There are many different Christmas recipes that you can use at Christmas time. For most people who celebrate Christmas, the holiday season is characterized by gathering of family and friends, feasting and giving gifts to each other. Christmas would be incomplete without the mention of Santa Claus, Christmas trees, mistletoe, Christmas cakes, cookies, puddings, other Christmas goodies and cards.

 Christmas recipe planning should be done with the precision and advance preparation of a military operation, so that the cook will enjoy it too. All the extra items that are needed for any Christmas recipes should be thought of well ahead of time. It is a good idea that you sit down and choose your Christmas recipes for the cake, puddings and meat, and then list all the ingredients that you will need for each of them. A good plan would be to start doing this in November.

At the beginning of December, decide on what meat you are going to buy and find out how much it will cost-at least this way you’ve made a start. Whether you are eating turkey or ham, any Christmas recipes just wouldn’t be complete without all the trimmings.

Whether the Christmas recipes are designed to be eaten formally at the table or buffet style-try to focus on foods such as roasts or casseroles. These may take a while to cook, but won’t need your constant attention in the kitchen. Whoever does the Christmas catering must also be able to enjoy themselves with everyone else, without having to spend too much time in the kitchen.

Buffets are a great way to manage feeding a crowd. Get as much done with your Christmas recipes as you can the day before-focus on foods that can be eaten at room temperature. It will save you a lot of time and work. Cover the food and remove it just before people go up to eat. When your guests walk through the door on Christmas day let the smells of all those Christmas recipes hit them. Keep a pot of mulled apple cider on the stove so the first thing that you can smell is a delightful mixture of cinnamon, clove and nutmeg.

Make extra large batches of items like spiced nuts, salad dressing or gingerbread in advance. The Christmas cake and most puddings should be made a month beforehand. If you’re not sure what to give them for dessert-solve the dilemma by asking your guests to bring a batch of their favorite Christmas deserts. Your guests can then show off their best Christmas recipes and everyone will enjoy the variety.

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Decorating for the Christmas holiday is fun and truly creates the holiday mood. The highlight of decorating is the Christmas tree. Plan to involve your family when deciding how to decorate the tree this year. Traditionalists believe in keeping the same decorating scheme year after year. The Transitionalists have trees that change over the years. They add ornaments, change out the lights basically tweaking the Christmas tree design over the years. The third group are the Trendsetters. Trendsetters are the people who design and decorate the most dazzingly beautiful and unique Christmas trees. Christmas tree ornaments come in all colors, shapes, sizes and materials. Most come from a store but some are home made. Some families are lucky enough to have heirloom ornaments handed down generation to generation. Ornaments purchased from stores are as varied as the number of materials available. The ornaments can range from hard unbreakable plastic to fragile hand blown glass ornaments. The advantage of glass is the luster and color of the ornaments. Nothing surpasses the glow of holiday ornaments reflecting the lights of the Christmas lights. Glass ornaments are fragile and tend to be more expensive. Use care when handling. Home made ornaments can be wooden, paper-mache, needlepoint, pictures or almost any thing found around the home. The breakability of homemade ornaments varies. The special part of homemade ornaments is the person and the story of how and when they were made. Some homemade ornaments can be fragile, remember to handle with loving care. If young children or pets are part of your Christmas celebration, you may want to use unbreakable ornaments. Hopefully it is only a passing stage, but you want to prepare yourself and your tree. Pets, especially young ones can be rambunctious, and trees tip easily. So plan accordingly. If you have special ornaments either sentimental or dollar value, you can use a special ornament display stand in a protected spot. Consider making some ornaments with your children using ribbon and an inexpensive plastic ornament. Hobby stores also sell prepackaged ornament making kits. Have fun and add some personality to the ornament. A child's contribution will make your tree special. Your child will be proud to have made some ornaments for the family tree. Store and save each contribution for next year's tree. You can make new ornaments each year to show the progress each child has made with creating ornaments. No matter how you find or create your ornaments; decorate your tree to represent your family's interests and taste. Personalizing the tree means making your Christmas tree special. And decorating the Christmas tree together is a great family tradition to start and to have.

