My Life as an Irish American Girl

For the past four years, we started a new Christmas tradition. Every year on Christmas Day, at my house, me, my parents, brother Bren, my mom's three sister's, my grandma, uncle Brian, Uncle Leonard, my four cousins Henry, William, Lily, Renae, my brother Ryan and my soon to be sister in law Victoria all celebrate Christmas.

The four cousins, my brothers and I do secret santa where we each get a cousin to buy for. My mom and her sisters also do a secret santa with each other.

Of course every year my brothers and I exchange gifts with each other. However I do have a budget
🌝

Before our family Christmas party, my brother Bren and I will take turns this year opening gifts from each other and our parents. Usually we have my brother Ryan with us, but since he lives in PA, we are going to do his gift exchange when he comes later.

After opening our gifts from our parents, my mom makes french toast for brunch and I make delicious Irish tea to tag along with it.

For dinner we have a buffet of assorted foods like baked turkey breasts, ham, baked ziti, egg plant, italian bread and much more.

Before dessert, we gather in the living room by the tree. We each take turns opening a gift from our secret santa.

Finally we have tea and dessert. My grandma makes a homemade cheese cake, my dad buys Hagandaz icecream and my brother Bren makes Cow Boy Cookies. (I don't understand why they call it that but anyway!)

My favorite part about Christmas is giving gifts to my family and friends. Seeing their reactions also makes me smile.

Merry Christmas to those that celebrate it!
Happy Hannukah to those who celebrate it!
Happy Almost 2018! 

Hey Guys,

I've known Hope and her family for as long as I can remember. We were in the same HomeSchool group. She is kind and loves Jesus.

She has a youtube channel called Having Hope. Also she and her sister Sarah posted this video yesterday. They are both going on a missions trip to Europe for three weeks.

Also if you want to watch her youtube videos its Having Hope ! Click on the link to see her amazing videos.

They need six thousand dollars by February. If you would like to donate to help them reach their goal, click on the link. continuetogive.com/hopeandsarah

You can even share this blog post with your freinds and family to help spread the word around. Or even better share the donation link to help donations spread.

God bless you all!

Chloe

On Wednesday December 6th,while we listened to Christmas music, my friend Abby and I baked two different kinds of cookies.

 First we decided to bake what we thought would be the hardest cookies ever, turned out to be the easiest. We made these Candy Cane Blossom cookies. As we followed the recipe, we decided to use green food coloring to make the cookies green for Christmas. The recipe does say you can use the food coloring to make colored sugar, but that would require work the day before. Plus in my opinion, I think the cookies tasted amazing without the colored sugar on top. To mak things even more funny, I couldn't find the candy cane flavored hershey kisses, so I just bought a big bag of regular kisses. Hey it all worked out.

Next we made Sugar Cookies. If you never made these before, then you are missing out on a lot of fun. These are really easy to make. Plus they don't take that long to bake. With all the different cookie cutters, it makes the cookies look even better. I specifically bought Christmas cookie cutters at Dollar Tree.

While the sugar cookies were cooling down, Abby and I went upstairs into my room and put the lights on my Charlie Brown Christmas Tree. She made my tree look amazing.

Once the cookies were cool, we put vanilla and chocolate frosting on them. Made them look even yummier then they were before. Once they were frosted, I placed the cookies in the fridge for a good thirty minutes. That way the frosting would harden and make it less messy to eat.

All in all I can say it was a great day. Thankful God gave me Abby in my life. She's so much fun to bake with.

RECIPES 
Candy Cane Blossom Cookies 
Ingredients
1 bag of Hershey kisses (Regular of Candy Cane flavored)
1/2 cup of better, softened
1 cup of granulated sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons of Vanilla extract
1 egg
2 cups of all purpose flour
1/4 teaspoons of salt
1/4 teaspoons of baking soda
2 tablespoons of milk (May need to add more)
Red or Green food coloring
Parchment Paper

1. Preheat oven to 350° Get two trays and place one sheet of parchment paper onto the trays.
2. In a large bowl mix together butter, sugar, vanilla, milk and a egg until well blended. In a seprate bowl add flour, baking soda and salt. Slowly combind the mixture with flour, baking soda and salt with the first mixture. 
3. Add red on green food coloring to the bowl with the dough Mix well until the dough is the color you chose. 
4. Using your hands, roll dough into one inch balls. Place balls on trays,
5. Place trays in the oven for ten minutes. 
6. While the cookies are cooking, unwrap the Hershey Kisses into a bowl. 
7. When cookies are done in the over, place the hershey kisses on top of the hot cookies. Let cookies cool down afterwards. 
8. Place cookies in the fridge for twenty minutes to let the cookies harden a bit. (Tastes better)