Good morning, my friends, and welcome to Yet Another Monday!
I was at a design meeting at the end of last week, signing a contract, and I had to ask what the date was. When the fellow said “12 / 1,” I thought he was referring to some future date, when our project would begin. And I said, “But what’s today’s date?” I was entirely befuddled. How did we get to December? Did we even have November?
It’s time to slow down, isn’t it? At least a little, as we approach Christmas. This is the time of year when I like to retreat a bit out of the rush. I hope you’re having a chance to do just that!
Today, to help spread a little pre-Christmas cheer, and thanks to the generosity of Di van Niekerk, who is absolutely the Queen of Silk Ribbon Embroidery, I have a gorgeous give-away for two winners.
Let’s take a look, shall we?
If you are not familiar with Di van Niekerk, she designs and embroiders fabulous works of silk ribbon embroidery. She has written many books on the subject, and she produces sumptuous silk ribbon in a glorious array of dyed colors.
Whether you’re already a silk ribbon aficionado, or whether you’re a beginner longing to experience stitching with beautiful lengths of silk ribbon, today’s give-away is for you! (I’m kind of jealous that I can’t enter! LOL!)
I’ll be drawing two names for these delightful treats. The first name drawn will receive three (yes, three!) bundles of color-themed hand-dyed silk ribbon, featured in the photo above.
Each bundle includes an array of colors that play beautifully together. From top to bottom: the Dream bundle, the Earth bundle, and the Happiness bundle. The colors are so rich and luscious!
The second name drawn for today’s give-away will receive the Sunset bundle of silk ribbon pictured above (I’m twitterpated with this color combination!), and a copy the new edition of Di’s book, Ribbon Embroidery and Stumpwork. I reviewed the former edition of this book here, if you’d like to read the details.
So, two stunning gifts! Wouldn’t it be fun to find them tucked in your mailbox?!
Give-Away Guidelines
This give-away has ended. Thanks to all for participating!
If you’d like to participate in today’s give-away, please read and follow all the guidelines below.
No, really! Read them! Please!
1. To participate, leave a comment below. The comment must be left on this article on Needle ‘n Thread. Comments left on other articles or submitted by email are not eligible. Please do not use the “reply” feature to leave your comment. Replies to other comments are not eligible. You can follow this link directly to the comment box, to make sure you’re in the right place.
2. Please leave your name in the “name” line (no anonymous comments) and a valid email address in the “email” line on the form. Winners are contacted by email. If your email is incorrect or bounces back, I’ll draw another winner in your place. Leave the “website” line blank. Please do not leave personal contact information in the actual comment box, since anything written there is visible on the website.
3. In your comment, please answer the following question:
If you had to pick only one edible treat that you normally enjoy only during the holiday season, what would you pick?
(I know this has nothing to do with silk ribbon, but I am hungry right now … and I am listening to Christmas music…and I’ve been daydreaming about my Mom’s iced sugar cookies, wondering if we would have any this year. Nostalgia and food – not a great combination when you’re hungry! LOL!)
4. Leave your comment by Monday, December 12th, at 5:00 am Central Time. I will announce the randomly drawn winner next Monday morning and contact the winner by email.
The give-away is open for anyone, anywhere. Keep in mind that you will be responsible for any customs fees, taxes, or so forth that might be levied in your country when the package arrives.
I would pick truffles as they are a rich treat but so good!
Beautiful colored ribbons I would love to learn how to use in my embroidery. Thanks for the chance to win.
Panettone, massively missed it since going vegan but now the do vegan ones!
Peppermint bark candy
See’s candy
Wow ! Such Beautiful Ribbon !
In So Many Beautiful Colors !
Makes Me Imagine Being a Medieval Princess or Something !
If I could eat only one edible treat this holiday season it would be the orange flavored homemade fudge we always make- but it was hard to choose…Have a Wonderful Holiday!
Only one edible treat!?! You make it tough. I guess it would be triple chocolate fudge. Yum!! It’s the only way to get the most chocolate all at one time.
Molasses snaps
My grandmother’s chocolate cake with marshmallow frosting is what I would have for the holidays. Unfortunately, her recipe and technique died with her. This is how a legend is born!
Really good chocolates!! I generally avoid most sweets throughout the year but I love to indulge in some luscious good chocolates!
What beautiful ribbon & what a generous give away!
Our family tradition started with my parents who grew up in Kentucky. I have continued the tradition of making Bourbon Balls each Christmas. Last year we made a record size batch and had to use the kimchi tub to mix it. They store well in the freezer and are a treat on a summer day too.
One edible treat that I normally enjoy only during the holiday season is chocolate fudge with walnuts! I normally eat a very low sugar diet, but I do splurge a bit during the Christmas season. Merry Christmas!
We only get my mom’s homemade stuffing during the holidays, which is good because it contains ALL the butter and probably shortens our lives every time we eat it. But oh, it is glorious!
My mother’s snickerdoodle cookies. I never het them right.
I love love love gingerbread. I think, perhaps, I shall make some this year. *I’m now imagining it on my tongue* Mmm!
Di’s offerings are fabulous. She has a wonderful website that is filled with color.
At Christmas, I enjoy cranberries. It is the only time I eat cranberry sauce and so I eat a lot of it. LOL
Have a wonderful holiday Mary. Enjoy the season and blessings for a great 2023.
I adore eggnog spritz cookies but tend to only make them at the holidays. I also love a corn casserole that I only have at the holidays.
My one edible holiday treat is butter cookies.
The edible treat I go to during the holiday season is Peppermint Bark. I don’t know what it is about peppermint that makes it a Christmas treat (other than the color), but I never see it available in the stores except during the Holiday Season, which makes it extra special.
My first thought was marzipan. But the best was my mom’s anise Italian cookies with a light glaze on the top. MMmmm
I always made almond flavored frosted cut out cookies for holidays. They are a family recipe and I even mail them to the nieces and nephews! Everyone loves them!
If I only had one choice for a treat for the season of Christmas I would choose the raisin cookies that my mom used to make. Of course, I would want her to have made them God rest her soul. She was a wonderful woman and they were delicious!
Ohhh I would choose my mom’s homemade buckeyes!!! So good, and so HER!
I love to smock and am now learning to do embroidery to add to my sewing skills. I hope to add ribbon embroidery after I master the basics. This gift away is gorgeous and timely!
My favorite Christmas food is Fruit Cake!
Emily
I love my sister’s White Christmas Cookies. They literally melt in your mouth. Also, even though I may not work a particular project I thoroughly enjoy reading about the process; kind of like reading a recipe for something yummy but not making it.
Chocolate Raspberry Truffles.
I enjoy eggnog – sometimes plain, sometimes with Kahlua. My mom would bake chicken for breakfast.
If I had to pick one food, I’d pick Stolen. It’s the one thing my mother always bought for us to enjoy at Christmas time. She was of German descent and she had always enjoyed it at home.
One holiday treat I look forward to are great homemade cookies especially chocolate rugalah…as when I was young this cookie was the most foreign to me and so tasty..the best treat of the season
What do I eat only at holiday time? Fudge glorious fudge! Chocolate, peanut butter, chocolate!!
Nutty, iced, cinnamon stars, yummy
The edible I eat only at holiday time is a baked lemon buffalo ricotta cheese. Yum.
Thanks for your beautiful work. If I had to pick one edible item for this season, it would be the German Stollen. It’s a lovely fruit cake. Yum!
My grandparents always had a box of peanut brittle at Christmas time. Now I make my own during the season and it brings back good memories of time spent at their house!
I think my favorite treat during the Christmas season is peppermint bark.
Thank you for this wonderful give away. I have used her silk ribbon in my crazy quilts. It is the best.
My favorite holidays-only edible treat is Italian Panettone. My husband spent several years of his youth in Italy and brought this tradition home to stay.
Fudge
Just one edible treat, huh? That is hard to do. I think it would be pound cake, which I normally make only at Christmas. The good thing about pound cake is that you can make it in so many delicious flavors…chocolate , lemon, vanilla, cinnamon etc. One can decide what inspires them at the moment!
Thanks for the giveaway!
decorated home-made Christmas sugar cookies
I look forward to having Ost Kaka. This is a Swedish dessert and I only have it during the Christmas season.
Luv licorice Scotty dogs!
Grandmother’s Rum Cake
I love Italian Panettone at this time of year.
I would choose salted cashew nuts! I am not allowed salt but love these nuts so just a bit would be nice!
My favourite Christmas edible would be my grandmother’s whipped shortbread cookies. Oh so yummy and dearly missed!
It has to be Ginger bread men. I remember baking them every Christmas with my German immigrant grandparents. Later when I lived in Europe, every Christmas I would visit a KrisKindle market in a different German city and eat Gingerbread
Cookies while drinking glugwein. Definitely the taste and smell of Christmas.
My first choice of Holiday treats would be Fruitcake. I have a very old recipe that traveled across this country via covered wagon. Easy to make. Most delicious!! Reminds me of my Grandma making her fruitcake each year…!
My favorite holiday-only treat is pecan pie, preferably with a scoop of vanilla ice cream.
Gingerbread cookies
I may be the only person in America, but I love fruitcake or that is MY fruitcake made with candied cherries, dry cranberries and dark rum. I start marinating the fruit right after Thanksgiving.
Peppermint Bark is my guilty holiday pleasure. It’s only allowed in my home (my rules) between Thanksgiving and Christmas Day. as of Dec 26th, I give away any remaining Peppermint Bark (not that there is any left by then, but just in case.) The ribbon looks beautiful.
Warm, soft ginger molasses cookies…large ones of course…♀️
A holiday treat that I love to eat are holiday shortbread cookies. Of course, they would need to be made with real butter! A cup of Earl Grey tea would be nice…. Oh yes, and some stitching!
Hi! I just love home Christmas decorated sugar cookies; sweet memories of past enjoyments as well as anticipated ones now. Both fun and delicious!
The one Christmas treat I would choose would be German Christmas cookies. They are spicy chewy circles of deliciousness! Made of ground almonds, honey, and warm spices, topped with candied cherries, whole almonds and a rum glaze, they keep for weeks and improve with time as the flavors meld into a nestolgic bite of perfection!
My aunt’s gingersnaps
There is nothing more delicious than crispy fried potato latkes, with a topping of applesauce.
Only one Christmas treat?? It would have to be mom’s sugar cookies with colored sugar sprinkles decorating them .I think I’ll make some today!
My aunt’s divinity. I’ve never been able to replicate her recipe. She had a special touch.
Pumpkin pie, definitely.
Mince meat pie.
Oh, Mary, you have made me hungry now. Luckily it is lunchtime!
Hungry for my favourite seasonal treat chocolate brazil nuts. Yummy brazil nuts coated in velvety dark chocolate – it has to be dark chocolate for me, milk chocolate does not hit the spot.
And hungry to do some silk ribbon embroidery, it is a long time since I have done any, what to do?
Thank you and Di for a generous give-away.
My sister-in-law, Martha, makes the best Mexican Wedding cookies for the holidays! They melt in your mouth and I look forward to them every year
Oh yummy treats at the holidays! Sure helps to make them special. Picking only one is a bit tough. Maybe it would be the crab dip I make.
My favorite holiday treat would be my mom’s homemade peanut brittle.
The one edible treat for this time of year would be my mother’s fruitcake. It had more fruit than cake! Since she passed, we found that the monks at Mepkin Abby in South Carolina make one that is so close to hers that one bite brings back Christmas memories. My sister and I make the trek there to get a fruitcake or two every year.
Shortbread. Though I discovered shortbread in adulthood, thanks to my Scots Canadian relatives by marriage, it seems the perfect melt in your mouth Christmas treat. And, with some experimentation, I now make some varients – cinnamon pecan shortbread, shortbread with pistachios dipped in chocolate and topped by flakey sea salt.
My mom always made Christmas tree shaped anise cookies that melted in your mouth. I still make them but need to wait until right before Christmas or they will be gone (most likely eaten by me!)
My favorite holiday edible is seafood chowder. I grew up on the Washington peninsula. Seafood was an abundant part of out diet. My mom used to make oyster soup on Christmas Eve. I carried the soup tradition to our family but added all kinds of seafood along the way. It morphed into seafood chowder. Every bite is a memory…
Brownie Drops…my mom and I always made cookies, including Spritz and sugar cookies and thumbprint jam cookies but the Brownie Drops (made with German’s Chocolate) are my favorite and the ones I still try to make every year.
My favorite treat at Christmas time is the cut out cookies. They are festive and yummy.
Almond toffee topped with semisweet chocolate. Must go make some.
Lovely silk ribbon!!!
It’s not Christmas without my mother’s stuffing! Love Di’s silk ribbons, they are like stitching with “butter” they’re so smooth!
My favorite treat at Christmas time would absolutely be Chocolate Peppermint bark. The chocolate is dark, rich and creamy, and the peppermint taste reminds me of candy canes. The perfect treat for this time of the year!
If I could only choose one treat it would be homemade fudge
My must have Christmas treat is my Aunts recipe for Gingersnaps. Not only do they taste great, they set the aroma of Christmas all through the house!
Russian tea cakes
Homemade trail mix. We make it for friends and thank you gifts and use close to 20 or more ingredients. The pandemic put a stop to it and we are hopeful for next year to restart the tradition.
Almond toffee
I love the family tradition of Bachelor Button Cookies. They are tiny drops of brown sugar, ginger, cinnamon and vanilla based dough with finely chopped walnuts. They are great fresh but get better with age. Like a visit with an old friend.
My favorite treat is my gramma’s cut out cookies. They have a hint of nutmeg and sour cream in them and they are so good. As a child there would be dozens and dozens of them and our family ate dozens and dozens of them without a thought of all the work it took which I’m sure was many days. What a great memory for this holiday season. Thanks Mary. It made my day to remember those wonderful days with my gramma. I do really miss her.
Its a pastry called ruglach, they resemble miniature croissants. I make them every christmas. A delicate cream cheese biscuit like pastry cut into triangles with brown sugar and crumbs of dark chocolate sprinkled over them. They are then rolled and glazed. Amazing!
I would like to have a traditional Chinese dishes my father made when I was young, roasted duck with taro, we shared with my family and close relatives during festival. The taste, sweet and fun family ambience that I missed so much nowadays. Thank you.
Fudge — the first winter holiday yummy and for me, the best.
I grew up in Southern California in the 1970s to nutritionist save-the-planet parents. When we moved to Kansas I had never tasted meat, chocolate, etc and I had never experienced thunderstorms, snow or cold weather.
Still not keen on most of those — but chocolate fudge?
That divine first bite so long ago when I was 10?
Thrilled me then and signifies Christmas Is Here every year.
Mary! I LOVE Di’s stuff! I’ve never had the courage to learn ribbon embroidery and I’ve been drooling over her ribbon for a while now, but if I win a set of the silk ribbon I’ll make myself learn it so I can use all that luscious ribbon! Wow, her stuff is gorgeous!
I think my favorite holiday edible treat is bread pudding. I ONLY make it at Christmas, it’s my dad’s favorite dessert, and so I make a big batch of it and we enjoy it for the whole week after Christmas.
Thank you so much for doing this give away! *Fingers crossed!*
Learning so much from Mary.
Pumpkin pie is my holiday favorite.
Cocoanut Macaroons with dark chocolate
Just ONE treat?!? Then it would have to be my sister-in-law’s whoopie pies. She makes some mean whoopie pies! Thank you.
My favorite holiday treat is absolutely gingerbread cookies with pumk:in spice coffee!” Last year my husband made a gingerbread house cake for my birthday which is right after Christmas. This was a special treat, because he has never baked anything in the 57 years that we have been married.
