Christmas House Tour

Merry Christmas everyone! I hope everyone had a wonderful day yesterday full of love, giving, happiness, and joy! I would love to hear about what everyone did! This post is one that I meant to do before Christmas but it will now be a way to show what Christmas is like in the Rapp home. Christmas is a very joyful and special time of year for us. Eric is Mr. Christmas and has infused with me with all the love, memories, and joy he has for Christmas. Which means that Christmas starts the day after Thanksgiving (well actually this year it was a week before Thanksgiving since we were on the cruise during the week of Thanksgiving and wanted to come home to the Christmas house) to make sure there is holiday cheer as long as possible. Christmas decorating is in two phases: inside and out. Inside is my favorite as there is always a good Christmas movie playing in the background (this year it was The Santa Clause!). Ok, so here goes the tour...

Our outside lights (there are usually more icicles but they malfunctioned this year and everything Christmas sells out so early!).

Close-up

The retro Santa

 

Inside: In the kitchen with a cool Santa head hanging in the left, our glittering candle we keep up all year round, and a few small other items.

The mantle with our homemade stockings (Eric's on the right was made by his Grandma and mine on the left was made by Eric's mom as mine had gotten lost in the many moves)

Christmas tree #1

Christmas tree #2 (the two fireplace thing is a long story - we just go with it for now)

Christmas tree #3 - This tree is a ceramic tree that my family has had since I can remember. I always LOVED putting this up as a child and still love putting it up now! I think someone in our family may have made it...Fun side note: the wrapped packages are blocks of wood that my mom wrapped and put bows on to make looks like packages. That was probably 15-20 years ago! And another vintage item of the tree is the box that it is in. That tree has been in the same box since I remember unpacking it. I never knew an old box could make me so happy and nostalgic!

Christmas tree #4: The big one! I got all of the family ornaments so next year I will perhaps do a sentimental Christmas ornament tour!

Also, I tried to capture the low lighting feel in the house that makes it feel so Christmas cozy. We love to just bask in the Christmas lights all season long. So I apologize for the darker pictures but I wanted you to get the real feel!

Well that is it for us this year! We plan to hit the after Christmas sales and see what discounted goodies we can collect for decorations for next year! Merry Christmas again everyone!

Christmas in DC

This holiday season has been a a flurry of fun activity. One of the highlights has definitely been my whirlwind trip (left Lynchburg noon on Sunday and got back on Monday at 8pm). The extremely short trip was completely worth it because of the occasion - one of my great friend's Hillary is getting married in June. So a few of my college friends and I planned a surprise bridal party/bacherolette party for her. So the trip was all about getting quality time together so it was a fun mix of winter activities, delicious food, and lots of girl gabbing.

I wanted to show you some of the highlights of our nation's capital at Christmastime. I highly recommend getting into DC to see it during the holidays if you can!

The National Christmas Tree (totally make sure to watch the special on HGTV to see it picked out!). I never new it had such a neat train set that ran around the whole base of the tree.

Had to get one with the National Monument.

As you walked around the main tree there were 50 smaller trees each decorated for a state by elementary school children. This is the Virginia tree!

Of course we had to stop by Santa's workshop and get a shot with the big guy!



Of course the White House looks beautiful lit up at night - both front and back!

A little shot of the bridal shower set-up (see the cake pop post here). PS - that is my veil from my wedding! I let my sister wear it (see it on the little about me post). I have also given it to Hillary for possible wear.

What better way to celebrate winter than ice skating?! This rink was built in the Sculpture Garden which of course we had to check out after our session.

Had to get a shot of the Cube looking so sophisticated in the big city. It did a great job getting us around!

Also had to throw in an Occupy DC shot. There were two in the city and looking in you could see their shelves of supplies. It was intense to observe.

We got one of my favorite meals of all time - crepes and bubble tea!

To finish off the post I have to share a beautiful lamp that one day I would love to mimic in my home. A more utilitarian way to showcase beautiful, sparkly, glitzy chandeliers that I looove!

