookies onto the baking sheet.



Bake 8 to 10 minutes in the preheated oven, or until golden. Let stand on cookie sheet two minutes before removing to cool on wire racks.




Once your cookies are baked and cooled, decorate them with easy to make frosting.
(my kids love this part)

FROSTING:

Take about 1/2 cup of powdered sugar and place it into a small bowl. Add a few drops of water until the sugar becomes thick, keep adding water droplets and sugar until you have a thick frosting. You need to play it by ear, until you get the right thickness.

I take a few small bowls, fill them with frosting, then add a drop of food coloring to each bowl.





Decorate your cookies to your hearts content!








Here's the plate of cookies the kids made up for Santa one year:









Another tradition we have is watching Christmas movies together. One of our favorites is The Nightmare Before Christmas.







No matter which way you celebrate, Happy Holidays! What are some of your traditions this time of year?