The treat that I enjoy only at this festive time is…caramel corn. It is so easy to make, but I save it for this time of year. Thank you for another amazing giveaway – just the dreaming about it is worth it! Merry Christmas.
Oh, Mary, You and Di van Niekerk have constructed an amazing giveaway. Just reading about it is a page from a “dream book”.
The holiday season is associated with many edible treats — your question brought several to mind. To pick just one: candied orange peel covered with dark chocolate, from Mueller’s Chocolate Company in Philadelphia.
The one treat would have to be my stepmom’s Dirt Cookies…so called because they taste like dirt until you ice them! They are rolled dough cut into shapes, and the flavor is a bland cross between shortbread and unsweet sugar cookies. But when you frost them with powdered sugar icing– wow! The contrast is so addictive!! And because they aren’t overly sweet, you (and by you I mean me) can eat an entire plate before you know it! They go great with coffee and tea after a holiday dinner.
The one food that comes to mind is my candied sweet potatoes. It’s a dish everyone expects me to bring for the holiday meal.
Love your website it too is like a candied treat!
Happy holidays
Guimauve au chocolat enrobé de noix et caramel ou carré au coconut de ma grand-mère. Bon temps des fêtes
I would definitely choose Italian torrone.
Sugared sugar cookies in all the shapes!
My treat would be my grandmother’s bon bons. She only made them at Christmas. I have the recipe but they don’t seem to turn out the same.
Thank you for your messages. I love the beautiful work and inspiration.
My favorite holiday treat is shortbread cookies. My MIL has a wonderful recipe that was handed down from her Scottish family.
My treat which I love at this time is shortbread cookies. Thank you for the great giveaway chance!
I seem to like all holiday food but I think my favourite is Christmas trifle. Being brought up in the UK it is one of the holiday traditional foods I still make and reminds me of Christmas’s of my childhood.
Sue
At this time of year, I crave all my family’s Italian specialties. I made batches of the waffle-like pizzelle and try to make at least one type of biscotti. And, of course, must buy a panettone bread for toasting!
Thank you for the chance to win these utterly gorgeous prizes. I adore Di and have several of her books, but I haven’t used silk ribbon for quite a while. I think Christmas is the perfect time to get back to the ribbons.
I love peanut butter blossoms. It’s something I only make this time of year. My mom made these during Christmas season. I listen to seasonal music while baking. My fav is rocking around the Christmas tree.
Thanks to both you and Di for the fabulous give-away. What a treat to find this under my tree. Speaking of treats, I love “barley toys” at Christmas time. Do you know what they are? I have a sneaking suspicion that they are unique to Canada, and perhaps Eastern Canada at that. Well, they are lollipops/suckers made of barley sugar and shaped like Christmas gifts and characters: Santa, a toy train, a tree, a horse (my favourite!). They all taste the same — very sweet, but come in red or yellow. They are getting harder and harder to find, but worth the effort! It reminds me of another east coast treat — chicken bones made by Ganongs in NB, Canada.
Have a sweet Christmas!
I love to add dimension to my embroidery and silk ribbon does it so well. Those colors are beautiful.
My holiday treat is a mince pie. Brings memories of sharing with my father while my brother and mother enjoyed a pumpkin pie.
Torrone, an Italian candy!
Hungarian pecan bars and I only make them for the holidays.
I would have chocolate and butterscotch haystacks. I married into this treat as my mother-in-law always had these in Christmas tins to enjoy. I too make several recipes of haystacks through out the holidays. Thank you for the giveaway.
My friend makes the best caramels ever! She always gives me a few at Christmas. Yummy!
I only have cranberry shortbread at Christmas and always use my grandma`s recipe. It brings back so many memories of baking with her . I am 82 now but still miss her.
If I could only have 1 edible Christas treat it would be Speculaas, the Dutch spice cookie, not the Belgian. I usually bake my own because it is hard to find them in local stores. They go great with a cup of coffee or tea.
Also I want to say that you have helped me rediscover my love of embroidery and have emboldened me to take on several large projects such as 20 custom dinner napkins for a friend. Thank you! I know the comment doesn’t effect my chances of winning I just wanted to let you know.
At Christmas only, I love homemade shortbread cookies, decorated elaborately with royal icing.
candy canes (actually any peppermint candy is good!) That ribbon looks luscious too!
I just love the hyacinths with the variegated dyed silk thread shown in Ribbon Embroidery and Stumpwork
I have tried a bit of ribbon embroidery but need some help with manipulating tge ribbon.
I was recently introduced to stumpwork which I love.
My special treat for Christmas are the fancy bakery cookies
My friend makes the best caramels ever! She always gives me a few at Christmas. Yummy!
Eggnog!!! Warm and cozy.
The one treat at Christmas I like best are the Christmas cookies.
Only one edible holiday treat? Hmmm… I guess I would pick homemade fudge!
My friend sends me a wonderful fruitcake every Christmas and I can’t wait for it to arrive. I’m happy my family “thinks” they don’t love fruitcake. I don’t tell them how “great” this is so I get to enjoy every delicious bite.
I love to eat “pigs in blankets”. Here in the UK these are traditionally made with chipolatas sausages wrapped in a rasher of bacon and roasted with the Turkey. Yum, yum!!!!
I live krumkake. Whrn I moved to Minnesota 25 years ago my husband and I started a tradition. We make them together every Christmas.
I have a group of friends and we bake cookies for 5he holidays. My favorite one is ginger cookies with candied ginger in them. They are yummy and I inly make them during the Holidays.
Peanut butter chocolate truffles!
If I could only have one special treat during the holidays, I’d say it would have to be homemade cinnamon rolls on Christmas morning. I have 4 little children and the sheer joy of their faces eating breakfast and proclaiming “Momma, you make the BEST cinnamon rolls ever” is just so sweet.
My Christmas time treat is eggnog. I mix it with milk to tone down the richness. Then I serve it in pretty glasses with a sprinkle of nutmeg on top. Eggnog is associated with happy Christmas memories from my childhood and youth.
I love Di’s ribbons, books and kits!
Hi Mary:
So lovely to see the progress in your new space. Don’t we all wish we could have that much room for our goodies!
During the holiday season, I make a poppy seed cake and a walnut cake – the recipes have been in the family for years, and only come out in December. Just pulled them out this week to make sure I have all the ingredients.
Take good care – enjoy the holidays
Homemade fudge!
Scottish shortbread cookies. A favorite cookie passed down to me from family in Scotland.
This is an exciting giving on your part. Thank you so much!
My favorite holiday treat is Fruit Cake with all the sugary preserved fruit in it!! Am I the only person who loves fruit cake??!@ childhood nostalgia.
My favorite is black walnut cake which has the texture of pound cake. Yummy!
It would not be Christmas to me without the comfortable smell of cinnamon and the sparkling taste of peppermint! I use those two spices/senses on everything I can during this holiday season!
I love Di’s ribbons, books, kits, and sugar cookies at Christmas!
Lefse, lefse, lefse!!!! While my Norwegian grandmother made it year round, it became a Thanksgiving and Christmas treat at our house, with my dad as the lefse slinger. How happy I was when he gave me my own lefse stick, brightened with rosemaling on the handle end. Hot off the griddle and slathered with butter, sugar and cinnamon: yum!
And yum to these gorgeous silk ribbons. Thank you for this drawing, Mary and Di!
Linda
Christmas cutout cookies, iced, are my favorite!
Thanks to my daughter who loves to bake, she always makes me peanut butter balls for Christmas. They’re a rice crispy mix with peanut butter, rolled into a ball, and covered in milk chocolate. MMMMMM…..good!
Pfeffernusse cookies! The beloved cookie of Christmas.
I love molasses ginger cookies , but being a type one Diabetic only get to have a couple @ Christmas.
Its hard to narrow down but its not the holiday without decorated sugar cookies that i learned from my mother as a young child..and its now being passed down by my daughters to their extended families as well …cheers
The lovely thing about silk ribbon embroidery is that it can be applied to so many types of needlework, such as embroidery, cross stitch and needlepoint!! My Christmas treat is divinity!!
Gingerbread Swirl Bundt Cake would be the treat that i would choose. It isn’t overly sweet and because the gingerbread bit is the swirl, it isn’t over powering. In my head i know that i can make it anytime, but it is always saved for the holidays. Sigh.
I know it’s Christmas when… I bake my Mom’s Christmas cookies. It has the same (or close to it) ingredients as a fruit cake, but they are delicious! We look forward to them every year!
Di van Niekerk’s new ribbon collections are simply scrumptious! Just gorgeous colors with so much vibrancy and depth. Reminds me of my favorite holiday sweet treat – my number one choice if I couldn’t have any other – Ginger Molasses cookies! All those warm spices sing the Holidays are here for me!
Chocolate fudge made with marshmallow fluff and chocolate chips. Not because it is so good, but because it is what my sisters and I made special for our grandfather every year. It was something we could make when we were little and ended up being a tradition that he enjoyed (or pretended to enjoy) throughout the rest of his life. Brings back great memories.
I would have to say that my favourite Christmas treat is my homemade fruitcake. Now I know that fruitcake has a reputation for doubling as a door stop … but made at home and soaked in rum for 6 weeks it is a wonderful treat. The traditions of every family member taking a turn to stir the batter and making a wish for the year to come helps to bring the family together and is something everyone looks forward to…and … yes …there is always a new way put forward to use any unwanted leftovers….not that there ever are in our household.
Fantasy fudge is my not-so-secret sin, only at Christmas. My mom made it every year and I do too – sometimes two batches! My second must–make is chocolate kiss cookies. Both of these are only for the holidays but are must-have treats every year.
Fruitcake
I am dreaming of the glorious pecan pie from my mom’s recipe book. It takes many years to get it just right. So much so that mom added to the directions saying beat the filling till you think your arm about to fall off, then beat 5 minutes more! I always smile reading that. I think of my mom every time I make it now.
Gingerbread cake with cream cheese/ginger frosting.
Oh my, I would have kruschicki or what my Ukrainian mother-in-law called dead birds These crisp, powdered sugar covered treats always speak Christmas to me!
I think the one thing that I have every Christmas and only at Christmas time is sour cream sugar cookies. I don’t even press them anymore. I just make them and balls and put sugar on top and call it a day because they’re not gonna last that long in my house.
We have already talked about having Princess Slices in a few weeks! Princess Slices? Yes, it’s an interesting name that we’ve never been able to figure out. These are bars made with macaroon coconut, the very fine stuff, mixed with flour, chopped walnuts, and a lot of shortening with a hint of maple extract. They are filled with about a 1/4″ of apricot filling (homemade). The house smells wonderful while they are baking. Be prepared to have a plate underneath when you bite into one, they are a little messy! I’d be happy to share the recipe!
I rarely eat Krispy Kremes when I found out their calorie content, but every few years, I will eat one during the holidays or eat a bread pudding made out of it
My favorite edible Christmas treat are the yummy frosted sugar cookies my daughter and I make on Christmas Eve each year.
Those silks are gorgeous!
I would love to eat my mom’s toffee and fudge. Homemade and sooo good.
Ps I would love to use the ribbon in some crazy quilt squares.
My mother’s homemade fudge, creamy, chocolaty and delicious!
Cranberry and pumpkin flavored desserts. These wonderful flavors should be year round treats, not just for the holidays. My favorite right now: Pumpkin bread with cranberries.
Just the thought of butterscotch haystacks make me drool. Just one bite makes the season merry and bright!
It’s not Christmas without Grandma Bell’s
Sugar cookies. They are so good they don’t
Need frosting and it’s a recipe used by 6
generations in my family. Yum!
My favorite holiday treat we have only during the holidays is the Norwegian Krum Kake. It’s a formed cookie baked on a turn-able griddle that you flip off and quickly form into a cone. Once cooled, it can be filed with whipped cream or just eaten as-is. Yummm!
On my mon’s side of the family we would make povitica. A rich dough would be rolled out paper thin to the size of a dining room table, filled with a walnut filling, rolled up and formed into a huge rectangular bun and baked. All of the grandkids learn to make our own little version under grandma’s supervision.
The ribbons are so lovely. Have a happy holiday.
Coincidentally, I just finished pulling my recipes for baking. The one that looks and has been the most used is my grandmother’s Vanilla Butter Nut Pound Cake. What make it special? It’s in my late mom’s handwriting. Happy holidays to all!
Hm… i think it must be eggnog for me. I’m always so excited when it appears, and bummed when it leaves the shelves a scant two months later.
I am a beginner when it comes to silk tread embroidery but, the colors draw me in.
For the holidays, I love Rum Raisin ice cream.
Marshmallow cream fudge!
*One* edible holiday treat is hard, but probably roast beef on kimmelweck made with leftovers from my mother’s Christmas rib roast. “Beef on weck” is a quintessential Buffalo NY sandwich, made with a special bread roll that’s sprinkled with coarse salt and caraway seeds. Yum!
I would Love to Enjoy a Few Glazed Donuts Fresh from the oven! I have not had the Opp. to visit a Donut Shop due to busy day’s & a Glazed Donut or Two would set My mind at ease & Opp. to relax & say Aaahhh! Life is good!
My favorite holiday treat would be homemade Pecan Pralines that was my mom’s recipe.
The treat that I look forward to during the holiday season is oliebollen. It’s a deep fried ball of dough that’s enjoyed New Year’s Eve by the Dutch.
Thanks for the contest.
Russian Tea Cakes from The Joy of Cooking cook book are the traditional family favorite. Snowy white balls of nutty deliciousness. I made them with my dad for many years, we had a method of coating them in powdered sugar in a small paper bag once they were cool enough. To this day I still make sure I have my little paper bag ready and remember how much fun I had baking with my dad. My sons and my husband ask for the cookies each year for Christmas. Of course it’s a tradition! I miss my dad so much since he passed three years ago but this helps me feel closer to him.
Oohhh… definitely stollen – with marzipan!
I know this is a boring answer, but I just could not give up chocolate!!!!
I loooooove fudge, but only make it once a year at Christmas.
One. Chocolate covered cherries. But peanut brittle is a very close second!!
Springerle is THE Christmas cookie in our house. My husband’s favorite. I make them using a special roller from my godmother. They take time. I found them in a cookbook many years ago and they have been on the Christmas cookie tray ever since.
Rum Raisin ice cream
My favorite Christmas treat is frosted cut out sugar cookies, especially my Mom’s sour
cream sugar cookies. They bring back such good memories! (The silk ribbon colors are gorgeous – love them!)
Homemade Shortbread. I only eat it during the holidays and can’t wait.
If I could only experience one treat during Christmas holidays, it would have to be Ginger cookies, recipe from Southern Living cookbook.
Everyone should try ribbon work – it is much easier than you think it will be! I am a needlepointed and it adds such dimension to needlepoint pieces and goes very quickly.
The one treat I have at Christmas is crème de menthe brownies. Yum!
As Christmas approaches, I dearly look forward to Italian “rainbow cookies” (sometimes referred to as “Italian flag cookies”) just like I had growing up in Brooklyn, NY. They take some time, effort and expense to make, and they are in no way a diet-friendly treat, but I am dreaming about them even now.
Nostalgia and food, indeed!
I absolutely always want really good boozy dark fruitcake for the holidays. In fact I am just finishing last year’s (if well wrapped in a tight tin they keep forever in the freezer) and last week I ordered a new one for this season.
Fudge
ANG Chapter is going to play and learn about ribbon embroidery on canvas this year . Looking forward to some fun. These ribbons are stunning. Such lush colors.
Love your newsletter, keeps me sane in a crazy world. Thank you.
Regarding this season food, it will have to be sugar cookies too. My mom did these small little ones that you could eat almost like a snack!