The Christmas season is filled with decorating opportunities, but none more special than the trimming of the Christmas tree. The style you use to decorate your tree is a reflection of your interests and taste. Here are some suggestions to get you started. 1. Thematic Christmas trees are becoming more popular. People use a single color to decorate. Others use a period of time in their lives. They then find or make ornaments to reflect the time period you have chosen. 2. Personalization of your Christmas tree can happen when you add unique personal ornaments of your choice. Specially chosen ornaments add to the Christmas tree and make it uniquely yours. 3. To save time and trouble save the boxes the ornaments came in for storage later. If you do not have the original box; get a glass packing box from some mover. Label the box before you store the ornaments for easy retrieval. Be sure to separate each ornament with some type of packing material to protect them during storage. 4. The sparkle of a Christmas tree comes from the strands of Christmas lights hung on the tree. Use caution when stringing the lights. Avoid placing a bulb too close to a branch as a fire can occur quickly. 5. Hanging Christmas tree lights means finding out which lights work and which ones don't. It's always easier to find the burned out bulbs before you start. Be sure you start from the top of the tree when stringing your lights. Work down and then around the tree. Plan your path so you end up near an electrical outlet to finish your work. 6. Store your lights on a piece of cardboard or an empty can. This keeps the wires straight, prevents them from breaking. Next year you won't have to deal with tangled lights. 7. Starting from the bottom of your tree, hang the larger ornaments. Then gradually add the smaller ones hanging them all around the tree. If you have young children or pets you may want to hang ornaments a little higher to prevent damage to the ornaments. 8. If you've ever seen an evergreen tree after a snow storm. Then you know how to hang tinsel on your Christmas tree. Hang the tinsel on the outer ends of the branches. Aim for a picture like you see when there is the first storm of the season. 9. You want your ornaments to shine and compliment your tree. So rather than just putting every ornament you own on the tree, pick and choose the ones your want. This way every ornament has its own special place.

You might say that I have lost my mind if I said that I have a stress free Christmas. Well, my sanity is still intact and we have had several Christmases that were stress-free in the past. I would like to tell you about the things I've learned to help reduce the stress during the Yuletide season. AFTER WAKING IN THE MORNING, READ GOD?S WORD EVERY I start by reading God's Word every day. Hearing from God & speaking to Him each day is a great boost for me and it strengthens and preps me to be the mom He wants me to be. During breakfast, we start our family devotions and begin our children's day on the right track as well. Each of my children understand that they are to read their Bible after waking. There are times that some of the kids need a little more reminding. DON?T DO EVERY ACTIVITY THAT POPS UP This seems quite evident, but it took me a decade to apply this. Actually, my marvelous husband helped me learn how to minimize the activity in our lives during the Christmas season. In the past, I wanted our kids to experience everything available during this season. What was actually happening was I began to harbor stress that would usually explode around Christmas Eve or Christmas Day. (I?m sure none of you have ever experienced this. WHICH ACTIVITIES DO I CHOOSE What works for our family is to choose 1 or 2 Christmas activities to attend outside our home. Anything else we do is done in our home. One of the best ways this reduces stress is that I am not ?persuading? my husband to attend one more Christmas activity each week. He still spends all day working to provide for our family. Consequently, he is much happier going to a few activities and enjoying our family & friends at home. Having other people in our home gives us a lot of satisfaction, so we capitalize on this. With cooking and cleaning done by the children, our work is lessened and I am not feeling stressed when our visitors arrive. ENJOY YOUR HOME I always more activities for our family than we ever have time for. In our Thanksgiving weekend I decided which activities can be postponed until next Christmas season. REMEMBER: YOU CAN?T DO EVERY THING, EVERY YEAR. I try to select activities that inspire my children to do something for others, instead of only thinking of themselves during the holiday season. One of the things we used to do is charity work by raising money for a missionary family. The kids would take orders for pumpkin bread loaves and chocolate chip cookies. After making and delivering them to their customers, they would pay me back for the ingredients and supplies used. The remaining money was their profit, which was used to buy useful gifts for a missionary family. This season we will have other kids over to bake cookies so their moms can do some Christmas shopping, uninterrupted. A Christmas card stamping party for younger kids would be a great idea for an activity. I?m still thinking it over how that will work. I have some other ideas that are included in Advent, Christmas & Epiphany Celebration Ideas. MAKE CHRISTMAS YOUR SCHOOL For those of you who homeschool, lessen some of the formal academics and enjoy these times. As we bake, shop and prepare for Christ?s birthday, we are also doing math and writing and reading with these activities. At our house, we still read aloud each morning and then work on a Christmas project. This may include handwork type crafts or other quiet projects. DO YOU FEEL STRESSED DURING THE HOLIDAYS? Take a moment right now and prioritize all the activities available to your family. Choose only 1 or 2 activities that the entire family can enjoy and pass on the rest. Being at home with your family is enjoyable. Invite another family over to roast marshmallows and mingle with them. At the center of this Christmas activity, keep your hearts tuned to Jesus Christ. Without His love for us, we would not be celebrating the true meaning of Christmas. But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Romans 5:8 For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God. Ephesians 2:8

