X'mas Recipes - Hard Sauce

Hard Sauce

Perfect for Christmas and Thanksgiving pies or bread or even by the spoonful

Ingredients:

1 stick of butter, softened
1 egg
2 boxes of powdered (confectionary) sugar
Sherry (Harvey's Bristol Cream works well)

Directions:

1. Mix butter and egg
2. Add sugar slowly, mixing as you add.
3. As it gets thicker, add a little sherry at a time until it is desired consistency (generally like icing for a cake).
4. Refrigerate

Merry X'mas

What is Christmas? It is tenderness for the past, courage for the present, hope for the future. It is a fervent wish that every cup may overflow with blessings rich and eternal, and that every path may lead to peace.
~ Agnes M. Pharo


The merry family gatherings-- The old, the very young; The strangely lovely way they Harmonize in carols sung. For Christmas is tradition time, Traditions that recall the precious memories down the years, The sameness of them all.
~ Helen Lowrie Marshall


The star of Bethlehem was a star of hope that led the wise men to the fulfillment of their expectations, the success of their expedition. Nothing in this world is more fundamental for success in life than hope, and this star pointed to our only source for true hope: Jesus Christ.
~ D. James Kennedy ("Following the Star" in Christmas Stories for the Heart)


The only blind person at Christmas time is he who has not Christmas in his heart.
~ Helen Keller

Christmas - Just 3 Days To Go....

Christmas is not in stories, but in the hearts of people.~ Unknown



The Christmas season reminds us that a demonstration of religion is always much better than a definition of it...especially in front of the kids.
~ Unknown



It is good to be children sometimes, and never better than at Christmas, when its mighty founder was a child himself.~ Charles Dickens



"One of the nice things about Christmas is that you can make people forget the past with a present."
~ Author Unknown



Christmas at my house is always at least six or seven times more pleasant than anywhere else. We start drinking early. And while everyone else is seeing only one Santa Claus, we'll be seeing six or seven.
~ W. C. Fields

Christmas - Just 4 Days To Go....

There's more, much more, to Christmas Than candlelight and cheer; It's the spirit of sweet friendship That brightens all year. It's thoughtfulness and kindness, It's hope reborn again, For peace, for understanding, And for goodwill to men!"
~ Unknown


Christmas will always be in the hearts of God's children everywhere as they extend a helping hand to a friend in need ... as they go about reflecting God's goodness in the little quiet and unheralded expressions of a loving heart ... as they share the light of the world with those who live in darkness.
~ Jane Hillsmen ("Christmas")


The best Christmas gift of all is the presence of a happy family all wrapped up with one another.
~ Unknown


The only blind person at Christmas time is he who has not Christmas in his heart.
~ Helen Keller

Lovely Christmas Poem - 5 Days To Go....

Merry Christmas, Darling - Carpenters

Greeting cards have all been sent
The Christmas rush is through
But I still have one wish to make
A special one for you

Merry Christmas darling
We're apart that's true
But I can dream and in my dreams
I'm Christmas-ing with you

Holidays are joyful
There's always something new
But every day's a holiday
When I'm near to you
The lights on my tree
I wish you could see
I wish it every day
Logs on the fire
Fill me with desire
To see you and to say

That I wish you Merry Christmas
Happy New Year, too
I've just one wish
On this Christmas Eve
I wish I were with you
I wish I were with you .....

Christmas - 6 Days To Go....

"Let us keep Christmas beautiful Without a thought of greed,

That it might live forevermore To fill our every need,

That it shall not be just a day, But last a lifetime through,

The miracle of Christmas time That brings God close to you."
~  Garnett Ann Schultz

 

Christmas is most truly Christmas when we celebrate it by giving the light of love to those who need it most.

~  Unknown

 

A lovely thing about Christmas is that it's compulsory, like a thunderstorm, and we all go through it together.