My grandmother (Nana) used to make scads and scads of Christmas cookies every Christmas and I loved looking at them all, it be was so hard to make a decision. But my favorite treat of all was her fancy Norwegian cookie, the Fattigman. I have her antique cookie cutter, maybe this is the year I make them for my family.
Thank you Mary for your blog, I learn something each time I read it. And my embroidery is getting better!!
Fruit cake
Fudge. I don’t know why but I make a dark chocolate fudge only at Christmas and the whole family asks for it.
I love a old fashion Raspberry Refrigerator cake very popular in the 60’s. I found this recipe on Anton’s “Good Eats” show and it was a big hit with my family and friend and so simple and festive. What more could you ask for in a holiday desert!! Definitely one that will make your guests think you slaved away in the kitchen for hours
My mother’s Chinese Chews, my mother is no longer here to make them. Everything I make them I have wonderful memories of her and Christmas. I was listening to the song I’ll be home for Christmas, it made me very sad to know that is not possible anymore. I miss my parents and that soft place to land! Everyone enjoy and value every minute with your families at Christmas and through out the year, one day all you will only have those memories. Merry Christmas
the only time of the year I get to have fruitcake, well now fruitcake cookies, is the holiday season. it’s the only time one can buy the candied fruit. It reminds me of my childhood when my Mom would make fruitcakes and confiscate our cookie tins-yes we each had our own tin. this was n effort to control my brothers from eating all the cookies. the tins were returned after the fruitcakes were gone. I still have mine!
My favorite holiday treat would be my mom’s divinity…… yum. Never been able to replicate it, so it’s been 40 years since that wonderful treat has melted in my mouth. Ahh family memories!
My favorite food at Christmas is prime rib. Yum!
It’s was hard to choose between my mom’s gingersnaps and her Fruitcake cookies. But I’m going to say fruitcake cookies. I’m gathering ingredients now to make them.
If I could have my favorite Christmas treat it would be Date Loaf. It is a candy that my Mom would make every Christmas. My brother and would fight over it. I always lost because he was older and bigger than me. I learned to make it and later in life my husband and son would fight over. They are all gone now and I am sitting here wondering if I should make a pan. I think maybe I will and share it with my nephew because he likes it as much as I do. So many memories and losses, but life goes on and it is time to make another memory. God can call the person home but he always leaves the memories for the person left behind. Enjoy your memory of that person today and go out and make a big ole Date Loaf and enjoy.
In my family it is little smokie sausages wrapped in bacon, sprinkled with brown sugar then baked. Only at Christmas. We love them. Lol
Fudge – I have been making fudge since I was very young (my mother started the tradition), and it isn’t the Christmas season without fudge!
Pecan Dream cookies!
I love cheese balls during Christmas.plus gingerbread men.
I would choose Sand Tarts! My favorite by far, but tedious and difficult to make! But Christmas is worth it!
chocolate covered almonds are my yearly treat! I try not to go near them for the rest of the year.
If I could only eat 1 treat that I eat only at Christmas time, it would have to be peppermint candy bark. I have very happy memories of making this white chocolate treat with my children and grandchildren. Two generations! I have been so blessed. Merry Christmas, Mary!
I’m wishing for mincemeat tarts.
Tourtiere
Chocolate mousse, hands down (or should I say ‘hand up’)!
Grandma’s Gingerbread cookies! Yum
I love toffee candy and crockpot candy at Christmas.
I’d choose church window cookies. My brother-in-law makes them. They’re some sort of chocolate dough with lots of colorful miniature marshmallows.
Gorgeous ribbon!
I love Spekulaas cookies at christmas-time. They remind me of spending time with my dutch Oma, a wonderful needlewoman. Thank-you for giving me a chance to talk about her at this special time of year : )
The one treat I enjoy only during the holiday season is eggnog!
Have thought and drooled about ribbon embroidery for years but never got to it. This will send me traveling that road.
I love cream cheese wreath cookies made with a cookie press and decorated with red hots. They were my mom’s favorite. I make them every Christmas…why don’t I make them more often, hmmmm?
Love to be picked for these ribbons. Merry Christmas.
These ribbon rolls are absolutely delicious. In addition to using them to make beautiful ribbon embroidery, I think they would be stunning to use as garland on a small tree, after which they could be rewrapped, and used in projects. In my mind I can see the ribbons twisting and flowing on my little tree. I wonder if one could fashion small ornaments using some bits?
My favorite holiday treat is homemade shortbread cookies. There is something about their crumbly goodness that makes me crave them.
Mary, I have all of Di’s books. She has so many lovely ideas in each one. They are so inspiring. During the Christmas season my family makes chocolate truffles. We make a big batch, so many times we each have to take turns rolling them. Have a wonderful holiday season and Merry Christmas.
My favorite holiday treat is a type of thumbprint cookie. It’s called a
German butter cookie – lots of butter with either a chocolate or raspberry filled thumbprint. So Yummy! (I prefer the chocolate of course!)
Hi Mary,
This treat would be a glass of eggnog that I would warm in the microwave prior to drink it.
I could drink it while working on my embroidery while watching the snow fall after coming back from cross-country skiing.
Louise.
Truffles
My Chocolate Gingerbread Cake with Chocolate Buttercream Frosting.
I would love to prepare and have some of my sister’s recipe of Marzipan… This was a famous recipe in the 70’s. It was simple and an exquisite mix of chopped vanilla cookies, pecans, walnuts, dates, maraschino cherries, sweetened condensed milk… Just mix everything, prepare a log, put some cherries on top and wrap with fridge paper. Put it in the refrigerator overnight and voila! Delicious!! Try it!
Fave food only now… I’d have to say marzipan shaped to look like fruit. I’m not overly fond of almond flavoring in baked goods, but I love marzipan!
Many thanks to you and Di for the give away, the ribbon is gorgeous, especially the sunsets as I now live in Arizona, and we have ones to match the ribbons!
I love eggnog and wait for it anxiously during Christmastime.
Beautiful silk ribbon!
My favourite treat for this time of year is pecan topped fruitcake!
I love to start working with ribbon. It helps to learn with quality materials. I keep thinking about my Mom’s cream puffs and potato chip cookies.
My favorite family tradition is baking and decorating sugar cookies together. I’d keep that edible treat above all others because of the happy memories.
Thank you Mary and Di,
I just love silk ribbon and all the beautiful flowers I can invent with it! This time of year is a wonderland of daydreams! My favorite Christmas daydream is homemade hot chocolate with shortbread cookies, usually sipped and eaten while waiting for Santa on Christmas Eve. Jane
It’s not Christmas without pavlova, with oodles of whipped cream, fresh stone fruit and passionfruit drizzled over the top. And ice cream of course. It’s heating up here (finally, after a LOT of rain and floods) but the passionfruit vine is still only flowering, so I guess I’ll have to buy the fruit this year.
I love peppermint bark at Christmas. Yum! Those silk ribbons are also yummy!
My Mom’s fudge that she made every Christmas. Thanks for the giveaway. The ribbons looks scrumptious!
I love Torrone. This is Italian nougat candy. Years ago, it was only available during the Christmas holidays, but you can probably find it any time now. It’s a good thing availability is limited because I wouldn’t be able to resist.
Judy, long, long ago I dated a guy in the service, stationed in Germany. He would send me Toblerone bars. No one here had ever heard of them. I hoarded them, they were so good!
The treat I look forward to making and eating is Swedish Rosettes. I inherited my great-grandmother’s rosette iron that she brought with her when she emigrated to America. My grandmother made them every year at Christmas time and I have carried on that tradition. YUM!
Oh, Mary! You have started my tummy rumbling! When my son was a lot younger, for his Christmas treat, he would ask for German Chocolate Cake. Because I thought it was so good, I thought it was his favorite, but it was because it was his friends’ favorite! All these years later, I’m craving one this year!
Wishing you a blessed, slow, and joy-filled Christmas season.
I love my grandmother’s Sand Tarts (thin sugar cookies.) One of my best holiday memories is decorating them. I have a copy of the recipe – it includes the instruction “Mix in the usual manner.” Ha!
A favorite edible at Christmas time is German marzipan christstollen. It became a family favorite when we lived in Germany many years ago. Our landlady at the time taught me how to make it . Christstollen is a sweet bread flavored with almond paste, nuts, and raisins. Covered in powdered sugar.
My special treat would without a doubt be FUDGE, specifically my grandmother’s recipe. She was born July 4th and passed after her 102 birthday. I still treasure her crewel embroidery which hangs on my craft room wall. Back to her fudge, three different types of Chocolate and lots of butter and sugar! Once a year only! ❤️
Thank you for the ribbon giveaway! What beautiful colors.
Panettone is my holiday treat. And, they can now be found in single-serving sizes! Just for me, as my family does not indulge. Yum.
My daughter fabulous Chex mix with peanut butter
My snack would be dates stuffed with cream cheese.
I would eat gingerbread cookie with icing!
Silk ribbon is so beautiful! My favorite seasonal treats are the Pepperidge Farm Milano Slices Peppermint Cookies. Thanks so much for this great giveaway!
My husband always makes Jambalaya for Christmas Eve dinner. It is a great treat since it’s the only time of the year we make this.
Picking just one is difficult. I bake at least 12 different types of cookies for Christmas and a Christmas cake Stollen – I look forward to eating them!! The aroma in the kitchen from the cookies and cake is heavenly – wish the calories would float to heaven!! My favorite cookie – all of them. The one cookie I must bake every year is the Cucidati – one of my favorites.
Thank you for the give away Mary. Have a great week!
Oh boy …this is an easy answer. “ROSETTES” They are especially made during the Christmas holidays and if you are fortunate enough to have them when freshly fried – they are simply the best. The tops are lightly dipped in sugar when still hot and makes them my #1 in my wants for a holiday treat.
My choice would be my husband’s aunt’s flaky Finnish prune tarts – light as a feather, believe it or not. I’ve tried replicating them but they’re nit nearly as light and feathery as hers.
I love special brownies — brownie base, then a mint layer, than chocolate top — that I make only at Christmas. The kids and I have enjoyed these for years.
The first snack that comes to mind is the oyster crackers with herbs. Yum!
I have to agree with you that iced sugar cookies are the best!!!
And I only eat them during the Christmas holidays.
Swedish meatballs! I know it’s Christmas Eve when that wonderful smell fills the house!
The Christmas treat I enjoy are sausage rolls. I grew up in England and for Christmas my grandmother made these small sausage filled pastry rolls and they became my favorite at Christmas. My mother continued the tradition after my grandmother passed and I started making them a few years back. I passed the recipe on to my daughter, who loves them just as much, and now helps me make them – she’s 28. She made them for herself during Covid, as she lives in DC and couldn’t come home for Christmas that year. Of course, the sausage meat here in the U.S. has a different flavor – we use Jimmy Dean sausage – they still taste great and are the primary question when the holidays roll around: Are you making sausage rolls? Christmas wouldn’t be the same without them. Merry Christmas!
If I had to pick an edible holiday treat, I would go for Hot Chocolate — with marshmallows — sweet, warm, evocative and chocolate.
I am one of those rare folks who love a good fruitcake! And the richer, the better. I do try to limit myself to1 piece per day because there can be too much of a good thing.
Ok. That’s a tough one as I make toffee only at Christmas. But then there’s biscochitos from New Mexico that I normally only get at Christmas. And then there’s gingerbread that I only make at Christmas. Do I have to choose? One bite of each? With a good strong cup of coffee.
Thank you for your blog. I appreciate all the work you put into it.
How beautiful all the ribbons are! I love ribbon embroidery and enjoy all your posts and email. Although there are many, my favorite holiday treat is Coconut Cloud Cake, a recipe I took years ago from Martha Stewart’s magazine. Using fresh coconut and big coconut flakes makes this cake very special. I’m sure you can find the recipe on Martha’s site. THANK YOU for the give away and Happy Holidays! 🙂
Spiced Nuts: pecans coated in a sauce close to pralines without the extra “cookie” without a nut in every bite!
Oh, Mary, an impossible question!!! Only 1??? That’s nearing a “Sophie’s Choice” (well, maybe I exaggerate a bit, LOL). Will it be mom’s turkey stuffing, dad’s favorite – fudge (both folks are passed, I miss them so). How about Florence’s Candy (a lady I worked with years and years ago, very sweet- the lady and the candy!) – a family tradition for more years than I can count- My youngest daughter says “It’s not Christmas without it! And several others… Well, I guess I’ll opt for my “1” being a cookie plateful! (And I’ll sneak in some stuffing when you aren’t looking, LOL). Merry Christmas!!!
This is easiest question I’ve ever answered…my favorite holiday treat is cashew brittle. A friend has the most delicious secret recipe for it that beats any brittle I’ve ever had. Thanks for reminding me to bug that friend this season
Granted that cookie recipes can be used any time of the year, but at the holidays we always had decorated sugar cookies. They were not made with cookie cutters but dough was tweaked with food coloring and additions of coconut, nuts or raisons and sanding sugars to make it look like lots of different types of cookies were being shared.
I make a bar cookie at Christmas with caramel, chocolate, walnuts and oatmeal. Each cookie is rich and satisfying and they are healthy because they contain oatmeal!!!
your website is absolutely brilliant as a beginner I have learnt so much and look forward to taking up you kits and your teaching lessons
Best wishes Anne
SNOWBALL COOKIES!!
I make these with pecans (not walnuts), which are first toasted in the oven to bring out more of their sweet flavor. Once cooled, I roll them in powdered sugar more than once, so there’s a thick layer of snow (sugar) with none of the cookie showing through.
I love English Christmas cake at the holidays.
Definitely my great grandmother’s peppernuts, a bite sized anise cookie. They are not like any other cookie of the same name I’ve ever tried. And I don’t even like anise otherwise. I just baked my first batch yesterday and will be making more.
I choose my sister’s frosted cut out Christmas cookies!
My choice would be chocolate covered cherries!
I would pick home made nut roll, made from my mother’s recipe. It’s the best!
Aunt Lizzie’s sugar cookies…she always iced the bottoms, not the tops of the cookies!
Rolled nut bread that my grandmother used to make. My grandmother taught my mother and I how to make it. We used to make it at the holidays. Haven’t had it in years.
Mary,
What beautiful silks! I had to enter because even though I have a bit of silk ribbon, I don’t have any as beautiful as what you are giving away!
The treat that I would pick would be a good homemade fruitcake. Not the really sweet candied fruit kind, but one filled with dried fruits and nuts.
Have a great Advent and Christmas season.
If you had to pick only one edible treat that you normally enjoy only during the holiday season, what would you pick?
I’d pick the milk chocolate orange ball. The taste of chocolate and orange is wonderful!
Please pick me.
My favorite holiday treat is Mexican Wedding Cake cookies.
Ohhhh sugar cookies are fabulous! But my all time favorite are Mexican Wedding cookies, also know as Snowballs. We only make these delicious powder sugar covered cookies at Christmas. I grew up making them with my sister and brothers and continued when I got married (45 years ago!). Tradition holding strong.
Merry Christmas, Mary!
My favorite is fruitcake! I make a very special fruit cake from a recipe my mother-in-law gave me. It is more like cake (not gooey). When served with a nice cup of tea, it is heaven.
My favorite is the cream cheese apricot twists I make for my family every year.
Gingerbread
My mother used to make many sweets only at Christmas ever since I was a child. But if asked to choose one I would choose the Christmas cake for which expense was not spared
I love some of daughter Trisha’s peanut brittle indulged in only at Christmas!