Any room becomes warm and inviting when you use beautiful, seasonal floral arrangements to brighten your celebration. There are flowers that have come to represent certain holidays such as poinsettias for Christmas, red roses for Valentine's Day and lilies for Easter. However, holiday flower choices are not just limited to these traditional flowers. Use your imagination in creating your holiday flower arrangements. Flower arrangements add a great deal to the decor and the ambience of parties, open houses and just day to day visitation and create a festive mood for the family as well. Choosing flowers or plants that last a long time is thrifty and saves time as well during the busy holiday season. Many people prefer the "green" choices in their floral purchases as well as the rest of their lifestyles, including buying live plants only. Flower arrangements don't need to just be greenery and flower stems arranged in a vase, but can be in all sort of unique containers, or can even be masses of live plants arranged in pleasing displays. Adding evergreens for Christmas makes almost any arrangement match the seasonal theme, for example, and putting it all in a toy sled would be charming. Some people like to make their own floral arrangements to express their creativity and style or to economize, while many others prefer to rely on their florist to make appropriate and beautiful flower arrangements. You can use online floral websites to do it yourself and find ideas to personalize your own arrangements. The cheapest source for floral arrangements is growing your own flowers, fern, and other greenery. You can also make a trip to the countryside where gathering flowers or greenery is permitted, but be sure you have the owner's permission and that you do not pick protected wildflowers and plants. The first place to check is your own yard or greenhouse! During the holidays, assembling a flower arrangement can become a fun holiday tradition. It is the perfect opportunity to spend meaningful time together. Families might collectively work on one arrangement, or each member (or pair of relatives) might be assigned their own arrangement on which to work. Living flowers bring life, color, and happiness to every day life and especially the holidays. Bringing home a bouquet is a marvelous sign of love.

Every year, the dazzle, the colors, the music, and the magic of the holiday season seem to fill our senses earlier than the previous year. Santa Claus appears in stores and advertisements as early as October, and the parties that fill the season begin in November, often prior to Thanksgiving. The season that leads to Christmas and Santa Claus's visit is full of parties and events that keep most families busy, until January. Many of the holiday activities we indulge in, every year, are centered around food. Every culture and ethnic group seems to have its own rich epicurean heritage, which is spotlighted in this season of joy and cheer. Not only is it difficult to avoid eating wonderful, calorie-filled food during the holidays, it's probably impossible. It's really true that the average person puts on at least a few pounds during the holiday season. And the earlier we begin celebrating the holidays, each year, the more pounds we're likely to add, before the New Year. And it's not just an adult problem, either. Children today are just as vulnerable to the holiday weight gain as their parents. So, what to do? It's probably unrealistic to expect anyone, during this busy season of parties and pageants, to begin a brand-new cardio-vascular exercise program. Our calendars are too full, already, to spend hours, each day in the gym, to make up for our over-eating. That doesn't mean that there aren't ways for families to spend at least some time, each week, burning off a few calories. Weekends can be great times for parents to take their kids on morning walks. An early, brisk, half-hour walk can charge the metabolic batteries for the whole day, so that the body burns calories more efficiently. A good walk on the morning of a party, where there will be great food, can stave off a tiny bit of weight gain. Whenever possible, family members should avoid elevators and climb stairs. There are few ways to get an overall cardio workout that are better than stair-climbing. Though children love escalators, parents should set an example, especially during the holidays, and use the stairs. Parents should make sure that both they, and their children, receive as much good sleep as possible, during the holidays. Lack of sleep has been proven to contribute to weight gain, in both adults and children. Avoiding wonderful food during the holidays is like trying to avoid Christams carols-who wants to do that? The best thing that families can do to avoid buying larger clothes in January is to look for as many opportunities as possible to burn a few extra calories, every day.

