You know what I love about the week before Christmas?  The way holiday decorations pop up on all the houses, in all the neighborhoods, all around the country.  I’m not sure what it is exactly – maybe it’s just the festivity of it all, maybe it reminds me of the way my dad used to decorate our house when I was growing up – but something about all those lights and lawn ornamentation just makes me giggle.

My most favorite aspect of holiday lights and decorations on neighborhood houses is when Christmas happens to throw up all over a house. You know what I mean: the one house on the street that has outdone everyone else in at least a three block radius; the house you could see from space if you had the ability to look for it from there.  I call that Christmas throw-up, and I love it.  What constitutes Christmas throw-up is largely subjective – my completely over-the-top house may not be the same as yours.  However, there is the rare occasion where everyone can agree that Christmas has thrown up on a house, and I will give you a couple of well-known examples.

• There is the Bronx Christmas House, which goes to the extreme of putting Rockettes on the roof.  Tacky, but also weirdly cool.
• There is the show Crazy Christmas Lights on TLC, which highlights some extra thrown-up-on houses.
• There is the Crazy Lights Tour, where you can see houses that have had Christmas throw up on them all over the country.

Like I said above, when I was younger my dad used to decorate our house for Christmas.  What I know now, that I did NOT know then, was that our house was a fantastic example of Christmas throw-up.  We had lights EVERYWHERE.  They were on the house.  They were on the trees.  They were on the bushes.  And then there were the light-up holiday lawn ornaments.  Santa Claus, a complete nativity, 2 giant candlesticks, and a Santa with a sleigh and 8 reindeer is what I remember – there’s a good chance I’m forgetting something.  I thought this was all normal.  When people came by to take pictures of our house with all the lights ablaze, I thought that’s JUST WHAT PEOPLE DO.  I never realized it was Christmas throw-up until I was an adult.  So I feel I might be a good judge of what constitutes being excited for the holiday, and what constitutes Christmas throw-up.

Here are a few examples of houses with nice decorations that I either took myself locally, or had a friend elsewhere in the country send to me:

In the next category are houses that Christmas hasn’t quite thrown up on, but that went a little too far.  This especially applies when you have something that blows up on the lawn.

To be clear – I don’t think any of these houses are owned by crazy people who waste electricity.  I GET IT.  And what I found as I started looking for places to take pictures was that houses like these tend to cluster together.  It’s like a “keeping up with the Joneses” thing.  And I don’t see anything wrong with that.  Especially if you have kids, who will grow up with a wonderful tradition to look back on.

Which brings me to my next grouping of photos.  These are DEFINITELY houses that Christmas threw up on.  I consider them all runners-up to the centerpiece of this post, the winner of the prize for Christmas throw-up, 2009.  (To be clear – there is no actual PRIZE.  Only fame and glory.)

This next one is actually ONE HOUSE.  But there was so much to photograph I had to split it into two pictures:

After that, I bet you’re wondering what the Christmas throw-up winner could look like.  Here it is, in all it’s glory… please note, this house also plays music for all to hear!

If anyone out there knows about even better examples of houses that Christmas threw up on, feel free to share!

© 2009, The Table Has Shoes (and Other Ambiguities). All rights reserved.

Every year at Christmas, I make cookies to give away to my family and friends. Usually it’s on a small scale – a couple of kinds of cookies or cupcakes. This year, though, I have a lot more people to incorporate into my giving. Initially this freaked me out, because I had no idea how I’d get it all done. Then I realized this was an opportunity to have fun with the baking, and I began to see it as a challenge. So… I have decided to make 15 types of cookies/candy and 3 kinds of bread in the next 12 days. I will give away almost all of what I make to family and friends (I suspect some of it will disappear mysteriously overnight when little elves in my apartment get hungry). With any luck, the next 12 days will chronicle my attempt at making this happen – or else it’s going to document my horrible failure!

Today is Day Three of my 12 Days of Christmas Cookies Series, and I made 5 Layer Bars. I got the recipe from the Food Network website.