Pecan ball cookies! I only make these at Christmas time.
stollen
If I had to pick only one edible treat that I normally enjoy only during the holiday season, it is gingerbread men cookies. My mom used to read me the story of the little man running away, and I miss her every year. I LOVE the spicy sweetness with a light glaze of crunchy icing. The aroma while baking is my fondest memory of the Christmas season.
This may sound odd, but it would have to be my mother’s fruitcake recipe. Now before you think “ick” – this is a white fruitcake. The base flavor is lemon – not “ick”. It uses the traditional candied red and green cherries, candied pineapple and golden raisins. No citron, no ick. Chopped pecans add the perfect touch. I make this every year and get requests for it every year. Reminds me of cooking with my mom when I was little, and it’s not the holidays without it. <3
I love Italian panforte, a flat cake of crystallised fruit and almonds, flavoured with orange flower essence and coated in powdered sugar, but our local deli only sells them at Christmas so I have to buy as many as I can afford and try to resist eating them all in the first week!
My favorite holiday treat is pecan pie – the gooier, the better! That would be my choice if I had to pick only one.
What beautiful colors. They are so rich and saturated. I would love to work with them
Eggnog absolutely. When I was in junior high school, we had to make home made eggnog in cooking class. It was a new treat for me and one I never forgot. I only imbibe at the holidays, but it is a taste sensation that I eagerly look forward to each year. Paired with stollen, it is a delicious way to start off the season.
The edible treat I would choose would be a Danish Christmas stollen made by our favorite local bakery. Having this for Christmas Day breakfast is a tradition started in our house when our children were young and now it’s being shared with grandchildren as well!
G’day there Mary,
Pavlova with lashings of whipped fresh cream on heaps of fresh fruit salad.
A very happy and safe Christmas to you and yours Mary
Kath x
Pralines! My sister gives me a box of pralines every Christmas and you have no idea how much I look forward to them! If you have never tried one, I encourage you to take a bite. You’ll be hooked!
The one Christmas edible eats that I would like this Christmas would be my grandmother’s Sugar Cookies. Mema made them every Christmas for her grandchildren.
What gorgeous ribbons – thank you so much for doing this! I know it’s probably an unpopular choice, but the one treat I actually love during the holiday season is fruitcake – not the dreaded doorstopper stuff of nightmares, but a beautifully baked one full of nuts and fruit that just melts in your mouth (I promise you, they do exist!)
My mother made pecan tastees. These holiday treats with little crusts, brown sugar and pecans represent the holiday for me. They are a true labor of love.
I couldn’t possibly give up the homemade benne seed cookies I make every Christmas. But treats wouldn’t include eggnog, right?
Mmmm…there are so many delicious treats during the holidays, but I would have to choose flaky, buttery, sweet, and simple homemade shortbread as my once per year favorite❣️
Mary, thank you for this opportunity to possibly win the beautiful silk ribbon. All the colors are beautiful.
I’m trying to think of my favorite Christmas treat and it’s hard to pick my favorite. Growing up, my mom and dad would make Crape Suzette’s for Christmas morning breakfast. It’s a crepe with an orange butter rolled into it. With 5 kids in the family, I don’t know how they kept up with keeping the crepes coming. To this day, this is still a tradition in all of the kid’s Christmas morning tradition.
Merry Christmas, Mary. Take time to slow down.
definitely homemade Christmas candies…fudge, divinity and peanut brittle in small quantities as I don’t want to spend the holidays in a sugar coma. Have a lot of work to do.lol
Gum drop cake is a seasonal favourite of mine. My mother made this every year at Christmas and I have her recipe. I’ve already made 2 batches and it’s only December 5th!
My favorite holiday treat would be my Dad’s giant homemade cinnamon rolls. He use to start the yeast dough early evening and set it in a corner of the kitchen to rise. He punched it down ever so often, with the last punch right before we headed off to midnight Mass. As soon as we came back, while my sisters and I changed into our nightgowns, he placed the first batch into the oven. The cinnamon rolls were so big, we shared them and only had half. But we enjoyed them nice and warm while we opened only one small gift from our parents. Then off to bed we went for a few hours and woke Christmas morning for gifts from Santa and other family members and more cinnamon rolls.
It’s hard to pick just one treat but I guess I would say Peanut Butter balls. Yummmm
At Christmas time I always make Snickerdoodles and Molasses Cookies. The Recipe I use is from the 1954 Betty Croker Cook Book. My kids love them and so do their kids. It is a tradition for our family to have Snickerdoodles and Molasses Cookies in the Snowman Cookie jar at Grammy’s house!
I’ve worked with these silks only a bit, but they are lovely. My favorite, by far. And I love Mary Corbett!
I have such fond memories of a great aunt that made homemade cheese straws. I would pick those! At least the cheese part sounds healthy! If there was a second choice it would be homemade coconut candy…. And the list would continue!
Thanks for this chance!
Apricot Brandy Bread is my favorite holiday season treat. I’ve baked this special bread since the early 1990’s from a holiday recipe book a colleague brought to work. A warm slice served with a cup of tea is perfect for a break in a busy holiday schedule. And, a small loaf is a yummy gift to family, friends and special neighbors.
Pecan Balls are my favorite Christmas treat. I love all cookies, but this my favorite.
My Grandmothers Cherry Wink Cookies! Time to start baking!
I got so excited about the silk, I forgot to include my favorite Christmas food. Divinity fudge is something I’ve loved since I was a little girl. Only made by my Gramma and Auntie at Christmas. Memories.
My Mom’s beautiful and tasty Yule Log cake is what I look forward to during the holidays.
I would most definitely choose fantasy fudge. As I no longer indulge in sugar in my diet this is a fantasy!
My absolute favorite is pumpkin pie. I know I can make it any time of the year but somehow it tastes better between Thanksgiving and Christmas.
My mother’s fudge! She has Alzheimer’s and is in a nursing home. How I wish I had paid more attention to her cooking! So blessed to still have her with me.
Pfeffernüsse!!
My father would buy Stella D’Oro pfeffernüsse as soon as they appeared in the stores after Thanksgiving. Unfortunately, they stopped making them after they moved down south. Reminds me that it’s time to start searching for stores that carry Bahlsen’s!
I love an Italian cookie Pizzelle my Mom would make. Would stand with a pizzelle iron over open flame on stove making one at a time.
I would love my Mom’s 1950’s Glazed Apple Cookies. You have to use Crisco , not butter or they are not the same.
I love strawberry sugarplums, a recipe shared with me by my late sister-in-law. They are delicious and so pretty! They look so much mike strawberries but are not made with them. Delicious!!!
I would pick Lebkuchen. It is a German cookie and most likely a Christmas cookie. I could eat it year round
Good morning! First. I want to say how much I am learning from your newsletters and online tutorials. This is new to me, and your lessons are so helpful.
My favorite food that I eat only at this time of year would be my mother’s Date Nut Bread. It is rich and moist and perfect after a hectic day with a hot cup of tea or even eggnog.
She is gone now, but the taste and smells of her signature recipes bring back many memories of days gone by. We need to treasure every moment, even the hectic ones!
My grandmother made fruitcake cookies. They had lots of candied fruits nuts and brown sugar. They were chewy and just sweet enough. She always said we could eat as many as we wanted since they were made of fruit and fruit is good for you. Christmas reminds me of her and her fruitcake cookies
It seems the pace of life speeds up during November and December though the nights are cooler, darker and an excellent time to linger with silk ribbon needlework.
I’m looking forward to eating one of my favorite cookies: Cream Cheese Spritz
Happy Holidays!
MMM, Chocolate covered cherries.
I love Buche de Noel (Yule Log), probably because I love chocolate and I love Christmas.
I just ordered RSN’s new ribbon embroidery course to try and learn it so this give away would be a wonderful addition! My mom used to make these jello jiggler thing in cinnamon and clove but after she passed I never found the recipe. I’ve been craving them for decades but all my attempts to make them have failed.
Dear Mary, Just the pictures of these ribbons makes my mouth water. If I had to pick one edible treat that I enjoy only during the holidays it would be springerle cookies. These are from my husband’s region of France: Alsace. They are anise flavoured white cookies made with beautiful moulds carved traditionally out of fruitwood. I make these cookies every December over two days. They remind me of our time spend in Alsace and the wonderful Christmas market in Strasbourg. Merry Christmas to you and thank you so much.
Eggnog!
Each Christmas since 1981 I bake the light fruitcake from cookbook I bought in 1978 Cooking in Colour – Tess Mallos serve it with Stilton cheese and this is my favorite edible for the holidays.
Wow, what an awesome package that would be to receive. I have worked with silk ribbon in past projects and they add elegance and dimension to the piece. Didn’t take me long to come up with my favorite treat. It would have to be homemade almond crescent cookies. The recipe was my Paternal Grandmother’s passed down to my Mother, then to me. They are melt in your mouth scrumptious!
I have always wanted to learn Silk Ribbon Embroidery but have never ventured in that direction. The most favorite snack this time of year used to be my Mothers Swedish Pecan Powdered Sugar balls. Worse that potato chips, you definitely can’t eat just one, or two, or….
If I had to pick one treat, I’d pick my mom’s signature “candies”! They’re big globs of semi-sweet chips and butterscotch melted together to coat piles of peanuts— big so you can feel okay about having “just one” hehe.
These ribbons are absolutely gorgeous!
Gingerbread! I only have it at Christmas time. Must be warm with copious amounts of whipped cream. Mmmmm.
I love making a snacking buffet for Christmas Eve with all sorts of finger food,cookies candy etc
Oh, so many! But I will pick Fantasy Fudge. I always made it for my husband as it was his favorite and it is easy to make.
I would LOVE to be able to eat another slice of my grandma’s warm gingerbread cake with her lemon sauce poured on top.
If I had to pick only one edible treat that I normally only enjoy during the holiday season, I would pick divinity candy. Divinity is delicious and melts in your mouth, if it’s made correctly! I always looked forward to the holidays when my husband’s Aunt Elsa would make a plate of divinity for us. After she passed away, I decided to try making it myself. I did not have very good luck the first time I tacked the recipe. I burned up my hand mixer! After a few years, I read many “how-to” recipes and finally was able to make delicious divinity. I still remember Aunt Elsa during the holidays and am thankful for the gift of divinity that she brought to us for many years.
Oh my gosh, the silk ribbon colors are beautiful!!
Chocolate Mousse Cake!
My own secret recipe I made up to copy one that was made at a famous hotel in my youth.
I love it, as does my family. But I have to make it myself , which is a real commitment in time and effort.
I want to eat fruit cake and spiced cider.
One edible treat – oh my that is always a hard one… so many yummy choices – but it would have to be Krumkaka.
So many warm memories of making it with my mom. Literally WARM! That kitchen got HOT!
ohhhhhhhhh they are sooooooooooooo pretty! Please toss my name in the hat lol! Such a fun gift this time of year too. Well… If I could have only ONE treat… I guess it would be my peanut clusters. Sounds silly maybe… but this is how I rationalize them, They are small, they are made with chocolate (which studies show we ALL need) and contain protien! Now the fact that I could eat 10 in one sitting should not be overlooked! They are addictive to say the least and my most requested treat at the holiday so there is proof they are delicious! So I am pretty sure I could live on them solely for at least a week. We shall not discuss my hips. Nope! not today! Good luck everyone and ty for a chance Mary.
I would love some Divinity like my aunt who is no longer with us used to make. Hers was the absolute best.
I would chose cranberry walnut muffins.
Mom’s Wiskey Balls
One of my absolute favorite edible treats that I enjoy having during the holiday season would be Gingerbread Cupcakes with Cinnamon Vanilla Frosting.
During the holidays I enjoy too many gingerbread cookies!
Snowballs! Snowballs are the only Christmas cookie I must have, and Christmas is the only time of year I make them. They’re a buttery morsel of decadent deliciousness that melt in your mouth. I began making them when I was in high school and I still make them 46 years later. Snowballs are my go- to cookie for Christmas cookie exchanges. It’s important to share the decadence.
Mary, I love your website. I’ve been doing needlework since my first cross stitch project for a Girl Scout badge, I was eleven. I was so proud of it and got my badge. Now I wonder why the scout leader didn’t make me do it over! It’s a fine example of how not to do printed cross stitch. She was very generous. I framed it. I get a chuckle every time I look at it. ~ Merry Christmas, Mary
I’ve admired ribbon embroidery for many years and was delighted that recently the Inspirations’ weekly blog has been discussing and renewing my interest.
Happy Homidays
Easy question: my friend Agatha’s homemade speculaas (Dutch spice cookies). ❤️
My grandmother’s soft ginger cookies with dark chocolate icing. They were large and gingersnap flavored, but soft and chewy. She’d drizzle melted dark chocolate across the top. YUM
I love Di’s work and nearly bought a small kit of hers, but stopped when I realized shipping was more than the kit. If I’m still thinking about it a month from now I’ll probably go back and get it.
The colours of these ribbons look edible absolutely lovely my favourite food Christmas pudding English type delicious it would not be Christmas without it and those ribbons would be a cherry on my cake
Home made ice cream. I grew up on a dairy farm and we would use the top cream. We would make our own fudge and caramel sauce to top it off with. We don’t have any cows now, and my ice cream freezer is electric instead of hand cranked, but we still make it and have it every Christmas with as many cookies as I can bake.
I love peanut butter fudge at this time of year. My mom always made lots of candies for the holidays, and her peanut butter fudge was one of my favorites.
I always love to make Scalloped Potatoes and Potatoes au Gratin during the holiday season. With Heavy Cream! And aged cheddar in the case of the au Gratin. I only allow myself this treat during the holidays.
Ribbon related, those ribbons are sooo beautiful! I have some ideas for altered and embroidered clothing and I need those variegated ribbons. The colors are astounding!
One edible treat, that’s a tough one. I have two, both cookies and both German and I can’t decide which I’d rather have. One is the Lebkuchen which I order direct from Germany. They’re wonderful, soft spice cookies with a glaze on them. The other is a cookie that I make from a. Recipe given tome by a German neighbor. Of course, it was in German and in grams. It’s a wonderful chocolate sandwich cookie with the most wonderful filling.
Eggnog!
My best friend’s mom was an incredible cook. I remember her homemade carmels. She made them this time of year and they were melt-in-your-mouth SCRUMPTIOUS!! I have tried making them and they’ve never been quite as good. Lois had the magic touch.
My absolute favorite Christmas treat is Caramels made from my grandmother’s recipe. My mother made them every year and I do as well. It brings my mother closer to me with good memories.
The one Christmas food that is a Christmas tradition for our family with Swedish heritage is Swedish Spritz. We make these and share them with our friends.
I love mince meat and buy extra during the season to have year round.
Green bean casserole!
My most favorite holiday treat is the Nut Roll made by my Aunt Julie. Her dough was incredible and the fillings were perfect..from the walnut filling to the poppy seed filling, it seems I could never get enough. We lost Aunt Julie a few years back, but her baking delights will never be forgotten (or duplicated).
My favorite Christmas treat are the Mexican wedding cookies. Of course since I am the family cookie baker (6 different ones, about 45 to 50 dozen) I always know my favorite will be there.
I had an early Christmas treat yesterday. We are in Ireland and went to see the Ros tapestries. There are 15 panels, depicting the Norman influence here. They are similar to the Bayeaux one. But these are modern; in fact the last one isn’t finished yet. There are some images on line. Truly wonderful needle paintings. Hope everyone has a happy and healthy holiday season
See’s candy:)
JeanL.
I would pick a slice of my Mother’s Mincemeat pie. Yum!! And the opportunity to enjoy it with her. Now you have made me hungry too. Thanks Mary! (for all you to keep us ahead in the stitching game.)
Walnut date balls cookies with lots of powdered sugar
I have admired ribbon embroidery for a very long time and would love the opportunity to pursue a project.
