Whoever dwells in the shelter of the most high will rest in the shadow of the Almighty.

Psalm 91

I can’t believe Christmas is over. Think we will keep it around in our house for a bit longer. We have just a few decorative items out so clean up will be super easy this year. I hope you all had a great Christmas. I tried to do Blogmas all the way up to December 25^th but something came up and I just didn’t get around to posting that last day.

On Christmas morning I made the family a little candy bar of sorts as I never got around to making a hot cocoa bar. I also made a gingerbread house the day before Christmas eve.

I’m stubborn, and even though I was a little tired, all of a sudden I had a burst of energy and thought I could spend that day making cookies. Which made me want to make my traditional gingerbread house for the year too. We moms always try to put too much on our plates for the holidays. We just want to make our family happy and we love seeing that on their faces when we do.

Well, my gingerbread house didn’t turn out so well. Too much on the plate you guys. Any other moms out there reading this now, take that as a big hint, Give yourselves a break. Even when your little ones are all grown up, you will still mother them and want to make them happy whenever you can.

I’m telling you…fresh real gingerbread houses baked and made by hand taste so yummy. I started this gingerbread house tradition years ago when my now grown children were little after I got tired of throwing away those box kits that nobody eats because they taste like cardboard.

What a waste I always thought. The chickens didn’t really eat them either, nothing edible about them…just gross. And the candy that comes with them…has to be a thousand years old. So wasteful. You all know how I am about that. Might go a little overboard with that one.

Think they finally made gingerbread houses a trend now as I keep seeing so many show up year after year. To just be thrown away after the holidays. Must have thousands stored in warehouses somewhere to get rid of. You know, anytime I see an ad over and over and over…my thoughts get to thinking and I ask myself…

“ Why do they want us to eat this or buy this so badly…why are they pushing this product so much?”

How many food items out there have you all of a sudden seen in ads over and over recently? Think about it, your smart…you will get it when you read between these lines.

So easy to package up poison now, just put it in a really pretty package, advertise like crazy and push those sales through photos of everyone competing with everyone for the best gingerbread houses.

Think about the fuel it takes to ship those boxes over here on all those ships. Then think about all the chemicals and unnatural ingredients that our children are licking off their fingers putting those terrible ingredients inside their little bellies. It takes time to make things ourselves but it is so much better for us when we do that. I wish more people could understand this but instead they only do what their screens tell them to. Some people that is, not all.

In the beginning I used to draw out a house pattern on an empty cardboard cereal box and then I found a cookie cutter set to make a whole gingerbread house with. Made things so much easier.

I made my cookie dough too soft again so the roof caved in. My husband made me laugh when he looked at my house and said I did not get any of my dad’s traits in making roofs, as my father was a roofer.

I’m still learning all the steps of baking as I am not a baker you guys. Anyway, here it is. Looks a mess but it does taste good. It was a mess last year too. Hope this isn’t a premonition to the New Year coming up. It actually came out better looking then last years gingerbread house.

Oh, and we couldn’t find the cake decorating bags so my daughter made me a fake one using a zip lock bag. The tip came out at the bottom and frosting exploded everywhere. I tried using a knife to finish off decorating the house and it looked sloppy but hey…I accomplished my goal the best I could and another year and a different gingerbread house was made once again.

I also tried making a cherry dessert this month . I had some can pie feelings from the grocery store in our pantry so I decided to make a cherry treat for the family one morning and looked up a recipe for cherry bars.

My dessert turned out more like a cobbler. I was going to take a fancy food photo like they do on Instagram or what ever social media site out there, but when I came back into the kitchen this is what I discovered. It was an edible hit, which is much better in the big picture of things. Such a hit, that many second helpings were eaten, mostly by my son. These kinds of photos down below are the best really, as there is a story being told here, a story that shows how delicious it really was.

When we finally left the house to venture out we went to the grocery store to get Christmas dinner supplies. I couldn’t believe how high the prices went up in the three weeks we were home. I know all around the world everyone is experiencing inflation now but I do believe Phoenix is one of the highest in our country, if not the highest that is.

I walked by the eggs and saw their price and limit to one cart a purchase and was thankful we had chickens. What a frightening mess we are all in.

We didn’t get all our Christmas shopping done in the time we were at home resting from this latest flu that hit the whole world along with inflation. So we took our daughter and son to one of their favorite types of stores to shop at and let them pick out those last minute gifts in person.

We go early when ever we shop to avoid crowds and as soon as it starts getting past a certain time we leave to go back home. We never go out at night now. The city of Phoenix is huge. The art store we were at was in an area I used to shop in when I was a teenager. I was shocked to see how much it has grown. I will definitely go back to explore all the new shops everywhere by foot some day, but not a week before Christmas. The traffic gets bad and we had to get home.

When we got back home it was so nice and peaceful, very quiet. Living and being out in a city of millions is becoming too much for us. This is something I have noticed I write about a lot lately, as you can tell, it is really bothering me. I believe there are actually more people in this city then what they may want us to believe. All you have to do is go out into it at night and witness what is happening here. Eyes don’t lie even when statistics do.

That night , when we were safely inside our home,I put up the little IKEA tree we bought that day for $12 on sale and hung up some ornaments that I had bought from our Fall road trip adventure. I did enjoy visiting those southern states.

This Christmas was a simple one, like we always like it. Watched some of our favorite Christmas movies that week, made egg omelets for the family in the mornings and I watched a vlogger I follow where she taught us how to make Mall cinnamon rolls at home. It was a hack that was trending at the time she said.

Cinnamon rolls that tasted just like the ones you get at the Mall. You know…the giant juicy, lots of brown sugar and glaze cinnamon rolls from the Mall or the state fairs, yep, those ones. Made the whole house smell wonderful for Christmas morning.

That’s about it for December updates.

To all my followers, please stay safe out there you guys, I hope you are all healthy and happy. May you all have the best New Year ever, and May God bless you and guide you, keeping you safe in all the days in this new year of 2023. Thank you for your likes, follows and comments.

And do not have fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness; instead, expose them. For it is shameful to speak of those things which are done by them in secret. But all things are exposed when they are revealed by the light for everything that becomes visible is light.

Ephesians 5:11-13