~  Garrison Keillor

 

A Christmas Blessing
During this Christmas season,
    May you be blessed
With the spirit of the season,
    which is peace,
The gladness of the season,
    which is hope,
And the heart of the season,
    which is love

Christmas - 7 Days To Go....

Christmas is the time for looking ahead courageously through the gates

of the swiftly approaching new year ... of resolving that

the coming months will reflect a kinder, more forgiving and

less heedless person than mirrored in the past.

~  Ellen V. Morgan ("Christmas is the Time")

 

 

Christmas may be a day of feasting, or of prayer,

but always it will be a day of remembrance--

a day in which we think of everything we have ever loved.
~  Augusta E. Rundel

Christmas is doing a little something extra for someone.

~  Charles Schulz

Christmas - 8 Days To Go....

Good news from heaven the angels bring,Glad tidings to the earth they sing;
To us this day a child is given,To crown us with the joy of heaven.
~ Martin Luther


Christmas, 'my child, is love in action. Every time we love, every time we give, it's 'Christmas.
~ Dale Evans Rogers


As we struggle with shopping lists and invitations, compounded by December's bad weather, it is good to be reminded that there are people in our lives who are worth this aggravation, and people to whom we are worth the same.
~ Donald E. Westlake

Christmas - 10 Days To Go....

Love came down at Christmas;
Love all lovely, love divine;
Love was born at Christmas,
Stars and angels gave the sign.

~  Christina Rossetti

 

 

Mankind is a great, an immense family...

This is proved by what we feel in our hearts at Christmas.

~  Pope John XXIII

 

 

May joy be yours today,
And radiantly abide
Within your heart until
Another Christmastide.

~  Gail Brook Burket

 ("May Joy Be Yours Today")

Christmas - 11 Days To Go ....

Christmas is sights, especially the sights of Christmas reflected in the eyes of a child.

~  William Saroyan

 

 

Christmas is the season for kindling the fire of hospitality in the hall, the genial flame of charity in the heart.

~  Washington Irving

 

 

Christmas is the season of joy, of holiday greetings exchanged, of gift-giving,and of families united.

~  Norman Vincent Peale

Christmas - 12 days to go....

Christmas is the season for kindling the fire of hospitality in the hall, the genial flame of charity in the heart.
~ Washington Irving


Don't expect too much of Christmas Day. You can't crowd into it any arrears of unselfishness and kindliness that may have accrued during the past twelve months.
~ Oren Arnold


The rooms were very still while the pages were softly turned and the winter sunshine crept in to touch the bright heads and serious faces with a Christmas greeting.
~ Louisa May Alcott

Christmas - 13 days to go...

"Christmas began in the heart of God. It is complete only when it reaches the heart of man."

~  Unknown

 

 

"It came without ribbons, It came without tags, It came without packages, boxes, or bags. Christmas can't be bought from a store... Maybe Christmas means a little bit more."
~  Dr.Seuss

 

 

Christmas hath a darkness; Brighter than the blazing noon,; Christmas hath a chillness Warmer than the heat of June, Christmas hath a beauty Lovelier than the world can show: For Christmas bringeth Jesus, Brought for us so low.
~  Christina Rosetti

Christmas - 14 days to go

Two things upon this changing earth can neither change nor end; the splendor of Christ's humble birth, the love of friend for friend.

~  Unknown

 

 

Do give books - religious or otherwise - for Christmas. They're never fattening, seldom sinful, and permanently personal.

~  Lenore Hershey

 

 

Next to a circus there ain't nothing that packs up and tears out faster than the Christmas spirit.

~  Kin Hubbard

Christmas - 15 days to go....

Christmas is the one time of year when you can count on smiling faces and bright lights and awesome gifts and giant twinkling trees and family reunions and childish games and believing in that old man that you know doesn't exist. Christmas is the time when dreams come true.

~ Unknown

 

"Next to a circus there ain't nothing that packs up and tears out faster than the Christmas spirit."       