Pat
My choice of a sweet treat during the holiday season is the candy cane. I love the candycane twirls. It is an homage to my father, who passed many years ago. He would buy the very thick candy cane, put it in a Ziploc bag, and using a hammer break it into edible pieces. Oh, how I miss him, but every time I eat the sweet treat, he is in my thoughts.
My “looking forward” treat is a sugar cookie made from a receipe in the old Searchlight cook book.
Chocolate peppermint bark reminds me of Christmas, of gifts received and gifts given. This is the only time of the year that I see and enjoy this sweet treat!
I always make lefse for the holidays. We make a lot and freeze packages which go to the kids. It freezes well so before our family gets together, I do the rolling and hubby does the cooking with two grills. So it’s quite the assembly line.
My Mom is an excellent baker, she makes all types of cookies for Christmas. My favorites are Pecan Fingers, rolled in powdered sugar. They melt in your mouth.
Hands down, it’s thumbprint cookies! Sure, they taste great, but it’s the memories of first making them with my daughter when her thumb was so little and then just last year making them with my tiny grandson for the first time. Cherished memories for us all.
My cherry brandy soaked fruit cake.
Thank you for the reminder to slow down this season! It’s difficult to choose only one holiday edible–especially since you mentioned iced sugar cookies!–but this year, it’s homemade gingerbread (cake, not cookies) with freshly whipped cream. Wishing you a joyous Christmas & a cheerful holiday season!
This is my favorite recipe:
Gingerbread
1-1/4 c. firmly packed dark brown sugar
3/4 tsp. salt
1/2 c. solid vegetable shortening
2 eggs
1 c. whole milk
1 tsp. white vinegar
2 c. all-purpose flour
1-1/2 tsp. ginger
1 tsp. baking soda
3/4 tsp. cinnamon
1/2 tsp. freshly grated nutmeg
Cream sugar, salt, & shortening thoroughly in a large mixing bowl. Beat eggs into creamed mixture one at a time until light & fluffy. Combine milk & vinegar; set aside. Sift together flour, soda, & spices. Alternatively add flour mixture & milk mixture to creamed mixture, blending well after each addition. Turn into greased & floured
9″x 9″x 2″ baking pan. Bake in moderate oven (350 degrees F) for 1 hour or until wire cake tester comes out clean. Cool 10 minutes in pan, loosen sides with a butter knife, then turn gingerbread out onto wire cooling rack. Serve warm as is or topped with freshly whipped cream.
Yield: 8 large or 16 small servings
popcorn balls. Christmas was the only time of the year we had them, and I always looked forward to finding one of them, and a big orange in the toe of my Christmas stocking.
Only during the holidays did my family have a bowl of in-the-shell, mixed nuts, sitting out with some nutcrackers and nut picks. Walnuts, hazelnuts, Brazil nuts, pecans. Conversation and slow eating. Good memories.
My favorite holiday treat would definitely be plum pudding; something my mother made every year as our special dessert on Christmas day.
Toffee! love it!
“…one edible treat that you normally enjoy only during the holiday season?” That’s easy! Mincemeat cookies. My mother made them at Christmas, and I’ve continued the tradition.
Thanks for the chance to win!
Nancy Staab
I love silk ribbon embroidery. I started a shirt years ago but can’t find the book since I moved to finish it.
My favorite holiday food is my daughter’s Christmas cranberry cake.! It’s so yummy. We used to make every kind of candy for the holidays but it’s expensive, involves lots of time, and isn’t good for us! Cheers!
It is early morning here on the west coast, but if you handed me a big piece of pecan pie I would eat it with relish! I only seem to make pecan pie in December.
And then I would dream about using those silk ribbons on my needlepoint canvases….ahhhh….
Really good quality hot chocolate, in a mug, with a candy cane to stir it. I don’t eat chocolate anymore due to dietary restrictions but I could cheat just for this.
My mother made German pfeffernusse cookies every year for Christmas. They were full of flour and her goal was to make them as solid and hard as possible in order to satisfy my father’s request for cookies like his mother had made. He had fond memories of being a young boy and putting one of his mom’s pfeffernusse cookies into his mouth and not being able to bite into it until it had soaked for a long period of time as in his boyhood memory.
These are such rich and vibrant colors and I can picture many projects to use them for. I do embroider and wanted to start doing some ribbon embroidery too. It’s sooooo beautiful. I will have to purchase the book you reviewed and get started. Thanks for the nudge.
Christmas Cookies! Especially iced sugar cookies!
I like to enjoy eggnog at this time of year. It is relaxing to sit back with a cup and gather with friends and family. Happy holidays!
Springerle Cookies
Mom’s apple pie – without a doubt! It was the best, best, best apple pie ever. And just thinking about it conjures up memories of the evenings before Thanksgiving and Christmas: I would go to her house to help her cook, which often involved just washing the dishes as she used them as I’m not much of a cook myself! Those were good times and come to mind every holiday season. Thanks, Mom, for both the pies and the memories.
A holiday treat for Christmas only – white chocolate with peppermint candy chips! Yum!!
My grandmother’s cherry pinwheels.
Thank you
Traditional Springerle Cookies
Memories of my grandmother are always around this time of the year as her she filled her house with Springerle with their beautiful designs but maybe my favorite is the Pfefferneuse with it’s spices that burst in my mouth and an aroma that fills the home.
Thank you Mary and Di for the giveaway.
It’s so hard to select only one! But I think it would have to be my mom’s peanut brittle.
Anything that includes peppermint and DARK chocolate is my Christmas treat! It could be peppermint bark, brownies, even milkshakes. Last week I bought two milkshakes (sans whipped cream and cherry) and divided them into serving-size freezing containers. Now I can enjoy a touch of Christmas during the year.
Look forward to eating Linzer torte and Spekulatius as the sweet treats of the Christmas season.
I am remembering my dad’s heavenly, chocolate fudge that he would make a few days before Christmas. He never actually cooked anything else throughout the year but this fudge that just melted in your mouth. I have the recipe and have made it, but somehow the memories from the way it tasted when I was a child are just the very best!
The treats that we have normally only during the Holidays would be pumpkin pie, pumpkin bread, sugar cookies and spritz cookies. These are family favorites during the Holidays. Thank you for this great giveaway.
I would really love to have some delicious German Lebkucken…the Grand Contessa ones that are rich in orange peel and other spices, moist and coated with a light sugar glaze. We lived in Germany for 9 years and I remember these fresh lebkucken and the Christmas Matkets….that’s Christmas!!
My favorite Christmas time treat is Peppermint ice cream.
The one edible treat I would chose is my mother’s plum pudding with raisin sauce. My mother made the most amazing plum pudding and we had it for dessert on Christmas Day each and every year. Didn’t matter how stuffed you were from the turkey dinner, plum pudding always topped it off! I miss my mother so much!
Gingerbread, of course! I love not just the eating, but the baking and the amazing smell of fresh grated ginger, cinnamon, and allspice that wafts through our home as Christmasy as the . A bite of warm gingerbread takes me right back to my childhood. There’s nothing better!
My favorite Christmas dessert is sugar Christmas cutout cookies. They are so buttery rich and the icing is so sweet. Just the wonderful treat with milk or coffee.
Dense, delicious, moist, homemade fruitcake!
I love homemade divinity candy. Yummm.
Every Christmas when my mom came for the holidays she would bring us a Smithfield ham and a rum cake. These treats were so delicious and we looked forward to them with great anticipation. I especially miss her heavenly rum cake.
These are such rich and vibrant colors and I can picture many projects to use them for. I do embroider and wanted to start doing some ribbon embroidery too. It’s sooooo beautiful. I will have to purchase the book you reviewed and get started. Thanks for the nudge. My edible are Pecan Sandies (I think that’s what they are called) Nut cookies covered in powdered sugar. Very messy but worth it.
Hi again. I put in an emoji of a Christmas tree in my comments but it didn’t accept it and the sentence is incomplete. ….as Christmas-y as our tree.
I’m hungry right now too. I would love to eat some homemade toffee while doing some ribbon embroidery!
My family makes a dessert made from whipped topping, crushed pineapple, pecans and thickened with tapioca. We only make it on Thanksgiving and Christmas.
I am a beginner using silk and I absolutely love the beautiful effect. I would like to learn more and incorporate it into my embroidery. I belong to the Embroiders Guild of America so examples of my work will be shared at our meeting and on Facebook.
I had to think about this question for a minute; but it would have to be my Grandma Rose’s 7-layer cookies – an all-in-one-pan bar cookie that was awesome!
Martha Washington Candy…
Divinity…. My grandmother made it for the holidays when I was a child and I always try to have some available for Christmas, always reminds me of her
My special Christmas treat is always springerle. While there are other cookies we have at Christmas, springerle are special because they remind me of time spent baking with my grandmother. I still use her springerle recipe and the roller she sent me every year.
This time of year I watch for the peppermint stick ice cream to appear in the stores. I love it with hot fudge topping.
Christmas cookies!
I absolutely love the old fashioned almond flavored press cookies! I have my Mother’s old press so now that this reminded me I will be baking some this year!
I look forward to eating light fluffy divinity with nuts! So sweet and tasty!
It’s too difficult to choose just one. I like to have a variety plate of all the cookies, so I can pick and choose several.
Sherry cherry trifle would be my choice. Black cherries are a reminder of our first trip to Switzerland and the beautiful jam at breakfast. The almond biscuits, crumbled into the trifle, bring memories of Italy, served with coffee. Sherry takes me to Spain or Portugal and all the sunshine, colour and vibrancy of that part of the world. Add sponge, a little jam, good custard and cream and, there you have it, a truly delicious concoction which all the family enjoy.
My mother’s fruit and nut cake. It is so full of dried fruit and chopped nuts that there is very little “cake” involved. It’s soaked in rum and delicious with a light cup of tea. She’s made it every year since sometime in the 197o’s.
Although they are available year round, I never have these except at Christmas: Andre’s packaged Tea Cookies. Heaven!
Oh, you must be a Kansas City gal! 🙂 I haven’t had their tea cookies, but I have had their chocolate! yum!
Yes! I first had them when young, but have since searched and found them at a Chicago Department Store (whose name I can’t remember offhand). They still mail them out!
My one edible treat would be the Norwegian almond cookies called sandbakkels. They are made in the form of mini pie crusts. You can eat them as-is or fill them with various goodies. This cookie ties me to my Norwegian heritage and all the strong women who made them in my family. (The silk ribbons are spectacular and gorgeous.)
Gingerbread men cookies from Savage’s Bakery in Birmingham, AL (nothing like ’em!)
Christmas Ribbon candy. As children we would get some for a special treat. It’s hard to find these days.
Soft glazed gingerbread cookies with a tiny amount of candied peel. Our store starts stocking them in November. Amazing!
My favorite edible treat at this time of year is mandarin oranges. (I know that in today’s marketplace, one can often find these oranges at other times of the year, but since I am a days of yore gal, they are only at Christmas time.)
Momma’s cheese ball.
Pecan pie
My grandmothers Date nut log candy she only made it at Christmas. So rich so delicious. Now I make it at Christmas and I think of her every time I make it
Mince tarts
Homemade pecan pie, because it’s just so good!
I can’t decide between two treats–Ginger Crinkles, a cookie rich in sweet and spicy flavors that my daughter and I bake together–and Cheese Straws, a savory cheese cracker that my mother and I used to create.
Anything with peppermint! Tis the season!
I would gladly enjoy a Chantilly Cake for the holiday season covered in fresh fruit!
Ooooh, gorgeous ribbon! yes, please. The treat I would pick is Canucklava– my Canadian variation of baklava. It’s rich, flaky and delicious–almost melts in your mouth! Thanks for the opportunity to win such luscious silk ribbon.
Orange slice cookies!
Oh goodness, just one treat! I make a really good pumpkin coffee cake (and dead easy to make too!). Its such a delicious treat to have anytime of the day – especially with a good cup of coffee or tea.
Mary,
My absolutely love my cranberry sauce (freshly made). I top really good vanilla ice cream with my sauce. I leave my sauce a little tarter then normal so the sweetness of the vanilla ice cream comes thru.
Thanks for the giveaway’s. It’s something I look forward to.
Happy Christmas, Melinda
Mary, like you, I’m picking iced sugar cookies for my one edible treat. Every year I make them and they’re the only cookie I go for on a cookie plate. Thanks for this awesome giveaway, I’d love to have these gorgeous gorgeous ribbons and book from Di! Merry Christmas❣️
My answer may sound strange to others but it brings backs memories.
Peanut brittle is my answer. My mother-in-law would make homemade peanut brittle for our family each Christmas and my children would literally make a grab for a piece. Sometimes as she got older, the brittle would be a little scorched but so good anyway especially with the thoughtfulness of her giving. She has long passed but it still brings back memories at Christmas time.
We have a local company here in my town that makes the best almond toffee in the world! I could eat it any day, but the taste of it says “Christmas” so clearly to me that I very seldom do. The company is Enstrom’s Almond Toffee and they ship anywhere.
I LOVE my mom’s Red Velvet Cake with the traditional cooked icing (not the more modern cream cheese icing). It’s been awhile since I have had it and I can’t seem to get it right when I try make it myself. So yeah, I’m craving some now!
My mom made an almond/vanilla cookie called Vanilla Horns. They were soft and chewy and when they came out of the oven, my mom dusted them with very fine sugar in a paper bag. We ate them straight out of the “sugar bag.” A great memory!
My favorite Christmas treat is raspberry thumbprint cookies. Sure wish I still had my mom to enjoy them with! She made them every year. When I was little, my thumbprint was barely big enough to make a dip for the jam, but she let me help. I’m pretty sure she carefully made those thumbprints bigger with her own thumb while I was distracted.
Have to say, I am homemade Christmas cookie fanatic – I will make quite a variety and nibble my way through December (give as gifts too). Also, I do a tangerine cranberry scone just for Thanksgiving and Christmas morning sparing not on the Irish butter!
The one treat I normally only eat at Christmas is, of course, frosted and decorated Christmas cookies. My daughter and now my two granddaughters join us for a day of decorating (Grandma [me] does the baking pre-decorating) cut-out Christmas cookies. By the time everyone leaves, I have sprinkles, dots, mini sugared Christmas trees and circles… all over my dining room and kitchen, but it is so fun to create with my girls.
The one treat I only have at the holiday time of year is chocolate fudge. I make a couple of different kinds – basic chocolate, chocolate with walnuts, and with crushed peppermint. I would really be no big deal to make it at any other time of year – but I only make it during the holiday!
Hi Mary,
I would pick for my edible treat those yummy Chocolate Orange balls out
at this time of year. The kind that you whack on the counter and it divides
into sections like oranges. Yum!
I would love to be creating/eating the sugar festooned spritz cookies that my mother used to make every year for cookie swaps. A lot of recipes show sugared spritz, but Mom had a technique for getting two colors on every cookie. My sister and I assisted for years. It’s one of the things I need to show my daughters to keep the tradition rolling forward into posterity. Food heritage is important, too.
Hi Mary, for me it would be cranberry orange walnut bread. Nostalgia and deliciousness definitely play a role here. And fresh cranberries are mostly available around the holidays. Maybe with a bit of butter or cream cheese. Yum! Thank you for the giveaway, Lynn
my favourite Christmas treat is our home made dark Christmas cake.
I would eat dark, old fashioned, rum-soaked, fruitcake with a smear of cream cheese. Oh yum!
Hi Mary,
Oh how joyful it would be to win either one of these ribbon collections to create something wonderful!
English toffee!
gingerbread…when baking the house smells so delicious
Thank you
I love Christmas cookies!