Holiday Cake Pop Extravaganza!

I love dessert. I also don't consider it dessert unless it has chocolate. So when my friend Clelie and I decided to try and make this new phenomenon called cake pops for a work function (we used to work at the same place), a new chapter of my life opened up!

So what are cake pops? Well they are little chocolate balls of cake on a lollipop stick and dipped and chocolate. They also offer endless ways of decorating them to customize them to specific holidays and situations. Since we have begun to make these we have celebrated birthdays, childbirth, making cake pops for our own leaving work party (we left within weeks of each other and brought our own cake!), and holidays like Christmas that I will share with you today!

Clelie even bought this book to help us get started:

Buy it on Amazon here.

Cake pops are easy to make but are time consuming and require patience. We have found it easier to make the cake (or brownies in this post!) a few days before we decorate. So pick your favorite flavor of cake (we have used chocolate, red velvet, and brownie mix). Bake it like normal and let it cool. Then crumble it up with a fork. Add 3/4 can of your favorite icing (chocolate and white both work well). Stir the cake crumbles and icing together until it makes a malleable mixture - not too sticky but not too crumbly. Just right! Once you have this mixture use your hands to roll them into balls about 1 inch in diameter. Store these in a container in the refrigerator (not freezer or they will crack) until using them. It is important to keep them chilled until making them or your may lose them off the stick! (Oops! Forgot to take pictures of that part.)

When you are ready to continue the process you will need to make sure that you have chocolate candy coating. They sell this in your local craft store in various colors. We have used dye to color the white chocolate but it changed the consistency of the chocolate and made it harder to use. I highly recommend using the colored chocolate. You will also need to have all the decoration supplies you may want, like colored sugar or sprinkles and colored gel to draw on them. Here are our supplies all ready to go:

Now it is time to heat the chocolate. Chocolate is very easy to burn (see my fudge post for melting tips) so we used a double boiler and this worked great! If you don't have one melt carefully in the microwave. Take one lollipop stick and dip it into the chocolate just a little bit. This helps it grip the pop.

Then stick it into the cake pop almost all the way through so it is on there firmly.

Next roll the pop in the chocolate. Use spoons/spatulas to help cover it completely. You may want to shake it lightly upside down to get rid of excess chocolate.

The hardest part of cake pops is storage. Styrofoam works really well in holding the pops but it can be a little hard to travel with. This is the option we chose to dry ours. This is also a good place to decorate them. We decided to use white M&M's as a Santa hat topper and used white gel to pipe a fuzzy part of the Santa hat. Instant holiday treats!

We also decided to just make some cake balls using white chocolate and holiday sprinkles. They are harder to photograph but still delicious and festive!

As this was a present for a friend, we decided to dress it up a little for delivery. So we used a jar, holiday M&M's as filler, and a pretty bow to finish it! I think this may be the best batch ever!



It's OK to Fudge Sometimes

As you can probably guess that I love to bake - especially around the holidays! There are certain baked goods that I only make Thanksgiving through Christmas. One of them, that is also another family tradition, is our peanut butter chocolate fudge. Oh. My. Gosh. This fudge is incredible. That isn't me bragging. It's just a fact. I can't really enjoy other fudge because it never measures up to this goodness. It always spawns another found memory of my family (can you tell that I love my family?! And with them spread out all over the country I like to surround myself with things that remind me of them, including food). I remember very Christmas my mom making pans and pans of this fudge and packaging it up in pretty Christmas tins and sending it as Christmas presents to all of our family. I like to continue spreading the fudge love! So when my work announced they would be holding their annual cookie and candy exchange I knew exactly what I was making!

Ingredients:

• 2 bags semi-sweet chocolate chips
• 3 bags peanut butter chips
• 12 oz. cream cheese (room temperature)
• 5.5 confectioner's sugar
• 4 T milk
• 1 t vanilla

Line 14 x 10 pan with aluminum foil.

