Start planning for your holiday baking!

What better way to stay home and get into the holiday spirit than by baking some festive treats? Cookies are a seasonal favourite – not only can they feed the whole family, but they’re especially comforting on a cold winter day when enjoyed still warm from the oven. Below, we’ve collected a couple of favourite recipes you can try at home.

Snowball Cookies (Saucepan Cookies)

Prep time: 15 minutes

Cook time*: 10 minutes

Total time: 25 minutes

*Extra time is needed setting and cooling.

Ingredients

·      1 ½ cups margarine

·      2 ¼ cups sugar

·      6 eggs

·      1 ½ tsp. salt

·      3 cups chopped dates

·      3 tsp. vanilla

·      1 ½ cups chopped walnuts (optional)

·      6 cups rice krispies

·      2+ cups of shredded coconut

Instructions

·      Add the margarine, sugar, eggs and salt to a medium saucepan and cook on low heat for 10 minutes.

·      Add in the vanilla and let the mixture cool until it is not too hot to handle.

·      Fold in the rice krispies and chopped walnuts.

·      Form into bite-sized balls and roll into the shredded coconut to create a “snowball.”

·      Leave the cookies to cool and set before serving.

Best Fudgy Chocolate Crinkle Cookies from Café Delites

Gluten Free Frosted Sugar Cookies from What the Fork

Holiday Planning Guide

This year the holidays will look a little different for everyone. While the usual gatherings and activities might not be possible, there are still many activities you and your household can get ready for before the holiday season starts in earnest!

Inventory decorations

For many it might be too early to put up decorations, but that doesn’t mean you can’t pull out what you have and start to do an inventory of your collection. Go through what items you have available and where you want to use them. Check through ornaments to make sure nothing is cracked or broken and test out lights to make sure no bulbs are burned out. By going through what you already have, you can avoid purchasing unnecessary decorations and also make sure you have time to order anything that might need replacing.

 While the weather is still nice, it is a good idea to get outdoor lights and decorations up (even if you don’t turn them on for a couple of weeks). If you have a tree in storage you can pull it out and make sure it is still in good shape or look at ordering in a real tree in advance. Plan out your strategy and holiday decorating early so even if circumstances change, you have everything you need.

Prepare gifts

If you haven’t already completed your holiday shopping, check out our post on getting a head start on your holiday shopping whether online or in-store. Regardless of where you are at with your gifts, it’s a good idea to sort out what materials you have to wrap, decorate and distribute gifts to your family and friends.

Check how much wrapping paper you have left over from last year and estimate how much more you might need. If you already have an idea of what gifts you are purchasing, think about what else you might be able to use. How about reusable gift bags or boxes? In our current circumstances, you may also want to consider whether more sturdier materials are needed if they are being mailed or delivered in advance.

As always, at Calm Order we recommend when possible to consider giving a gift that doesn’t involve any clutter. This is especially important now when limiting physical contact is essential. You can still personalize electronic gifts by designing a festive e-Card or video message. Check out our post for clutter-free gift ideas!

Get packages mailed

With online ordering and mailing gifts more popular than ever this year, it is extremely important to prepare any gifts for friends and family out of town well in advance. Look into delivery times and options for wherever you need to send gifts and make sure you have everything packaged correctly and in the mail before those timelines. To make the process easier, consider if there are other options, like arranging with family and friends to send gifts at a later date. Online certificates or video announcements can also be sent in place of physicals gifts until they can get to their destination in time.

Plan festive crafts

To keep you and your family entertained during the holiday season start researching and planning for holiday baking and crafts. Pull out the festive cookie cutters, construction paper and other supplies to see what might need replacing or replenishing. Not only do these activities keep everyone in the holiday spirit, but they can also turn in to cost-effective decorations and gifts! Many of these materials can be purchased online or at stores with curb side pick-up to make planning safe and easy. While it is not safe to do activities with others in person, you can always consider hosting virtual craft and baking nights to get other family and friends involved.

Post-Holiday Organizing

The holiday season might be over, but that doesn’t mean the work is done! Once the celebrations are over there is plenty to clean-up, go through, and put away. From decorations, to presents, and all the leftovers, there is a lot to do. To help you get through the busy post-holiday season, we’ve outlined a few tips on how you can stay on track of what needs to be done:

1.     Use up the leftovers

Holiday meal leftovers are inevitable. There will always be plenty of extra turkey with all the fixings, so after the holidays are over, try and clear out room in your fridge by using up the leftover food. There are many different recipes you can make with the leftovers that go beyond just reheating the food – from turkey pot pie to turkey soup, sandwiches and other casseroles, leftovers can be remade into new meals you can take to work for lunch or enjoy for another meal. If there is still food leftover, try freezing some of the food to extend its shelf life. Just don’t forget that you have the food in your freezer!

2.     Go through your gifts

Most people just want to be able to enjoy the gifts they receive as soon as they get them. However, there are always times when clothes are the wrong size, something doesn’t work when its opened or needs to be assembled before use, or you get a gift that just isn’t right for you. Take stock of all the items you received and make a pile for anything that needs to be returned to the store. Make sure you have the proper gift receipts attached to the gifts so you don’t encounter any issues when you go to return. Check out how long you have to exchange the gift too – if you don’t have to go right away, then plan to make the trip later in January when the stores aren’t too busy.  Another pile can also be made for any clothes, blankets or other items that need to be washed or altered before use. This should be more of a priority so you can use your new gift as soon as possible! For gift certificates, tickets, or other time-sensitive gifts, make sure you take note of the use-by date and set a reminder for yourself on your phone or calendar so you don’t forget it. Lastly, make sure everything is put away in the place where it belongs, whether that is your closet, kitchen or toy bin.

3.     Put away the decorations

It might not be as much fun to take down all the holiday decorations as it was to put them all up, but your home can’t stay stuck in the holiday season forever. Start by removing all the boxes and bags from your storage and sort out what items need to go where. To make the decoration take-down seem less overwhelming, work on one room at a time. You don’t have to do it alone either – get your whole family, or even some friends, and make an activity out of the clean-up. If the weather is nice, it would also be a good time to take down any lights or outdoor decorations before they are forgotten in the New Year. This is also a good time to go through your decorations and take note of anything that needs to be replaced, like any burnt out light bulbs, broken garland strands, chipped ornaments, or broken branches. Make sure these items are either fixed or properly disposed of and set a reminder in your phone or place you regularly check to replace these items in time for next year. Once all the boxes and bags are packed up, return them to their proper storage place.

4.     Catch up with the people you couldn’t see

There never seems to be enough time to visit with friends and family over the holidays, and sometimes it is just easier to catch up in the New Year when the holiday activities are over and schedules free up. Once the regular routines set in, it can be hard to remember to plan a get together with the people you weren’t able to see over the holidays. Instead of saying you’ll just catch up in the New Year, set an actual date for later in January or even February so you have it booked and in your calendar before other activities start booking up. Make a serious commitment to get together, not just a general agreement to do “something sometime soon.”

5.     Start planning for next year

It’s never too early to think about next year! Often there are a lot of sales over Boxing Day and into the New Year, so you can start thinking about gifts early on. Start planning a shopping schedule to space out your spending and not make gift-giving as much of a financial burden. You can also take the time to plan out any new decorations you might want to purchase or make for the holidays next year and start saving any new recipes you come across for baking or holiday meals. Just make sure that anything to find or make is saved in a place you will remember so you don’t duplicate any of the items next December!