I remember growing up that my grandmother made the best crunchy cookies for Christmas every year and I just could not get enough of them.

I would eat them as fast as she would make them.

When I was about 15, my grandmother pulled me aside and explained that the cookies were called Rosettes which were a Scandinavian cookie and that her mother had made them and she wanted to pass the tradition on to me.

The cookies are easy to make, the most difficult part was to find the iron used to make the cookies, but my grandmother had given me hers.

The recipe is quite easy. It calls for: Read More »

I come from a blended family; my birth mother passed away when I was a baby. When I was two, my father remarried. His second wife already had a little girl who was seven years old at the time.

Because we each had two families, my sister and I would each spend Christmas Eve with the “other” family. I would go to my Grandmother’s and my sister would go to her Dad’s. We would all come together as one family to go to the midnight service at our church.

We would then have our family Christmas on Christmas morning. As I grew, my relationship with my birth mother’s family became more strained and I began to look forward more and more to attending the church service. Read More »

My favorite Christmas song is “I’ll Be Home for Christmas”. I love this song because it’s about yearning to celebrate the holiday among loved ones and a loving family, even if only in the mind.

Growing up I came from a large and close-knit Italian-American family who all lived near each other in the same little town. We would always spend every holiday together, especially Christmas.

On Christmas Eve we would gather around the Christmas tree and open our gifts together. My parents and I lived in my maternal grandparents’ home because they were elderly and needed care. My parents had many sisters and brothers. They and their children would join us for holiday meals, sitting around the table in the dining room. Read More »

I am not sure exactly where this recipe came from, but I remember it well from my grandmother, my dad’s mom. She lived on a farm and made, grew or raised almost all of her own food.

We always celebrated the holidays with my mother’s parents, and this recipe was always my grandmothers (dads mom) contribution to the meal.

We ate it with our holiday meal on homemade rolls and for days after on toast. The more batches or double batch you make the more to enjoy! Here it is!

Cranberry Orange Marmalade
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