How Christmas Went Down At Our House

I got on Facebook this fine freezing cold morning and realized that I was WAY behind on sharing my Christmas joy. I'm not an Ebenezer Scrooge, I promise.

However, I woke up Christmas Eve morning with a nasty cold. Dumb. So dumb. Thankfully, this was the first year that I can remember where my family was able to spend Christmas Eve at home, with just our little family. I'll admit-- it was weird. Mostly because Nanner is too tiny to really appreciate Christmas and so it closely resembled just any other evening spent at home. But it worked out well because then I didn't breathe my nastiness on anyone else and could just crash on the bed while my superhero husband tackled the ever-growing pile of laundry waiting to be folded and changed poopy diapers.

Christmas morning was also slow and easy. It was wonderful, though.




{just to be clear, here, that's not the hub's normal smile. That's his OH MYLANTA MY WIFE GOT ME A DEWALT BENCH GRINDER I'M SO EXCITED smile. He's probably still going to disown me because I shared this picture with the world, but I'll take my chances :) }

{Hannah's new favorite pass-time is to use my boots to shimmy up my leg}

Because I was feelin' wild, I decided to try my hand making my sister's famous cinnamon rolls from scratch. What's Christmas morning without some traditional sugary glory? I wish I took pictures of them, but I forgot in my haste to shove as many of them as possible in my mouth. Forgive me.

Without further ado, here's the recipe! They're amazing. And really not at all very healthy. But amazing. So, yeah. 'Nuff said. Go make 'em.

Place these items {in the order listed} in your bread maker:

1 1/4 c. warm water

2 T. melted butter

2 T. powdered milk

2 T. sugar

1 1/2 t. salt

3 3/4 c. flour

1 1/2 t. yeast

Run on dough cycle, roll out and brush about 2T softened butter and sprinkle with about 1/3 c. cinnamon sugar. Roll 'em up and use a long piece of floss to evenly slice them. Place in an ungreased glass 9x13 baking dish. 

Cover and let raise in warm oven 20 mins or so, bake at 350 for 20 mins or until golden brown. 

Frosting: 

1/2 c. margarine, room temp (one cube)

1/2 c. shortening

2 c. powdered sugar

1 T. water

Blend till whipped smooth; spread over cooled rolls.

. . . . . 

Now for a funny, 'that's-so-Jessica' moment. Instead of mixing cinnamon sugar to put on the rolled out dough, I just sprinkled sugar on the buttered dough and then began sprinkling cinnamon on top of that. I got about 1/4 of the dough covered when I said, "That cinnamon isn't lookin' too good. And it smells reeeeaallly funny."

Turns out that, for some odd reason, my cinnamon was usurped from its normal place in the spice cabinet by none other than. . . 

CUMIN. 

Yes, my friends. It happened.

Have you ever tried to scrape cumin off of dough when it's already covered in melted butter and sugar? It's not very easy. So, uh, some of my cinnamon rolls had a unique taste to them. I felt so dumb. The lesson you all should learn from this is to not assume you have cinnamon in your hand. . . check it first. Please, for all that's good in this world, check it first. :)

I hope you all had a marvelous Christmas and I wish you all a wonderful New Year's!