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Christmas Compromise
Rated by 1 member
Like many mothers, by mid-December I'm overwhelmed with visions of holiday meals to plan and make, gifts to wrap, and cards to address and mail. Yet somehow it's unthinkable to let certain family traditions slide, particularly the ones that started several grandmothers-back and continued on in the kitchen of my mother and her mother before her.
Still, I'd like to have a shred of sanity left on Christmas. So instead of ditching Wanga's Christmas cupcakes, I cheat –er– compromise.
Instead of making her angelic white cake mix from scratch, I fall back on a box of Duncan Hines. No one's the wiser. I draw the line at store-bought frosting, so I make my own (translation: mix a little milk with a lot of confectioner's sugar).
That leaves just the candy holly leaves and berries on top to contend with. With no time to drive to the specialty candy store for the spearmint-sugared gummy leaves that my mom always found, I grab a standard bag of gum drops at the grocery and slice the green ones up. My girls arrange them on frosted cupcakes, and with a few cinnamon red-hot candies, they stand in quite well for holly leaves.
On Christmas Eve, when we dig into the cupcakes and raise our mugs of hot chocolate to Wanga, I know she wouldn't mind. As long as she's still in our hearts, she'll keep my secret safe.
Here are some easy, adorable Christmas cupcakes for your family to try (cheating allowed):
Member Comments On…
Christmas Compromise
Our family gatheres at my moms about 9:00 on Christmas morning and my niece and I put together monkey bread as our yearly tradition. We thought it was going to be left out this year due to possibly having to go to our daughters first but schedules have been rearranged and the tradition has been saved one more year.
Traditon means alot to me and the thought of our family not being all together is killing me but we have compromised and are maikng it work.
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We eat pizza for our fancy Christmas Eve meal! I do set a fancy table, like my Grandmother would've done, the pizza is sometimes homemade, more likely ordered out. It makes my Mother in-law cringe though, she is from Norway and Christmas Eve is very formal there! We always have a birthday cake for Jesus as our dessert, which has been store bought if needed too. Christmas day is the same we simplify the food, we are all pretty tired out by then, who wants to do a heap of dishes anyway?
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My best friend and I have gotten together every year since we were kids to make and decorate Christmas cookies together. Now that we are older and have our own kids, it's gotten harder and harder to fit it into our bust holiday schedules. And it's nearly impossible to take the time to make the cookies from scratch. So now we just buy frozen cookie dough and devote our time to catching up, decorating the cookies, and of course, eating them. Who cares if we're "cheating" -- as long as we aren't cheating ourselves out of the spending time together because we can't bring ourselves to make real cookies?
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I love this story! I find we all get wrapped up (no pun intended!) this time of year in trying to have the "perfect" Christmas. We put alot of pressure on ourselves to find just the right gift, or host the very best party, when really it's all about sharing the spirit of the season with friends and family. And yes, I don't think Aunt Wanga would mind -- she'd be honored you're still carrying on her traditions, even if you do it in your own way.
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