November 2023 – Stephanie Richey Art

Christmas: A Time To Share

Serving and sharing are a huge part of the Christmas season. Here are some ideas to get you started.

I love that the Christmas season brings out the best in most people. People are looking for ways to serve others and to share what they have with the people around them. Often, we want to find ways to help other but it’s sometimes hard to think of ideas. I know I personally like to come up with a few new ideas, or unique ways of serving or sharing.

Consequently I love that my Church puts out a fun list every year with ideas on how to share our light with others. There are really simple ideas that take just a minute or two, and there are more complex ideas that take a little bit of planning and preparation.

Below is the printable from their website, clicking on the image will take you to the website where you can print the list for easy reference. You’ll also find a fun idea generator with 3 different options: Do What, For Whom, When. There are some fun ideas that generates as well.

No matter what you do, getting out and lighting up someone else’s life (in good ways) is never a bad thing. I challenge you to do several from this list, from the generator on the website, or fun ideas and traditions you have in your family. It will make your own Christmas season more meaningful, and help someone around you have a more meaningful season as well.

Light the World - 50 Ways to Let Your Light Shine. Provided by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Holiday Season

Christmas can be a stressful time of year, but there are a few things we’ve done to help simplify and make it less stressful.

Picture of a Christmas tree made out of blue stars.

I love the whole holiday season. For me it starts about 1 week before Thanksgiving and ends when the kids go back to school after the New Year. But, this season is also one of the more stressful times of year as well. I don’t know if it’s mom’s in general or just me, but there is so much to do in preparation for Christmas.

Now that my kids are older though, Christmas has gotten a little bit easier as the kids understand better everything involved in the process of getting there, and they’re a lot more laid back. This has made a huge difference in my stress levels. But today I thought I would share a few things that make Christmas less stressful for me.

First, and this one requires a little bit older children. I give my kids a budget, and we stick with it. This helps me not spend too much money, and it also makes them very thoughtful about what they put on their list. They do a fair amount of research before asking for what they want because their budget isn’t very big.

Shop Early

Next, I try to get all my shopping done by the end of the first week in December, at least for our immediate family. I have to mail almost all of our extended family Christmas presents as well, so those need to be done before December 10 to ensure that they make it on time.

I keep the decorating to a minimum. This one annoys a couple of my kids. But when they have their own houses, they can decorate to their hearts content. I don’t enjoy cleaning the decorations up after Christmas, so the fewer the better. But that means that the decorations we do put up have a fair amount of sentimental value and we enjoy getting out what we do have and finding the perfect place for it.

I have a party on Christmas Eve most years, which is actually my favorite part of the Christmas season. But, in years past it was stressful getting ready. Over the years I have learned to put everything I’m going to need on my shopping list right after Thanksgiving so that I can begin buying the nonperishable items early and don’t have a huge shopping list right before Christmas. I can also buy on sale, which alleviates my budget a little bit, which reduces my stress levels.

When my kids were little I used to wait to wrap presents until Christmas Eve. I have no idea why I did that; I think I just didn’t have a ton of time anyway. I am still bad at getting it done early, but I usually try to get a few done here and there so that the number I wrap on Christmas Eve is much fewer. Last year I had a couple kids willing to help wrap their siblings presents. It was super nice having the help and they enjoyed knowing what their siblings were getting beforehand.

Picture of an evergreen tree forest with dome trees decorated for Christmas.

The other thing I love doing is taking cookies to friends and neighbors. We used to do that on December 23, my husband wanting us to stop at each house and carol. I dislike caroling, I don’t know why. But we usually plan on getting those plates of goodies done a week before, and having multiple drivers in the house so we can divide and conquer, making it less stressful as well.

I don’t know if it’s the age of our family members or if I’m finally getting things figured out after more than 20 years of having kids and doing Christmas, but I am learning. If any of you have any ideas about how you make your Christmas’s less stressful I would love to hear your ideas!

Baking, Baking, Baking

I love Thanksgiving, but I have to have a timeline to make sure I get everything done.

I enjoy baking, except when that’s all I do for several days. But I love Thanksgiving, so it’s all worthwhile. I don’t enjoy baking for probably a week after Thanksgiving though. I think this is why it’s nice to have so many leftovers, so you don’t have to!

I like to get as much done ahead of time as possible. I only have 1 oven, well 2, but one’s a woodfired cookstove, so if we light it, I use it more for warming than for cooking, although it will do that, it just takes a lot longer.

My schedule usually starts on Tuesday. I got the turkey out of the freezer and put it in cold water to thaw most of the way, and then put it in my fridge until Thursday morning. Then I got all my pie dough made, the chocolate pie done, and pecan pie bars finished last night.

Today, Wednesday, I made the rest of the pies (pumpkin still in the oven), and I am waiting to bake the rolls. I also cut up the bread for the stuffing so that it can sit out overnight to dry. If it’s not totally dry by morning I will put it in the oven for a few minutes before the turkey goes in.

Tomorrow will be cooking most of the stuff we want hot. Turkey, stuffing, green beans, mashed potatoes, and sweet potatoes. I will also make a veggie tray, fruit salad, and a cheese and pickle tray. Although, the night is not over, I may make the fruit salad tonight and cut up the cheese as well. We’ll see.

Today was also the big decision day for me. Well, I made the decision several days ago, but I took care of the paperwork today. I decided to go with the publisher and get my book started with them. I am excited but nervous as this was never part of the winter budget. I felt like this was the direction I needed to take however, so I am going to leave it in the Lord’s hands to help us pay for it. I will keep you all updated as we go along as this is a new experience for me, and I am excited to see where it takes me!