~  Kin Hubbard

 

A Christmas Blessing
During this Christmas season,
    May you be blessed
With the spirit of the season,
    which is peace,
The gladness of the season,
    which is hope,
And the heart of the season,
    which is love.

Christmas - 16 days to go....

Christmas is doing a little something extra for someone.

~  Charles Schulz

 

Christmas is not just a day, an event to be observed and speedily forgotten. It is a spirit which should permeate every part of our lives.

~  William Parks (Missions)

 

Christmas is sights, especially the sights of Christmas reflected in the eyes of a child.

~  William Saroyan

 

Christmas is not a date. It is a state of mind.

~  Mary Ellen Chase (New York Times)

Christmas - 17 days to go....

Fail not to call to mind, in the course of the twenty-fifth of this month, that the Divinest Heart that ever walked the earth was born on that day; and then smile and enjoy yourselves for the rest of it; for mirth is also of Heaven's making.
~  Leigh Hunt

 

 

Christmas Eve was a night of song that wrapped itself about you like a shawl. But it warmed more than your body. It warmed your heart...Filled it, too, with melody that would last forever.

~  Bess Streeter Aldrich

 

 

Bless us Lord, this Christmas, with quietness of mind; Teach us to be patient and always to be kind.
~  Helen Steiner Rice

Christmas - 18 days to go....

Instead of being a time of unusual behavior, Christmas is perhaps the only time in the  year when people can obey their natural impulses and express their true sentiments without feeling self-conscious and, perhaps, foolish.  Christmas, in short, is about the only chance a man has to be himself.

~  Francis C. Farley

Christmas is a time when kids tell Santa what they want and adults pay for it.  Deficits are when adults tell the government what they want and their kids pay for it.

~  Richard Lamm

Blessed is the season which engages the whole world in a conspiracy of love!

~  Hamilton Wright Mabie

Love is what's in the room with you at Christmas if you stop opening presents and listen.

~  Unknown

Christmas - 19 days to go...

Christmas is the season for kindling the fire of hospitality in the hall, the genial flame of charity in the heart.

~  Washington Irving

 

 

Don't expect too much of Christmas Day. You can't crowd into it any arrears of unselfishness and kindliness that may have accrued during the past twelve months.

~  Oren Arnold

 

 

The rooms were very still while the pages were softly turned and the winter sunshine crept in to touch the bright heads and serious faces with a Christmas greeting.

~  Louisa May Alcott

Countdown - 20 more days to go....

When Christmas bells are swinging above the fields of snow,
We hear sweet voices ringing from lands of long ago,
And etched on vacant places
Are half-forgotten faces
Of friends we used to cherish, and loves we used to know.

~  Ella Wheeler Wilcox

("Christmas Fancies" Poems of Power)

 

 

It comes every year and will go on forever. And along with Christmas belong the keepsakes and the customs. Those humble, everyday things a mother clings to, and ponders, like Mary in the secret spaces of her heart.
~  Marjorie Holmes

 

 

Christmas is a race to see which gives out first - your money or your feet.
~   Unknown

Christmas - Just 22 day to go....

Let us keep Christmas beautiful
Without a thought of greed,
That it might live forevermore
To fill our every need,

That it shall not be just a day,
But last a lifetime through,
The miracle of Christmastime
That brings God close to you.

~  Garnett Ann Schultz

 

 

Let us remember that the Christmas heart is a giving heart, a wide open heart that thinks of others first. The birth of the baby Jesus stands as the most significant event in all history, because it has meant the pouring into a sick world the healing medicine of love which has transformed all manner of hearts for almost two thousand years... Underneath all the bulging bundles is this beating Christmas heart.

~  George Matthew Adams (The Christmas Heart)

 

 

Love came down at Christmas;
Love all lovely, love divine;
Love was born at Christmas,
Stars and angels gave the sign.

~  Christina Rossetti