Those ribbons look good enough to eat, so not surprised it made you peckish!
My favourite treat for the season is the one I baked yesterday – “gevulde speculaas”, a Dutch spiced biscuit filled with almond paste. Unknown here in the UK so I have to make my own but definitely worth the effort because immediately I am back “home”, celebrating St Nicholas like when I was little.
My grandmother’s Kifle cookies. A crescent rolled, raised, yeast cookie. They were filled with chopped walnuts mixed with egg whites and sugar. I miss her much more than the cookies!!
Thanks for all you do, Mary!
yum, love chocolate covered cherries!
Without a doubt, James Beard’s Gingersnaps from his American Cookery. I made them for my daughter when she was little and now we make them together. And only at Christmas.
My favorite holiday guilty pleasure is a tub of Costco’s Artichoke, Jalapeno, parmesan cheese dip. I can’t control myself with it and will only purchase it during the holidays.
I have to agree with you and say iced sugar cookies, but mine would have to be gluten free.
Peppermint Bark! That is my favorite treat this time of year! I had it with my coffee this morning. 😉
Mary, the ribbons are beautiful!!!
Favorite: My mom’s cinnamon buns with frosting; I miss them; she was such a good cook. I’ve tried to make them myself, but they didn’t come out the same. I’ll keep trying.
If I could only have one Christmas treat, it would be FUDGE! I have it no other time in the year so it is special & takes me back in time to my childhood. No walnuts, though, please!
I would love to have turtles for my holiday treat in loving memory of my mother. She loved turtles!!!
My treat – my grandmother’s decorated sugar cookies that I used to “help” her make as a child.
I love ribbon candy! Where I live it is only available at Christmas time but hard to find.
Roberta
Fudge, chocolate with nuts!
Thanks for the chance to win this beautiful collection.
Oooh those silks are delicious and what a generous giveaway! Ribbons and stumpwork together looks divine.
A treat I normally only eat during the holidays would be frosted sugar cookies (I have a huge collection of cookie cutters), and homemade peanut brittle, which is addicting.
Happy Holidays!
Homemade fudge!
My favorite treat from the holidays is pecan pie. I remember gathering the pecans from the front yard of my childhood home. Oddly I found picking out the nut meat to be therapeutic and that first taste of my mother’s delicious pie was the reward for my labors.
If I was able to have only 1 holiday treat it would be homemade Gingerbread cookies. Shaped like stars or trees, just like my Mom would make. ❤️
It’s really hard to pick just one edible treat for the holidays, since there are sooo many wonderful items to pick from. However, I would choose spritz cookies. The recipe is from my mother, and I have been making these for many many Christmases. Now my grandson helps with baking and decorating and the whole family loves these cookies.
I just finished a silk ribbon project. I embroidered the letter “M” in silk ribbons as a Christmas gift for my sister. I would love to win Di’s hand dyed ribbons for my next project!
Ohhh! Silk ribbon, how lucious!
My favorite and traditional snack is Carmel Corn, mmm, good.
My must have at Christmas is Scotch Shortbread cookies. My mom only made them at Christmas the whole time I was growing up. In my memories, they ARE Christmas. Mom can no longer make them, so I took over. That reminds me, I need to get out some butter 🙂
PS Your silk ribbons are gorgeous, I want to touch them all!
My one choice if I only had one would be the caramel popcorn that I make with peanuts. SO GOOD! I only make it at Christmas time and I give it as gifts. The silk threads are LOVELY!
I love my late husband’s recipe for Coffee Kuchen, which he learned from his grandmother. When he was a young boy, he stayed with her in her kitchen as she made the coffee cake. He stopped her to measure the ingredients and wrote down the recipe. That recipe had only existed in his grandmother’s head till then. He taught it to both our daughters, who still make it at Christmas time. Alas, I am not a baker, so I rely on their skills.
The one thing I love love is a good peppermint mocha, and my mini chocolate chip shortbread cookies.
Also a quick question will you be carrying this ribbon? How best do I go about getting it please?
Hi, Heidi, It’s available through Di’s website – I’ve linked to it in the article! 🙂
I love these ribbons. They’re gorgeous.
“If you had to pick only one edible treat that you normally enjoy only during the holiday season, what would you pick?”
There is a spiced cardamon cake that I only make during the holidays. it’s a simple cake, but I put amaretto soaked cherries in it and dust it with powdered sugar and omg, it is so good, esp. with a nice spiced black tea. 🙂
Thank you for doing a give away.
Russian teacakes, aka Mexican wedding cakes, are my favorite holiday cookie and best of all, I just mix the dough and my husband does all the shaping, baking, and rolling in powdered sugar 🙂
Buckeyes are a Christmas favorite, although now we have to figure out how to make them gluten free. 🙂
If you had to pick only one edible treat that you normally enjoy only during the holiday season, what would you pick?
One treat for the holidays would be shortbread, which I rarely have. I did get a shortbread Advent calendar this year.
My favorite Christmas treat is lobster sandwiches and my favorite Christmas drink treat is Eggnog and Crown Royal. Combined these are my favorite modern Christmas treats, not traditional with old memories attached, but new and all so delicious! Happy Holidays Beautuful Mary! Thank you for your gifts and talents to us all year around.
My daughter’s chocolate Italian cookies! She uses my mom’s secret family recipe (which came from one of my dad’s family members) and they are hands-down “thee best” cookie!
Magic Cookie Bars are my favorite holiday treat. They were one of the first treats I remember making by myself and I still make them every year.
I was so excited to see the Ghiradelli peppermint chocolates in the store. I love them in December and completely lose interest after the holidays (thank goodness – I need to crave another sweet like I need a hole in my head!)
Ooooh! That’s a hard question. I love sugar cookies too, molasses, dark chocolate fudge with walnuts… but, my go to is dark chocolate orange strings ( aricinines …orange peels). Thats a done deal. I can’t leave them alone if I eat one. Pound will not last a week.
I love all the beautiful colors of the ribbons. We had a wonderful store in Seattle on Queen Ann. I love to go into the small room and look at all the lovely ribbons. There was no other store that had the beautiful silk ribbon or grosgrain…. just gone. Thank you for your wonderful letters and pictures
Patricia Buckley
My favorite treat that is mostly only available around Christmastime is panforte di Siena. It’s a kind of chewy smash of dried fruit and nuts; flavors vary according to exactly which fruits and nuts. (Sometimes also chocolate, but to me that is perhaps the only time that chocolate is not entirely successful.) It’s imported from Italy ad is rather expensive, so it definitely is a treat. Recipes are available online, but I’ve never attempted to make it.
My Christmas treat would be Plum pudding. My mother always made a batch for the family.
If I could have only one edible treat during the Christmas season, it would be
ribbon candy! I used to live on the East Coast and ribbon candy was readily
available. When we moved to California, nobody had ribbon candy ! My mom
started a tradition of sending us several boxes of ribbon candy every year at
Christmas. Whenever I enjoy ribbon candy now, I have memories of New England,
my mom, and our first Christmases in a new place.
My go to holiday treat is grandma’s chocolate spiced rum balls!
Every year since I can remember, my Grandmother or my Mom would make date candy. I quit making it a few years ago because it is just way too tempting (and fattening) and I eat way too much.
Mary, thank you for all you do to keep us happily stitching. How to chose just one favorite food for the holidays! I guess the one that has come to be a must have is an Italian panettone. I always buy at least a couple. Nothing makes a better toast for Christmas morning or French toast later in the week. Yum! Now you have made me hungry as well!
Eggnog
My favorite holiday treat is the orange brandy infused fruitcake that I make every year.
What lovely, scrumptious, beautiful ribbon Di! Thanks for your generosity!
Fudge is my favorite Christmas treat, I make it only for the holidays.
My mother’s butter tarts, considered to be the best by all who have tasted them.
Libkuchen, German gingerbread cookies is the one treat that I would pick.
I get nostalgic for the tough, over handled, over frosted, cookies my children made when they were small. There was nothing better than our small tea party with beaming, dirty faces and cookies made with pure joy and love.
Cheese balls! They’re easy to make, but I only seem to get around to making them at the holidays. Now that I’ve typed this, I may need to make a batch today!
My favourite festive treat is dark fruitcake.
Chocolate, of course! Specifically though, for the Christmas season, that would be See’s Candy. Hard to find where I live now but sometimes Christmas visitors bring it ! Yum!
My grandmother made icebox black walnut cookies and I still crave them!!
Almond cookies! Chinese restaurant staple , but homemade are SO much better!
I just love making (and eating) iced sugar cookies. I have a whole breadbox full of cookie cutters, and a really good sugar cookie recipe. I generally cut and decorate them with my daughter.
I travel to my sister’s house from Green Bay, WI to Orchard Park, NY for Christmas but arrive early enough to celebrate my sister’s birthday on the 23rd. I help her bake her birthday cake, a Waldorf Red Cake. Different from a red velvet. We both celebrate birthdays in December and will turn 70 and 71. (I’m the baby ) This became our special cake for Christmas and/or birthday cake for the last 60 years.
P.S. 1/2 pound butter in the cake and 1/2 pound in the frosting!
If you had to pick only one edible treat that you normally enjoy only during the holiday season, what would you pick?
Eggnog!
I’m with you on sugar cookies with frosting! Enjoy
One edible treat from the holiday season would be my mom’s ruglach. They are like little cinnamon rolls without frosting and with raisins. I make them but my son says they are just not quite my mom’s. There are probably lots more but this one came to mind first.
Happy Holidays.
I really enjoy homemade sausage stuffing that we only have at the holidays.
Iced sugar cookies Christmas morning for breakfast!!!
Thank you Mary for all that you do and share. Enjoy a blessed holiday season.
I would eat pecan bars! My friend makes the most delicious bars on a shortbread crust…I could eat them all day.
If I liked Egg Nog I’d choose that. But I’ve never liked it, plain, with nutmeg, spiked or not.
So I return to my childhood choice of Candy Canes!
My favorite Christmas Eve offerings are tamales and taco soup. Enjoying tamales on Christmas Eve is a family tradition since before I was born.
Chocolate truffle cookies! The recipe is from Dec. 1998 issue of Taste of Home magazine and was a runner-up in the magazine’s Celebrate Chocolate competition. Slightly bittersweet so the younger kids leave them in favor of other cookies and I get more of these “just one bite” cookies. The creator is Delaine Fortenberry from McComb, Mississippi, and I quietly thank her every time I have one.
Every year at this time, I look forward to a big ‘ole piece of homemade pumpkin pie, with a great big glob of real whipped cream! It’s squash! So, it’s good for you, right??
Wow, such beautiful colors!
Every Christmas I fly to visit my daughter and grandchildren and besides seeing my loved ones, I enjoy the trifle which my grandkids make (they are young adults).
I made a Christmas salad only for Christmas every year, usually with the meal but some guests saved it for dessert. ..as follows: 2c sour cream, 9oz container of whipped dessert, 2 c sugar, 4T lemon juice, 4t vanilla, 4 cans x 13oz pineapple crushed, 6 bananas sliced, 2c red glazed(candied) cherries, 2c green glazed cherries.
Have 2 c walnuts on the side as a personal preference. Just delicious. Hope you
like it. Merry Christmas
My Mom’s tamale pie. Only I want my Mom to make it. She’s been gone for many years and Christmas is when I miss her the most. She was an actress and loved to put on the show. She wasn’t the best cook, but she did a few things that were wonderful. What she lacked in the kitchen she made up for in the entertainment. Every Christmas she served ice cream balls that were rolled in coconut and lite with little red candles. As she marched into the room, ice cream tray in hand, we all sang Silent Night. That was always the finale for the evening . Mary, thanks for doing these give-aways. Mostly thanks for stirring up past memories with your questions. They bring joy.
Peppermint bark
Good question! I think I would have to say Sticky Toffee pudding. It smells & tastes like Christmas to me, & I never eat this rich dessert at any other time of year! Beautiful silk ribbons by the way — what a lovely giveaway
I crave my Mother’s stollen bread, which she perfected over several years. The only way I get it now is if my sister is kind enough to bake a loaf at Christmas and send it to me. Hoping this year she’s including the actual recipe as somehow I never got it before my Mom passed.
I make a pretty mean cranberry orange cake and plan to bake some today. This really means the Christmas season has started. Also, home made peanut brittle makes my mouth water.
Mum’s home made mince pies with home made brandy butter, I could eat as may as were on offer, all year. Ive learned her secret of really thin pastry too.
Mom’s Homemade cinnamon rolls
My favorite holiday treat is gingerbread. Thank you for offering this great giveaway!
The one treat I have to have is English Toffee. I make allot of it every Holliday season, and caramels.
OYSTER STEW
Christmas Eve
Every Christmas of my life beginning even before I remember…just the best treat ever!
Homemade eggnog, without a doubt!
Bohemian Christmas Bread
Don’t know if I should be glad that you’ve introduced us to these wonderful ribbons. Now, I have to have them. Such wonderful choices. I’ve added his site to my list of favorites.
As it so happens the holiday treat I looked forward to was ribon candy (loving the colors and patterns).
My favourite Christmas treat would be homemade Scottish Shortbread.
Christmas wouldn’t be the same without mince tarts – jarred mincemeat is better than nothing but I have just managed to find proper beef suet, so will go back to making my own ….
The one thing that I look forward to during the holidays is eggnog. Instead of making my own, which I have done in the past, I get mine from Trader Joe’s. That gives me the opportunity to have it in either the alcoholic on non-alcoholic version. yummy.
The one edible treat that defines and inspires Christmas spirit and creativity are decorated Gingerbread Cookies!
My edible treat has to have sugar. I do eat sugar all throughout the year, but I don’t normally indulge in a good old fashioned, decorated sugar cookie. They are fun and yummy!
Pecan pie! It is a southern (USA) tradition, a pie of my childhood, and about a million calories per bite. What’s not to love about a pie made with cane syrup, butter, eggs, and pecans?
Ahhhh, Molasses Ginger Cookies . . . my Christmas treat makes my mouth water in anticipation!
Nothing reminds me of Christmas more than my Mother’s walnut pie. Oh so sweet and delicious, and only made once a year at Christmas time.
Pumpkin Crunch!!
English toffee
Thank you for the opportunity to win some of the delicious,
Calorie free eye candy! So Christmas treats are right in line.
The one treat I have to make sure is included in our
Christmas gatherings is a tray with home made peanut brittle,
And peppermint bark lying side by side.
Eating a piece of salty brittle, qnd then a piece of peppermint
Bark, which is Christmas in one bite, in my mind is Christmas
Heaven.
Take time everyone to enjoy these little treats of the season.
Sue in Bermuda.
Mexican wedding cake cookies!
Golly! Only one?!
In that case, I’ll pick gingerbread.
My mother experimented with all kinds of different cookies during the holidays, over the years, but gingerbread was a constant.
Her dough is a bit difficult to work with, quite soft and sticky before chilling, but has the molasses and spice just right ( I guess it’s whatever you grew up with, and only this recipe will do). It produces a sturdy, crunchy cookie, with strong spices and of course the molasses sweetness.
We kept the decorations simple, applied before baking ( frosting makes them soft!).
I might have to try making them, substituting gluten free flour. Gluten intolerance has kept me away from these lovely cookies, but maybe now is the time.
Thanks for the inspiration.
My favorite Christmas treat is a Polish cookie called kruschiki. My grandmother made the very best and I remember as a child eating at least a dozen or so before dinner before I would be caught!
I’m not very good at making them yet, however it always brings me close to grandma when I make them for Christmas.
Mmmm. My one-and-only treat would be the stollen I make this time of year. It’s stuffed with dried cherries, slivered almonds, currants and chunks of almond paste. It’s to die for.