Favorite Thanksgiving Recipes

I love Thanksgiving, and these are some of my families favorite recipes.

Last Sunday I shared with you our menu for Thanksgiving. I forgot to add the cranberry sauce, but that is a must on our table. Anyway, several people asked about some of the recipes for some of our favorites, so I am going to share them here.

Pecan Pie Bars

2 C Flour
1 C packed Brown Sugar
3/4 C butter, softened but still cool
2 C roughly chopped Pecans, I like bigger chunks
1 can Sweetened Condensed Milk

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Combine flour and brown sugar, mix well. Cut in butter until crumbly. Press into the bottom of a 13x9x2 inch baking dish leaving a small lip around to contain the milk. Spread out pecans evenly and then pour sweetened condensed milk evenly over the top. Bake for 15-20 minutes or until sweetened condensed milk is golden and bubbly. Cool for several hours to allow the sweetened condensed milk to firm back up. I like to make these the day before so they have plenty of time to cool off. Also, I don’t toast my pecans ahead of time as they are going in the oven anyway. You could toast your pecans beforehand if you so desire.

This next recipe is my husband’s favorite way to eat carrots. The original recipe comes from the Betty Crocker cookbook, but I have modified it slightly for our tastes. It’s super simple.

Steamed Carrots

1 1/2 lbs Carrots (or as many as will fit in your steamer basket)
2 Tbsp Butter
1/2 tsp Salt
1/2 tsp ground Nutmeg

Steam the carrots until they are tender but not mushy. Remove to serving bowl. Add butter, salt and nutmeg. Adjust the last 3 ingredients as needed for the amount of carrots you have. Serve warm.

My family loves Mashed Potatoes, but I like to add a few things to bump up the flavor. These are great by themselves as they have tons of flavor, but they are also excellent with gravy.

Flavorful Mashed Potatoes

Potatoes – I’m not sure how many, this one I’ve never measured, but it fills an 8 quart pot 3/4 full of potatoes. I think it’s about 5-6 pounds
1 C Sour Cream
1/2 C Butter
1 Tbsp Salt
1 tsp Pepper
1 Tbsp Onion Powder
1 Tbsp Garlic Powder
Milk if needed

The Sour Cream and butter I do measure out, everything else you kind of have to taste and add, taste and add, based upon how many potatoes you actually have. If you don’t do quite so many potatoes, you will want to reduce the Sour Cream and Butter. I add milk at the end if the consistency is still dry, I like my potatoes to be on the softer, creamier side, but you can adjust that to your liking as well, you may not need any. We also occasionally add bacon if we’re not having gravy with the potatoes.

The last one I’ll share is Sweet Potato Casserole. I don’t like super sweet sweet potatoes, I don’t like them covered in marshmallows, I like the sweet potatoes. This recipe has just the right amount of sweet, with a little bit of crunch. The recipe originally came from Taste Of Home magazine, but as always, I’ve modified it to our liking.

Sweet Potato Casserole

2 large cans Yams (or sweet potatoes)
3 Tbsp Honey
1 tsp Vanilla

Mix those together and place in a greased 13x9x2 inch baking dish. Then mix the topping ingredients together

1/2 C chopped Pecans
2 Tbsp Brown Sugar
2 Tbsp Butter, melted
1/4 tsp ground Cinnamon
2/3 C dried fruit – I like cranberries, but you could add cherries, apricots, raisins, depending on your families tastes.

Mix the topping ingredients together and sprinkle evenly over the top of the first layer. Cover and bake at 350 degrees for 25 minutes. Remove cover and bake an additional 5 minutes. I like the canned yams as they are super quick and don’t require so much precooking of ingredients, but you could us fresh yams or sweet potatoes and prebake them and then cut into cubes.

Those are some of my favorite recipes. If you try any, let me know what you think!

Diversity of Opinion

How does censoring actually hurt society?

Picture of people with differing opinions trying to come together.

Today as I sat in Seminary my team teacher talked about James 2:17-18. It was a great lesson. Toward the end of the lesson she got out several small puzzles and had the youth get into groups and put the puzzles together. They were small, I think 20 piece puzzles, so only took just a couple minutes to put together.

After they finished putting the puzzles together, she asked a number of students to relate the puzzle to the above scripture. I thought I kind of knew where she was going with faith and works, but the diversity of answers from the students, all great answers, was impressive. It reminded me that we are all on a different level of learning, and that because of our unique experiences, we all understand things differently.

My team teacher and I are obviously much older than the students, who are high school students. But that doesn’t mean that we teach and they learn. I learn so many things from my students, and I feel like the environment is such that we can all speak and learn together.

We seem to live in a society that tries to squelch opinions that differ from our own. Seeing diversity in opinion as a bad thing, the enemy to what it is we are trying to accomplish. But I feel it is the opposite. Some of the best ideas that I have heard, most of the best learning opportunities that I have had, have come from people with differing opinions and ideas from my own. The reason these are great learning opportunities though, is because I didn’t already know or think of those things.

That’s why diversity of opinion is such a huge benefit. When we ascribe to only the things we already know, we never learn anything new. When we try to censor information we close off learning and growing opportunities. Maybe our way is the right way, maybe it’s the best way, but maybe it’s not, and usually, even if it’s a good way, or good information, when combined with new information from a different perspective, everyone learns more and growth continues to happen.

Regardless of what we think we know, or how smart we think we are, we can all take time to listen to others ideas and opinions. Learning opportunities come from all sorts of different people, and when we start to think we’re smarter than someone else, we lose out on opportunities for growth. I am so grateful for what the youth teach me on a daily basis as I have had opportunity to teach them.