Enjoying the Christmas Season

Good frosty morning, cafe friends! Brrr. Is it cold where you are? We had morning temps in the negative digits this week, and it seems that every morning we wake up to fresh snow. It's a good time for coffee!

I am still enjoying the days of Christmas...baking, crafting, enjoying time with family. It's been a wonderful Christmas, filled with good food and board games and movies.

Don't you just love this thermos? I found it at Macy's this Christmas, and I loved it so much that I bought one for myself and five others to give as gifts. It's from Martha Stewarts' holiday collection, and I love the vintage retro vibe. I will be taking coffee (and maybe hot chocolate) with me everywhere this winter!

I've been making some felted hearts this week. My friend, Sandy at the PTI forum was selling her Primitve Stitched Hearts dies, and these have been on my wish list for a while. So fun! I added some holly leaves and berries. Going to try these in different colors for Valentine's Day, too.

I made my very first Buche de Noel this Christmas! The Yule Log turned out better than I expected, and it was delicious, too!

I made mine the easy way. I used a box devil's food cake mix in a jelly roll pan lined in parchment paper. When it was done baking, I turned it out on a clean dish towel sprinkled with powdered sugar, and then rolled it warm and let it cool. After a few hours, I unrolled it and spread a cream cheese/butter/powdered sugar frosting, then rolled it back up. Then I frosted it in a milk chocolate frosting, giving it some wood grain texture with a fork.

The fun part was adding the toadstools (raspberry toppers on segments of Pirouette cookies) and acorns (mini Nilla wafers frosted and stuck to Hershey's kisses), and tree fungi (sliced almonds) to finish it off.

You know it's fancy when my son, John, got his phone out to take a photo!  I have the feeling this one went on Snapchat. :)

I also made some really amazing chocolate chip scones from a recipe I found on Pinterest:

https://sugarspunrun.com/petite-chocolate-chip-scones/

These were so good that I had to make a second batch to send home with John before he took off yesterday. Mmm. The perfect accompaniment to an afternoon latte.

Here's Miss Jemma on Christmas Day, watching the puppy sleeping on the Hallmark Channel's holiday yule log program.

She thought that was a really good idea, too.

We're settling in for a long winter's nap!

Hope your weekend is filled with cozy moments, too!

Blessings, cafe friends!