If I could only have one edible holiday treat for the season, it would be my grandma’s divinity. I’ve not had it in decades, because no one makes it like she did. Even following her recipe to the T, I just can’t quite duplicate it – so very light, creamy-smooth, outrageously rich, and laced with pecans… I miss her – and her divinity!
Mmmmm, eggnog!
My favourite is dark, rich Christmas fruit cake doused regularly with brandy. They last so well that we can enjoy one months after the season is over. Second best would be my Mother’s whipped shortbread. Mine just don’t taste the same!
I would love to be the winner of this beautiful collection of silk ribbons.
Peppermint bark! It isn’t Christmas without it! Yummm!!!
Oh, Mary, my favorite holiday treat is also sugar cookies with buttercream icing from my own vintage recipes. But I can’t eat just one, so I’d rather have the Sunset bundle of silk ribbon or the trio of other beautiful bundles. Even though my silk ribbons from Thread Gatherers are to be delivered today. Never can have enough hand dyed silk ribbon.
My apologies. My cat hit my screen while waving his paws around during a belly rub. He may have sent my previous comment before I finished. Cat hazards!
My favourite thing to eat over the holiday season are mince pies. I love them.
My choice is for my mother’s plum pudding-no plums in it. It is served with a brandy butter sauce. Simply delicious.
Hands down – eggnog!! (With or without spirits)
Hope you can slow down a bit and enjoy the season.
Martha Washington Candy is my favorite edible treat ❤️
I so love divinity candy. It’s hard to find to buy so I need to learn to make it myself.
Shortbread, shortbread shortbread. Any and all variations!
Povitica was our family treat at Christmas. My grandmother taught us how to turn a dining room table sized but paper thin dough base covered in walnut filling then rolled up into a rectangular bun and baked golden. Can’t wait to make my own version this year!
The ribbon is so lovely.
Ah! There’s a really good bakery that specializes in Povitica in Kansas City. It’s called Strawberry Hill. They make a variety of flavors – along with the traditional. I love the poppy seed!!
Pfeffernusse would be my pick, homemade or store bought, if I’m lucky to find it.
My sister makes the most delicious toffee and only at Christmas time. She says the only reason she makes it anymore is because I love it so much. She packs up a bag of it that she gives to me on Christmas and it’s usually gone by Boxing Day, not to be seen again until next Christmas!
Mary, I enjoy potato pancakes every Chanukah. Top them with either sour cream or applesauce. Yum! If you don’t want to make them yourself, Trader Joe’s are excellent.
Yes, they are!! I love finding them at TJ’s. 🙂 If only I didn’t have to drive 90 miles to get there! LOL!
Gingerbread bears ❤️
You ask the hardest questions to answer! My mom and her best friend would get together on a Saturday and bake cookies. . . all sorts of cookies. The scent of baking cookies along with the laughter of those two women was heightened with Christmas music playing in the background. Sometimes, one would sing along. Sometimes the other would sing. Sometimes they both sang and sometimes we all sang. Her friend had four daughters. My mom had one daughter and two sons. I remember thinking the kitchen was magical. Of all the cookies made, my favorite was the shortbread cookies rolled in powered sugar while they were still warm. My mom called them Russian Tea Cakes, my grandmother called them English Tea Cakes and my mom’s friend called them Mexican Wedding Cakes. During the holidays, I try to bake a batch. I reminisce every time!
I hope drinkable counts too, because I’m a total sucker for (non-alcoholic) eggnog.
For the past 43 years I have made a traditional German Stollen (German Christmas Bread) from a family recipe on my husbands’ side of the family.
Filled with many spices, candied fruit peels and of course nuts. It’s great with coffee, tea and of course hot chocolate.
My husband looks forward to it every year.
Not only would I love to win the silk ribbon, what a treat that would be … my favourite Christmas edible treat is Bridge Mixture.
I would eat mincemeat pie.
I have a tie between iced sugar cookies or gingerbread men.
Soft sugar cookies with frosting. I never learned to make them myself, which is a good thing because I would eat them all!
My favorite holiday treat is a coffee cake made from buttery brioche dough wrapped around a filling of rum-soaked currents and walnuts. I make it only at Christmas.
Frango Mints! I grew up on these treats when I was living in the Chicago area. They were a specialty of Marshall Fields.
Oh, gosh. I love Frango mints! I forgot all about them. I bet they are available for order online these days, if you’re no longer in the Chicago area, but I wonder if they are quite the same.
My DSIL’s frosted sugar cookies: Oh. My. Goodness. The melt-in-your-mouth smooth sweetness of the frosting and the perfect delicate crumbly cookie texture plus the barest underlying hint of citrus blend to achieve cookie perfection. These cookies are famous in our family and no one else can replicate them even using the same recipe. Even just the fragrance of the cookies sitting on a plate will waft out and ensnare you. Mmmm.
I would choose my chocolate cookies with Hershey kisses. I only make them during the holidays 🙂
Tres Leches Cake is my favorite Christmas treat. I’ve scaled it down to small batch size since my family is all over the US now, but I still have to have it or it doesn’t feel like Christmas.
My favorite treat is biscotti. Mainly the cranberry orange I make for Christmas each year. It’s just perfect with a cup of tea.
Divinity. Hands down. Made with my mom on a perfectly dry day. I made it with her when I was 10, resulting in my first bad burn. We have made it together through the years and I hope to make it this year with her…. She’s 95
Thank you, Mary, for doing these give-aways! And thanks to Di for contributing these sumptuous silk ribbons and book.
My favorite holiday treat would have to be my grandmother’s homemade caramels: soft, chewy, melt-in-your-mouth bliss! Sadly, the recipe has been lost and no one makes them anymore, but that just makes the memory sweeter!
My favorite treat is apple strudel that we make each Christmas Eve. So yummy and delicious
I would want Grandmother Jane’s German Lebkuchen cookies.
I actually really like fruitcake!
Without a doubt it’s Yule Log – that heavenly combo of chocolate and whipped cream.
Long after Mom has gone to her reward, her Christmas fruitcake is something that still gets new tasters asking for more. My sister inherited Mom’s recipe but has made sure that, every December since, to send me two loaves. And, although I might like to ask for a third loaf, I know her list of loaf-admirers from work and “friends of friends” – keeps growing year after year. So I just say thank-you and start waiting for next year. I’ve suggested she make it a cottage industry at the holidays, but she always replies she could never do that. It’s her gift to others and she doesn’t want to change that. God bless happy hearts!
Trader Joe’s holiday-only chocolate cookies filled with peppermint cream (like an Oreo). I love them so much, I only buy ONE box each year to limit my intake. Many thanks to Di for such a wondrous give-away!
Fruit Cake is much maligned, but I love it. Especially the dark ooooy gooooy kind that is barely held together with a moist cake.
If I could only have one, I believe it would be my grandmother’s Jam Cake with Caramel Icing. It was made with her homemade blackberry jam and loads of walnuts and pecans, which we shelled at the kitchen table. (Well we shelled most of the and ate the rest 🙂 )
It had a cooked caramel icing that was so sweet it would make you pucker.
It was so moist and delicious !!! Great memories!!
I love the cookie called “Nut Butterball” that a neighbor usually made every Christmas season. Thanks for a chance to win silk ribbon. I have never done embroidery with it but have always admired it. Maybe I will start silk ribbon embroidery!
My favorite holiday treat is gingerbread. The smell reminds me of Christmas.
It’s soynog for me. Try it. Really.
My family is Cuban and my grandmother would always make bunuelos, a kind of donut with syrup that she would make from yuca and white sweet potato. She hasn’t made them in years (she’s in her 90’s!) and I want to make them this year to continue the tradition!
Those ribbons are absolutely stunning, what a wonderful pair of giveaways. My favorite christmas treat is probably fudge. We make it yearly and it is such a simple recipe but comes out so delicious and perfectly firm! I hope you get some of those cookies you mentioned this year!
I would love to have my mother’s divinity pecan rolls – a complicated process of making divinity, shaping it into small logs, rolling the logs in caramel and then rolling in ground nuts. You can guess why I don’t make them!
I enjoy peppermint bark this time of year. Well, I’d happily eat it any time of year, but it’s most available now!
I enjoy Santa Claus Surprise Christmas cookies. They have a small Snickers bite in the middle. YUMMMMY. We’ve made them for 26 years for the holidays.
Divinity! With pecans – I love how it just melts in your mouth.
Russian tea cakes. My mother never cooked much, but she made these cookies and they always make me think of Christmas. Happy holidays!
Marzipan covered in dark chocolate, please!
Yesterday I baked and cut out 10 dozen cookies. I have been doing this for years with my grandkids. Now that they’re teenagers I thought they might not want to do it any longer but they all want to ice cookies. My great tradition with them every year.
One holiday treat I would never give up are Christmas cookies. Simple or elaborate, cut out or cookie bars, I can’t get enough! Just thinking about it I’m running for my cookie sheets and royal icing!
Have a very Merry Christmas!
My favourite Christmas treat is a chocolate mocha Julog or jelly roll with whip cream and a dusting of dark chocolate!
I am dreaming of the out of the world cookie that my mom would make only at Christmas. It is made with 6 eggs and whisky and of course butter.
She got the recipe from a Hungarian named Mama. “Mama” was also an accomplished beader who embellished the most intricate work on her daughter’s evening wear.. this was in the 50″s.
Sorry to say, I do not have the recipe and was too young at the time to have appreciated her incredible talent.
I would choose Almond Roca….It reminds me of my Dad and brother!
This was my mom’s one consistent homemade Christmas treat, that she made every single year. Yum!
Ice cream cake
Pumpkin pie for Thanksgiving and Christmas with leftovers for breakfast !
If I had to pick just on edible treat I would pick Nutmeg Log cookies. I make these every Christmas and love them.
My treat that is reserved just for the Holidays is Panettone. Love this as is, toasted, as French toast, & in bread pudding!
Smoked Salmon cheese log. It is a family tradition, now a favorite of my grandchildren.
Oh, my! Such beautiful ribbons! And so hard to pick one treat…I would have to pick peanut brittle. I only see it around at Christmas, so it’s a once-a-year treat for me!
This is easy – my daughter’s gingerbread cookies! She makes the BEST gingerbread!
I look forward to Egg Nog sprinkled with nutmeg at this time of year. And I wax nostalgic for the days when my mom made carrot pudding and hard sauce for Christmas Eve.
Oh I love many different goodies for different holidays, I love at Halloween smarties candy, Brach candy corn. Christmas; I love Queens cordial chocolate cover cherries. Valentine’s Day I love Brachs cinnamon hearts. I know more than you asked for but couldn’t leave them out
Rolled sugar cookies cut in patterns, frosted with 7 minute frosting, and decorated – as a family event – with colored sugars and other candy decor.
This is such a revered family event my daughter asked me to make them for her wedding as a remembrance to her late maternal grandmother who passed down the tradition from her family. My sons and she also do it with their children every year.
I know this is a long comment, but I think it’s a sweet family story worth sharing. Thanks for reading it.
The one edilble treat I really enjoy is chocolate!
My favorite treat I only eat at Christmas is Carmel Corn with tons and tons of nuts!
If you had to pick only one edible treat that you normally enjoy only during the holiday season, what would you pick?
Only One!!! Sugar cookies, we only make them at Christmas and they bring back so many memories! And we are creating new memories with our kids making them!
Divinity
This year, I will try to embroidery some items in my composition with silk ribbons. This will be entirely new to me. Those ribbons will come in a best time it could be.
And I love sucre à la crème, that I used to have only on holidays. But I’ve learned to make the best, silkiest kind of it, so now and then, I recreate Christmas with sucre à la crème, even in July or August. lol
Happy Holidays Mary!
My mom used to make the most wonderful anise flavored pizzelle cookies for Christmas. She passed away when I was 24 years old right before Christmas. I have the recipe, but they never taste the same without her love in them.
My absolute favorite edible treat that I only make/eat during the holidays is Russian Tea Cakes. My mother made them every year when I was growing up, and I’ve kept that tradition.
I yearn for mom’s chocolate snowballs…and usually make enough to share with my brother. We loved these so much that she used to make a triple recipe, which meant a lot of rolling the balls in confectioner’s sugar while warm from the oven, then again after they cooled. I still use the recipe she wrote out by hand for me 40 years ago.
Homemade Apple Pie
One treat that I adore at this time of year is a batch of chocolate-covered almond clusters … but not just any clusters. Our dear friend would magically turn her kitchen into a candy factory and make the most delicious mix of gourmet of delights! Sadly, she passed away far too young, and even though she lives on in our memories, I can still taste that first bite of crunchy, chocolately goodness that she would lovingly make every December. {Love and miss you, “Candalynn”.}
Egg nog is a favorite food, but then so is brie cheese, and all the Christmas cookies I bake. It’s just as hard to select a favorite food as it is to select a favorite ribbon color.
Hugs.
Here, in the upper Midwest, it is cold so if I had to choose it would be freshly made and homemade, not the store-bought fruit cake miniatures in animal shapes my grandmother used to make; great memories
My favorite Christmas treat is a Snickerdoodle cookie, or two, or three… They are such a memory from my childhood! I used to think it was a secret family recipe. Only as an adult did I realize that other people know how to make them, too!
The one edible treat I would choose for the holiday season would be my husband’s fudge – there’s no better fudge I’ve ever tasted, and I look forward to it every year.
My goodness. This brings back memories. I used to make Plum Pudding and minced meat pie for the family. The store used to teast me about the amount of brandy I used to buy. I had never had either one before so I had to really do some research. But even I loved it.
My husband and I always make Indian pudding. Cornmeal, milk and molasses- bakes for hours, makes the house smell great and is a top tier comfort food!
Hi Mary, The one edible treat I would have is my Mom’s fruit cake with hard marzipan icing.
I am a newbie and I love everything about silk ribbon especially small beautiful pieces. Would love to have this book to read over and over to start beautiful things. I have my first Great Granddaughter and I imagine making sweet little additions to her fine wardrobe!! Thank you for the possibility to win such a treasure!!
My favorite holiday treat is at least one slice of my own fruitcake!! That and a cup of fine brewed tea, and I’m happy!
British Christmas pudding with a big dollop of clotted cream. I suspect that neither is readily available across the pond but you’re really missing a iron an indulgent treat. Rich, dark, fruit and boozy pudding topped with the richest, thickest cold cream – it’s wonderful, crammed with calories – and worth every one of them. Something that would “never” be eaten at any other time of year so truly a taste of Christmas.
My holiday foodie treat would be a traditional trifle, but without the sherry – fresh strawberries and raspberries in a strawberry/ raspberry jelly, topped with a layer of genoes sponge, then a layer of just set custard and topped with whipped cream! Very old fashioned, and definitely no good for you, but yummy!
Spritz cookies, made with my mom’s old cookie press!
My mom made red (raspberry) and green (lime) jello (top and bottom). The center was lemon jello with cream cheese, whipping cream, marshmallows and crushed pineapple. It’s still a family favorite!!
I would chose sugar cookies to eat. I only make that recipe at Christmas time.
One of the edible treats I love the most is German chocolate cake!
Rum Balls, we’ve made them every Christmas since I can remember.
My answer would probably change with my cravings, but right now I’d have to say warm pumpkin pie with whipped topping…YuMz!
Please don’t make me pick between no-bake cookies and 7-layer (magic) bars! That would be a very scroogey thing to do!
That ribbon is goregous!
My favorite holiday treat is homemade fudge.
I love my Mom’s red velvet cake, no cream cheese icing. She makes a special icing and it is my absolute favorite!