Since we’re still over a week away from Christmas, I’ve been trying to start this whole project with cookies and candies that will stay fresh over the next week.  Day One and Day Two are good examples of things I made with storage times in mind.  I used the same strategy for Day Three.  I decided after reading the recipe (below) that there wasn’t a whole lot that could go bad before Christmas in the 5 Layer Bars.

5 Layer Bars

1 and 1/2 cups graham cracker crumbles

1 stick of butter (1/2 cup), melted

1/2 cup chopped pecans

1 cup butterscotch chips

1 cup shredded coconut

1 cup semisweet chocolate morsels

1 (14 oz.) can sweetened condensed milk

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.  Place the graham cracker crumbs in a bowl and combine with the melted butter.  Press firmly into a 9×13 inch baking dish.  Sprinkle the butterscotch chips, coconut, pecans, and chocolate morsels over the graham cracker crumb crust.  Pour the sweetened condensed milk over the layers.  Bake for 30 minutes.  Allow to cool and then cut into bars.

I chose to make these bars this year because I have always been curious about how to make them.  I have an aunt who makes them most years at Christmas, but my mom never did, so I had no experience with making them myself.

I assembled all the ingredients:

Then I mixed up the butter and graham cracker crumbs – I should stop here to tell everyone that I chose to melt my stick of butter in the microwave, and managed to make it explode EVERYWHERE – to the point where Alex asked me how to clean butter off the floor and ceiling.  I have no idea how it got out of the microwave and to those locations!  Once those ingredients were ready, I made a crust out of them in my 9X13 inch pan by pressing them down and out with my fingers until they were evenly distributed in the pan and firmly packed:

Then it was time to sprinkle the other ingredients all over the crust.  Easy and quick!

Once all the different chips and nuts were in the pan, it was time for my favorite part: drizzling the sweetened condensed milk over it all!  This part took longer than I thought it would, but I think it took so long because I did a crappy  job of opening the can.  No matter, the drizzling was oddly enjoyable to me – I think it might have made me feel creative.

Then it was into the oven, and 30 minutes later I had 5 Layer Bars!  I cut them into slightly smaller bars than I normally would have so I’d have more to give away.

Do they taste good?  No idea!  Judging by the tiny pieces that broke off as I cut them, which Alex and I ate as our “taste test,” I would say yes… but we probably won’t know for sure until we start eating them closer to Christmas.

© 2009, The Table Has Shoes (and Other Ambiguities). All rights reserved.

Every year at Christmas, I make cookies to give away to my family and friends.  Usually it’s on a small scale – a couple of kinds of cookies or cupcakes.  This year, though, I have a lot more people to incorporate into my giving.  Initially this freaked me out, because I had no idea how I’d get it all done.  Then I realized this was an opportunity to have fun with the baking, and I began to see it as a challenge. So… I have decided to make 15 types of cookies/candy and 3 kinds of bread in the next 12 days.  I will give away almost all of what I make to family and friends (I suspect some of it will disappear mysteriously overnight when little elves in my apartment get hungry).  With any luck, the next 12 days will chronicle my attempt at making this happen – or else it’s going to document my horrible failure!

Today is Day Two of my 12 Days of Christmas Cookies Series, and I made chocolate nut bark.  I got the recipe out of the December 2009 issue of RealSimple Magazine.

I know I made peppermint bark on Day One, so it might seem like a bit of a cop-out to be making a second “bark” on Day Two.  The success of the peppermint bark has given me confidence in working with chocolate, though, so I’m doing the chocolate nut bark before I lose my nerve!

Chocolate Nut Bark

2 lbs chopped up semi-sweet chocolate

1 lb (or whatever looks good) of mixed nuts

Set up a double boiler and melt the chocolate until it is smooth.  Pour the melted chocolate on to a parchment paper-lined cookie sheet and spread it out evenly.  Cover the chocolate with the mixed nuts, pressing the nuts into the chocolate firmly.  Place the cookie sheet in the refrigerator for at least 1 hour to allow the chocolate to set.  Once cooled, break the chocolate bark into bite-sized pieces.

