It's not Christmas time without...

books, music, and goodies galore!

Each year we add another book or two to our Christmas collection. This year we added the Fancy Nancy Christmas book, and the third in the Auntie Claus series (love this series).

We also added to our music collection: Andrea Bocelli's My Christmas, along with the MoTab's Ring! Christmas Bells. Both are absolutely wonderful. Oh, and we also bought the album Grandma Got Runover By a Reindeer by Elmo and Patsy (I'm still annoyed that I could only find it on iTunes.) We've got the music playing every day, sometimes all day long. I love the sounds of the season!

Thanks to a wonderful tip in The Joy of Cooking, we have turned our normally tasty Poppy Seed quick bread recipe into an amazing and wonderful Caramel Bread. Apparently, in quick breads, you can exchange white and brown sugars equally to alter the taste. So we did that, then removed the poppy seeds, and used Torani's Caramel syrup in lieu of the almond extract. I was a little hesitant, as I'm not usually a recipe tweaker, but I'm glad I did as the result was an instant hit.

Of course, we've also been baking up our favorite cookies. And it's not Christmas here without fudge. I make 2-3 batches over the course of the month. We give lots away, and we eat lots ourselves. My favorite recipe comes from The Better Homes and Garden's Cookbook (the red check cookbook), it's their "Remarkable Fudge" recipe-the one with marshmallow creme. Although, you really have to use a candy thermometer, as they flat out lie about the the time it takes (they say it takes 10 minutes to reach 236, but it is really 20, so be prepared). Other than that, it is a super easy recipe that makes a ton of very smooth and creamy fudge.