I WOULD CHOOSE PEANUT BUTTER BLOSSOMS AS MY FAVORITE CHRISTMAS COOKIE AND TREAT. THEY ARE MY WHOLE FAMILY CHOICE AS WELL. I HAVE A RECIPE FOR THE COOKIES THAT IS REALLY EASY AND THEN JUST TOP THEM OFF WITH THE CHOCOLATE KISS.
Homemade Cinnamon Bread – yeast-risen. It’s divine. So great on a frosty festive day. My own tradition. Love to make bread.
I love Di’s designs! I have a couple of her books and then she retired. I just recently found out she’s back in business. Lovely and creative. It’s so hard to narrow things down to one but I always love a slice of old fashion Pecan Pie. Happy Holiday season to you and your followers.
My favorites were the sugar cookies shaped like Christmas trees with icing, sprinkles and silver bead like candies adorning them. They were, ostensibly, for Santa, but he never received a full cookie, my siblings saw to that! We had lasagna Christmas Eve and sticky buns Christmas Day morning. All great memories.
My choice of only one holiday “goodie” is without hesitation, chocolate fudge….homemade with my grandfather’s recipe. Nostalgia and hunger, I am there with you!
almond iced Christmas cake
A treat that I only enjoy at Christmas is Pannettone!
I would absolutely choose my mother’s sugared walnuts! I make them every year and they are a crunchy cinnamon-sugary delight! When I make them, the whole house fills with the wonderful scent of cinnamon and sugar – it really brings home the holiday feelings!
Hello,
If I had to pick only one edible treat, it would be my Mom’s peanut butter fudge she makes only at Christmas.
Thank you,
Lisa
They are gorgeous! My favourite fancy is Nanaimo Bars…the original ones. Homemade, preferably.
Beautiful ribbons! Would LOVE to win either prize!
Thank you for the chance to win these wonderful prizes!
Better Homes and Gardens Almond Strips. Actually, anything with almond flavoring.
What is my favorite food this time of year? Thanks for asking – MY fave thing is Fruit Cake – dark and heavy and full of candied fruits and lots of nuts – with just a little bit of cake to hold it together. If a friend doesnt make it then I go for Pannetone.
Beautiful ribbons! Would LOVE to win either prize!
Thank you for the chance to win these wonderful prizes!
My family enjoys my spiced pecans every year!
The item I love eating at Christmas are sausage balls. My sister-in-law makes the best ones, but only at Christmas! Thank you for the opportunity to win these ribbons.
Ginger Sparkle Cookies, it is the one thing which I bake, gift and can never keep enough in the cookie tins . It make the house smell like Christmas and so much cheer and love. The best part, when no one is watching: My naughty pleasure is dunking one in a hot cup of coffee!
If only one treat I would have our homemade stollen bread with macadamia marzipan inside.
It wouldn’t be Christmas if we didn’t have Rice Krispie balls. A marshmallow dipped in toffee and rolled in rice krispies is a family favourite.
One of my favorite treats at Christmas time is homemade chocolate covered cherries. 1000% better than what you get at the store!!!!!!!!!!!! I am the maker and the work is very labor intense but worth the work.
These silk ribbons are absolutely fantastic. What fun it would be to use them in a project.
My own fruitcake with a cup of fine brewed tea!!
I love everything about silk ribbon embroidery and I would love to have this book! Reading it alone would be an experience. Thank you for the opportunity to get one. (I’m not sure my first entry registered)
The delicious edible treat that I enjoy and crave at Christmas time is a buttery pastry Hungarian fruit filled cookie.
Ohhh what gorgeous ribbons! Now for the hardest question…only one treat? I would cheat and say cookies, but I guess we are supposed to say out one and only treat and I would have to pick pecan tassies which are little pecan pies made in a mini muffin tin. My mom made them, I make them now, and it wouldn’t taste like Christmas without them!
Eggnog! I love eggnog and even though I have made my own at home, I only have it during the holiday.
My treat would be the delicious fudge my mother would make from my Great-Aunt Rette’s recipe. She would melt sticks of butter, stirring all the while with her mother’s slotted wooden spoon, and then break the bitter baking chocolate bars into chunks and add them in. The way the white sugar would sink into the butter and melt was fascinating to watch. The stirring never stopped with that iconic wooden spoon! The fudge was so rich my mother would cut it into scant one-inch squares; I liked mine with nuts in it, but she made a version with mini-marshmallows underneath and no nuts. Only ever at Christmas would this delectable confection make its appearance…
My holiday treat would be a piece of Collin Street Bakery fruitcake. My grandfather worked at the bakery from the late 1890s to the 1950s and helped the original owner develop his recipe for mass production. My grandparents would send a fruitcake to us each Christmas and there is a funny family and oft told story associated with that gift. I love, love, love this fruitcake and challenge anyone who claims to not like fruitcake to try a bite. I bet you’ll become a fruitcake lover if you do – well of this particular fruitcake anyway.
I would choose my Grandmother’s molasses cookies – soft and baked with love. They were my favorites all my life!
My favorite edible treat at the Christmas holiday is Edy’s Peppermint ice cream , the full blown one, not the “healthy” one with less fat!!!! It is only made during this holiday season – & I LOVE the chunks of peppermint in it. I wish they would make it all year long but….
I would choose pecan balls, a cookie I’ve made every year for over 40 years. The recipe came from my first sister-in-law. They literally melt in your mouth. (They have lots of butter.)
I would eat a Yule Log ( homemade of course) with marzipan holly leaves on top….dusted with powdered sugar. It’s always a treat for my family.
I love silk ribbon embroidery and have been fortunate to take classes with some outstanding teachers who provide wonderful instruction.
Merry Christmas!
Pickled cabbage! Such a wonderfully rich coloured vegetable to have with a roast turkey Christmas lunch. It just enhances all those wonderful flavours. Love it!
Hi Mary, This is such a hard question to answer! But if I can only pick one, it would be Pfefferneuse Cookies. They are a Norwegian cookie that my grandmother, mom and now I make every year. We all love them and they freeze well so I make a lot and have them all during the winter months.
The ribbons are beautiful! Even to just sit and look at.
Thank you!
Suzanne Gibson
My Mom’s Christmas Cookies!
Thank you for all you do.
I like to make (and eat) Dutch Waffle Cookies. They are so good and a little crispy around the edges when fresh out of the waffle iron.
If limited to only one edible treat at Christmas, it would have to be a freshly baked Amish sugar cookie. The precious recipe came to me from a mysterious anonymous admirer of my perennial flower bed! She drove by it every day and one morning left me a tin of these cookies along with a sweet thank you note and the recipe! What an unexpected and kind thing to do!
My favorite treat for Christmas is a well soaked Italian Rum Baba Pastry with a custard creme center. It is a very rich pastry so I limit it to Christmas Eve dinner celebration. Merry Christmas Mary and may all your days be bright!
The one treat for me is a premium peppermint bark. OMG. It’s probably good it’s ony available at the holidays or I would weight a thousand pounds.
The one treat I always hope for at Christmas would be a (LARGE!) assortment of home made cookies. Or maybe peppermint bark. Or marzipan shaped like little fruits. Now, I’m hungry too!
Mmmm. For sweet, my mom’s recipe for Spritz cookies. With just a hint of almond, they are too delicious for words. We loved decorating them as kids and I have such fond memories of being in the kitchen with my mom and sister during those cookie baking times! Such fun! For savory, my aunt’s NutzNBoltz, her version of Chex Mix. She made mountains of them every year for family and friends. My aunt passed away earlier this year and she entrusted the recipe to me to continue the tradition!
The edible treat that I only eat at this time of year is trife! Brings back memories of my Mum.
This is hard but if I could only have one it would be my Grandmother’s sugar cookies. They are different than any other cookie I’ve had as they were made with whiskey in them.
I would chose fancy cookies… ones only made at Christmas that are too much of a bother the rest of the year!
The festive treat that I miss most is my mother’s cloutie dumpling (a scottish delicacy – a boiled spicy cake shaped like a flattened netball but much heavier, replete with spices, raisins and much more delicious than it sounds). The aroma was enough to make the mouth water.
For me that would be raspberries. We usually try to include a couple of punnets on the Christmas table even though they are usually well up in price for that day.
Gingerbread! Houses, cookies anything really and mulled wine with lots of brandy in it!
Mmmmmm! I hope you’ve had some breakfast/brunch/lunch before you start reading these!
Lots of our traditional family goodies are also utilized for other holidays. However the only time during the year that we make “Christmas Cookies” is Christmas. Like many families, this can be a huge production -with numerous favorites when we took plates to neighbors after caroling, participated in cookie exchanges, had little person grandchildren and friends come help, etc. But, the best of them all? Thumbprint cookies! Delectable butter-rich balls that are imprinted with your thumb, then rolled in chopped nuts while still warm. The central depression is filled with homemade freezer jam (strawberry or raspberry) for an extra-flavorful sweet/tart burst of delicious!
Thank you, Mary, for sharing your ribbon richness at this time! May your Advent be blessed.
laura
We only make black bottoms cupcakes at Christmas.
Carmel toffee squares win hands down and only at Christmas. Thank you for the opportunity to win beautiful silks.
My favorite holiday treat is actually something I can no longer have because of food allergies. I love eggnog! Yum. Can’t have it, though. Egg allergy.
Kolache
I have to have the original recipe Toll House cookies! It isn’t Christmas without them.
My favorite holiday treat is gingerbread. The smell of it baking and the flavor so much remind me of when I was “many years younger”. It was a yummy part of my Christmas season.
Grandma’s pecan pie with homemade crust and real whipped cream. You could taste the love.
It’s difficult to pick only one, but it would have to be those “peanut blossom” cookies. Those are the peanut butter cookies with a chocolate kiss set into the middle!
I’d have to say my Mom’s date nuts bars are the big time favorite during the holidays. Cant be without those!
Holly treats – made like rice krispie treats but with cornflakes, the marshmallow dyed green, and with red hots stuck on for berries
My late husband was from The Netherlands. While visiting his mother, I learned how to make many of his favorite foods. The Christmas favorite is, by far, Dutch Waffle cookies. This cookie uses special sugar ( Bastard sugar ) and is cooked in a regular waffle iron. I get the sugar from the Dutch store in Michigan. I send tins of these cookies out to friends, family, and God-Children. Have a wonderful ,joyful holiday.
Pour moi et ma dent sucrèe, ce serait le sucre a la crème de ma mère.
Persimmons, both Fuyu and Hachiya.
The Hachiya fruit hang in a tree which has lost most of its leaves and look like ornaments—beautiful. I am in the process of drying fruit slices from Hachiya persimmons that were given to me. I may also make steamed persimmon pudding, a holiday tradition.
My Fuyu persimmons were stolen off my tree by some critter but I was given some which I enjoy sliced and in salads. Very versatile! Persimmons are a holiday favorite!
I would chose our Traditional Nut Bread. The recipe has been handed down at least 5 generations.
If I could only pick one (!) holiday treat, I’d have to go with my co-worker’s home-made Divinity candy. Amazingly melty and delicious!
Only one and only for Christmas? Hard. My mother’s rumballs.
Okay, you won’t believe this but…. TOMATO ASPIC! But not just any tomato aspic…it has to be my late mother in law’s recipe with a dollop of cream cheese and delicately toasted chopped walnuts. Of course it is served icy cold with a sprig of fresh parsley to compliment the carefully orchestrated color theme.
Candy canes! There’s so much to do with them! A cane standing in a mug of hot chocolate topped with whipped cream, on a cold snowy day. Crumbled into bits and mixed into homemade ice cream. Powdered and used to make fluffy fillings for chocolate sandwich cookies. And what is lovelier than a beautiful red and white Christmas cake with tiny candy canes decorating it?
Yes for our family, it’s candy canes, on the table and on the Christmas tree.
I love turkey!! My favorite meat by far, but sadly I only cook it twice a year, Thanksgiving and Christmas.
definitely fudge! nobody makes fudge except during the holiday, so it is a treat!
My Mom’s chocolate fudge! She made this every Christmas. Unfortunately, she passed, and I can’t seem to make it like her.
I still dream of a beautifully decorated Chocolate Yule log I once enjoyed
What a delicious prize! Speaking of delicious…..I make a carmel snack mix every year. I share the mix with friends, the mail lady, neighbors, etc. I attended the Martha Pullen School of Art Fashion for many years and would take the mix to my teachers/friends. Somehow, the recipe has been shared over and over and over. I believe it is global by now. My friends call it Moose Mix, Christmas Crack, etc. If you want the recipe, I would be glad to share it! Merry Christmas.
Sweet potatoes
I’m taking break and day dreaming about Greek cookies. They melt in your mouth but the powder sugar gets on my hands.
My edible treat is pecan pralines that we make using my great-grandmother’s recipe. They are sweet and so very creamy – the absolute best!
Eggnog and butter tarts. They are a Canadian thing. Flakey crust and a brown sugar, walnut filling. Not like pecan pie but kind of gooey and toothache .
Christmas Cookies! If I have to be more specific, the stuffed (with walnut) date cookies with sugar icing my mom made. Luckily, my sister makes them just as tasty. Thanks for the contest!
Just taking a break from embroidery. For lunch I would love a leftover ham sandwich and potatoes salad.
I would eat a homemade mince pie!
I love German Glazed Lebkuchen cookies. No one else in the family does, so they are all mine! Which really means I don’t buy many. I love to have them with a cup of hot tea or coffee. My mother wasn’t a big baker so we never had homemade cookies. Wait, I just remembered she made the most wonderful divinity. She didn’t make it often and she called it “sea foam”. (I really don’t know why) I’m still sticking with the German Lebkuchen as my favorite holiday cookie.
Mince pies, lovely anytime but I’m so glad to only have them at Christmas.
What gorgeous silk ribbon! I love working with silk ribbon and would love to win some.
Christmas pudding!
My favourite Christmas treat is Kerstkrans or Christmas ring. When I moved from the Netherlands to New Zealand, I also left behing traditional foods eaten around Christmas time. Kerstkrans couldn’t be bought here, so I set about making it myself, it took a few Christmases to get it right, but now I make it every year with great success. Kerstkrans is pastry ring filled with a ground almond, sugar and egg filling. Yummy!! My mouth is watering as I write this.
In late October I make my Christmas cake and carefully store it wrapped in tinfoil. In Christmas week I open it and share with family (it is a large cake). My favourite daily treat is a small slice of this rich delicious taste of heaven.
A taste like no other all year. Love it
My Dad’s old fashioned jam cake. It was his mother’s recipe and his oldest sister continued to make the cake after their mother’s passing. It became our family “fruitcake” and was only made for Christmas. I have precious memories of baking this cake with my Dad. I now carry on the tradition.
Well this is a hard question!
On Christmas Eve, I make cranberry, apple cider, cinnamon cake. It is like a coffee cake but springy and light, and it smells like Christmas. It is perfect for the mood of Christmas morning.
My favorite edible would have to be Sausage Balls for savory and any homemade candies. My mom use to make both for Christmas and I miss her goodies. I also love ribbon embroidery and Di van Niekerk, i have one of her kits now working on it. She is a remarkable artist and so sweet, i had to email her a question and she was so kind and answered all my questions.
Love your blog and all the info, i have learned so much! Merry Christmas & Happy New Year
These silk ribbons are fabulous!!!
If I could only choose one edible treat it would be homemade gingerbread cookies!
I love ribbon embroidery. I miss my mother fruit cake.
English toffee is my favorite treat at Christmas time
If you had to pick only one edible treat that you normally enjoy only during the holiday season, what would you pick?
SO hard to choose! I would say Hope Farm Cheese Wafers. I’m making them for a work party tomorrow!