To parents, the holiday season may mean parties, music and pageantry, as well as a whirlwind of Christmas-themed activities, from Thanksgiving until Christmas Day. To their youngest children, the holiday season means planning for one thing-Santa Claus's Christmas Eve flight and visit. And every child understands that Santa Claus knows exactly where to leave the toys and goodies he's bringing, because he knows where every child lives. Lots of children are fairly meticulous about preparing for Santa Claus. Many of them write to Santa, carefully listing the toys and gifts they want to receive. Many children work hard to improve their behavior, as the holiday season begins, heeding carefully the advice in the song that says, "He knows when you've been bad or good, so be good, for goodness' sake!" Santa Claus is important enough to young children, that, for all of its ceremony and celebration, its lights and its sounds, Christmas can be serious business. Yet, every now and then, parents can come carelessly close to ruining Christmas, as though they didn't understand anything at all about the holiday. Like when parents decide that, after spending every Christmas of a child's life at home, this year the family's going to Grandma's house, or to the beach, or anywhere that's not home. It's the perfect way to panic a child. After all, how is Santa supposed to know where a family's going to be, if they aren't at home? Parents who make such ill-conceived plans for Christmas had better have a plan for convincing their children that Santa Claus can, indeed, find them, on the big night. Sure, Santa could leave the presents at the family's home, but then the children wouldn't have much of a Christmas morning, would they? The best thing is for parents to provide some kind of proof that Santa Claus is aware of the family's plans. The Santa at the shopping center could assure a child that he knows where the family will be. Or a letter from the Big Guy might make a child breathe easier. There are many ways a parent can find to prove that Santa won't miss them, but it's a sure bet that, if this is the family's first Christmas away from home, their child will be on pins and needles, worried about what Christmas morning will bring. Of course, no child will totally believe that Santa can find the family, until Christmas morning dawns and the child finds the treasures Santa has left. But once that's happened, and Santa's come through, the Christmas trip is something that can become a family's tradition.

Most adults enjoy the Christmas season, each year, with its holiday foods, the special concerts and plays and pageants, and of course, all the holiday parties. But as much fun as the holidays promise each year, the joy that adults feel is multiplied tenfold when they become parents and can celebrate Christmas with their children. The family holiday gathering is one of our most common traditions, a time when the extended family of aunts and uncles and cousins get together to celebrate not just the holidays, but their shared love and fellowship. It's also the time when young parents introduce the newest family members to the rest of the brood. But with families so spread out, today, it's becoming more and more difficult for families to engage in this treasured custom. No matter how far apart from each other families may live, today, young parents can be sure that there's one custom that will never change-the insistence by grandparents that they have to see their grandkids at Christmas. It's a custom that every grandparent seems to engage in, every holiday season. Even the most intelligent and aware and considerate grandparents seem to ignore the fact that air travel, these days, is more difficult than ever, for everyone. And it's not easy for two-career couples to find the time to travel to grandma's house, together, with the kids. It's no fun for any family to be pressured into spending time and money on travel, at Christmas, and it's even worse for families who have to travel with young children. By the time a family with tired toddlers has been through several crowded airports, and sat crammed into several planes, none of them are in a mood to enjoy the holiday. Rather than applying the kind of guilt that only they can apply, and making Christmas difficult for their childrens' families, grandparents should consider making the holidays as easy as possible for everyone concerned. A couple without children can travel for less money and with less hassle than their children, with their own young children, can. Grandma and Grandpa can stay in a motel, too, near their grandchildren, without making anyone lose their own bedroom. Many grandparents find that it's easier to visit their children and grandchildren a few days prior to Christmas, when it's easier and cheaper to travel, and when the families being visited aren't as rushed as they are on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. Then, many older couples find, they can schedule their own holiday time, at a resort or hotel, in a quiet destination, when great prices can be found. This way, everyone gets to enjoy a peaceful and guilt-free Christmas.

The holiday season always seems like a whirlwind of shopping, parties, pageants, and family gatherings, a month or two of furious, but joyful, activity, leading up to Christmas and the New Year celebration. By the time it's all over, most of us need a breather, a bit of time to relax and reflect and renew. No matter how wonderful the holidays have been, by January many families experience a kind of celebration withdrawal. Most of us naturally miss the lights and the music and the fellowship of the holiday season, and the gray winter days of the next few months just seem to emphasize the fact that the wonderful feelings of Christmas are over, for nearly another year. But the feelings generated by the season leading to Christmas need not vanish completely, for the calendar, beyond December. Though Santa Claus's visit is the high point of the holiday season for families with children, there are many other aspects of these days that can be kept fresh and alive, throughout the year. Those donations of clothes and toys and food we worked so hard to make during the holiday season can, and should, be repeated throughout the rest of the year. Most charities, which take in the bulk of their donations just before Christmas, find themselves scrambling to meet their goals during the rest of the winter. Many families find that the new toys of Christmas have replaced old favorites, in their childrens' hearts, and are able to gather last year's toys and drop them at their local donation centers. Kids grow out of their clothing so fast that most families have boxes full of gently-worn clothes, which are perfect for donation. The preparation and delivery of donated goods can be an all-day family project, capped by a movie or a trip to the pizza parlor, to celebrate making someone else's days a bit more special. Besides donation, volunteering together can be a rewarding way for a family to liven up the winter, after Christmas. Families who find themselves longing for the feelings that permeate their lives during the holidays can rekindle that spirit, year-round. Working together to make others' lives a little better isn't just a generous exercise, it's also a wonderful way for a family to keep Christmas alive. The calendar shouldn't be the only way to measure the spirit of Christmas.