My week was fairly busy, and since the Auxiliary will be sponsoring a “Bake Sale” in just a few weeks, after we finished our monthly meeting, a group of us got together and put together some Christmas cups with hot cocoa mix, a peppermint spoon, and a small bag of mini-marshmallows in Christmas type gift bags and closed them with a bow. Then, two of the ladies poured a package of gravy mixture into pint jars while several of us measured the spice mixtures into containers, which were then added to the jars, and while that was being done, the pasta and tortilla chips were being measured to complete the ingredients for a batch of “Tortilla Soup in a Jar”. They sold well enough several years ago, that we had to fill more jars! It’s fun, companion ship and work all in one!
Wednesday, my workday was busy as people have begun shopping for Christmas gifts and we have a nice assortment in our gift shop. After the Bake Sale, whatever doesn’t sell, of the soup mix and the hot cocoa cups, will be placed in our gift shop. It amazes me how quickly some things sell. We had several little ornaments that were made of felt and had stitching around the edges that I purchased and used for little gifts for my Pokeno group. I loved them because they looked handmade, and the ladies seemed to like them as well. As usual, my son is hosting Thanksgiving for our family and friends, so I will be with them. I know that two or three families won’t be able to be there, one grandson is at sea, and his family lives off, another grandson and his family also live off and won’t be able to share with us. We will miss them and pray that they may have a wonderful day.
Let us give thanks…for our families; for our friends, for our schools and their teachers; for our churches and synagogues, where we can worship freely; for our service men and women who are fighting to keep our country a free place; for the fact that we live in a country that is still free; and last, but by no means least, that we have lived to see another Thanksgiving! For the families among us who have members missing from the holiday table this year, we pray that they have the strength and courage to make it through these coming holidays, with perhaps a little lessening of the pain in their hearts. Just as HE is the “reason for the season”, at Christmas, THANKS is the first word in the name of this feast we are celebrating.
Now, as I promised here is an easy dessert for your Thanksgiving dinner. Last week, I mixed up the Pineapple Angel Food Cake and baked it…it came out of the pan just fine, but stuck to the plate and in moving it, got messed up. As my daughter told me years ago when that happened, “When God gives you a lemon, you make lemonade”. Here’s my version of the lemonade. Note: I cheated a bit; my cherries were already chopped, probably in a food processor to be used for something else.
Ingredients:
2 packages of instant vanilla pudding, milk to make pudding, (make the pudding)
1 large container of thawed whipped topping,
1 jar (10 oz) of cherries (There are about + – 30 cherries in a jar. Save about 10 to use later.
Using a large serving bowl, break/tear 1/2 of the cake into pieces and place in the bowl, finely chop a small bottle of well drained maraschino cherries and sprinkle about 1/3 on top of cake, cover cake with 1 box of mixed pudding, cover with ½ of the whipped topping, repeat using the other 1/2 of the cake, the second box of pudding and the remaining whipped topping. For decoration, cut about eight cherries into halves and place on top of whipped topping in a decorative pattern.
May all of you have as great as possible Thanksgiving, hopefully with family and/or friends.