Melt chocolate in microwave and set aside. Make sure to heat in small increments and stir every time. It melts faster than you may think and it is easy to overheat and ruin!

In large bowl beat together softened cream cheese, sugar, milk, and vanilla.

In separate bowl melt peanut butter in microwave. Mix into peanut butter mixture immediately. The peanut butter is probably the trickiest part of this because it hardens VERY QUICKLY. So be quick about this!

It's quite the arm workout!

Press half of peanut butter mixture into bottom of pan using wax paper.

It's easier to spread when you put small scoops into the pan!

Immediately cover remaining peanut butter mixture so it doesn't dry out. I recommend using a wet dish towel with a plate placed on top of the bowl.

Spread melted chocolate over peanut butter mixture in pan.

Freeze until chocolate is hardened (usually 15 minutes plus).

Press remaining peanut butter mixture over chocolate using wax paper again. It's done!

Cover and let sit for a while until cutting. Do NOT refrigerate or it will be too hard to cut and you may break a tooth trying to bite into the chocolate.

When you are ready to cut it, just lift the foil out of the pan and cut into very small squares. A little goes a looong way. Also, this can dry out quickly, so make sure to put in air tight container. Sometimes I even wrap it in plastic wrap before putting it into a container for extra protection.

A fun way to share these with friends is to put it in tins (with plastic wrap!) like I mentioned before or in a glass jar with ribbon for decorations. For those eco-friendly souls out there, this is a oyster jar cleaned thoroughly and ready to reuse!

Mmm mmm good! Enjoy this super rich dessert!

Let the drooling begin!!!!!!!

Setting a Christmas Table on a Budget

Every year I am lucky enough to have two Christmases. My wonderful in-laws, Jim and Linda Rapp, come up from Florida for about two weeks in the beginning of December to spend time with family and friends up here. Usually around the middle of their visit we have a special Christmas family dinner with Eric's aunt and uncle and cousin. We make a special meal and exchange presents. This special occasion happened this Saturday! I do not have pictures of that but I do have a project that was inspired for this event.

Eric and I are lucky to have been handed down a beautiful dining room set from his parents that sits in our "car-port room". [More on that to come in later posts... It is a beautiful wood table that usually looks like this all year round, except covered with mounds on bills, craft projects, and RC cars. It is kind of our catch-all room / table. One day it will have more of a purpose...anyways, I digress.]

This year I wanted to dress up the table to look festive for Christmas. So Linda and I went out on a shopping spree to put together the table settings on the cheap! Places where supplies were gathered were Big Lots, TJ Maxx, and the Dollar Store. Proud of it! After pouring over the stores we came home with this pile of goodies: tablecloth, two types of place mats. and a glass centerpiece with a beaded mat to go with it.

On goes the tablecloth and then the place mats. Notice that the head of the table gets the pretty red beaded place mats and the sides get different green ones. It gives a nice contrast and a richer look with the different colors and textures. This is an easy way to mix cheaper elements with more expensive ones to still get a rich look. One beaded place mat cost the same as all four green ones. Put them all together and it is still affordable!

So now time to put together the centerpiece. Thankfully we had extra ornaments that didn't make it onto one of our THREE decorated trees. Yes three. A Christmas house tour to come that will show all the glories of Christmas in our house! So all I did was put different colors and shapes of ornaments in the glass bowl/vase. The great thing with this $7 investment is that it can be festive throughout the year. Just change what is put inside to correspond with the holiday or season!

Then add the Christmas snowman plates and glasses that we had and wah-la!

For the finishing touch we took an idea from HGTV. Use small stockings to put your silverware in. You can find them in the Dollar Store for 2/$1. So cute!

Also, for festive napkins buy small holiday hand wash clothes. People aren't afraid to get them dirty and you can use them in the bathroom too for decoration!

So it doesn't take a lot of money to make a festive, glittery, and beautiful Christmas table! Just think that you can use these year after year!