Once again, I used chocolate chips for the recipe.  I’m just too lazy to chop my own chocolate!  I also used sliced almonds and whole shelled pecans, but I’m pretty sure any nut would work for this recipe.

This was a really easy recipe – all I had to do was dump my bag of chocolate chips into my make-shift double boiler and stir a bit until the chocolate was smooth and shiny:

This chocolate was a bit stickier than the white chocolate was yesterday, but I still got it onto the cookie sheet and pressed the almonds and pecans down with plenty of time before it started to cool.

Now, here is something I do have to say: it took longer than an hour for the chocolate to set.  I had to leave it in the refrigerator for about two and a half hours before I was sure it was ready.  Not really a big deal, just good to know.  Then it was time to break up the sheet of chocolate bark, and according to my taste-tester, the final results are delicious!

© 2009, The Table Has Shoes (and Other Ambiguities). All rights reserved.

Every year at Christmas, I make cookies to give away to my family and friends.  Usually it’s on a small scale – a couple of kinds of cookies or cupcakes.  This year, though, I have a lot more people to incorporate into my giving.  Initially this freaked me out, because I had no idea how I’d get it all done.  Then I realized this was an opportunity to have fun with the baking, and I began to see it as a challenge. So… I have decided to make 15 types of cookies/candy and 3 kinds of bread in the next 12 days.  I will give away almost all of what I make to family and friends (I suspect some of it will disappear mysteriously overnight when little elves in my apartment get hungry).  With any luck, the next 12 days will chronicle my attempt at making this happen – or else it’s going to document my horrible failure!

Today is Day One of my 12 Days of Christmas Cookies Series, and I made peppermint bark.  I found this recipe on the Food Network’s website.

Peppermint Bark

2 pounds white chocolate, chopped

approximately 1 cup candy canes, chopped

1 tsp. peppermint flavoring (optional)

Melt the white chocolate pieces in a double boiler until smooth.  Add the peppermint flavoring and the chopped candy canes to the melted chocolate and mix together.  Remove the mixture from the heat and immediately spread it evenly on a cookie sheet layered with parchment paper.  Refrigerate for at least 45 minutes before breaking the peppermint bark into pieces.

I was really nervous about making trying this recipe, that’s why I tried it out first.  My sister used to work for Godiva, and she had given me a warning about making barks of any kind – something about tempering chocolate being really hard and me not having a chocolate dipper.  FANTASTIC, I thought to myself.  This is likely to be a disaster.  But I assembled my ingredients anyway:

The recipe said to use a hammer to crunch up the candy canes, so I put them in a large plastic bag, sealed it, and then hammered away!  SUPER FUN.

Once everything was ready – candy canes crushed, cookie sheet covered in parchment paper – I got my double boiler ready.  I don’t actually HAVE a double boiler, so I took a medium-sized pot and filled it with about an inch of water and brought it to a boil.  When the water was ready, I put a pyrex bowl over the pot and filled it with my white chocolate.  Now, I have no idea if this was the right thing to do, but I decided to use Ghirardelli white chocolate chips instead of a bar of chocolate that I would have had to chop up.  It seemed to work out all right – the pictures below pretty much tell the story of the melting of the white chocolate:

Once the chocolate was melted, I added in my peppermint extract and crushed candy canes:

Everything went surprisingly well, even once I spread the mixture on my cookie sheet, set it, and then chopped it up – mine sat in the refrigerator closer to an hour and a half, rather than the 45 minutes recommended by the recipe.  I didn’t do that on purpose – I just forgot to check it!

Here is the finished product – I’m SO PROUD!

So my holiday baking is off on the right foot.  Stay tuned for tomorrow – Day Two!

© 2009, The Table Has Shoes (and Other Ambiguities). All rights reserved.