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!
Peppermint Bark from Costco. The family is on our second box of the season. Love ribbon embroidery, don’t need a needle threader!
I love the Christmas fruit cake served with custard and ice cream. Typical South African Christmas cake.
Oreo balls!
I love nice rich Christmas Petits Fours and resist buying them during the rest of the year so they stay special.
Aren’t petit fours lovely? My friend’s family used to have them every Christmas and Easter, and I was always fascinated by them. Not only were they yummy, but they were always so pretty! I tried making them a couple times. They never turned out that great – and way too much work trying to get them right! Definitely a treat to savor!
Although I do seasonally bake a variety of scrumptious cookie recipes I’ve gathered over the years. If I had to restrict myself to JUST ONE, it would have to be the fruitcake I make with only plump dried fruits (figs, Medjool dates, apricots, golden raisins, craisins, sometimes others like blueberries or mango bits), half a down varieties of nuts (walnuts, pecans, almonds, cashews, pistachios, macadamias, pine nuts — oops, that’s seven), and just enough batter made with maple syrup to hold it all together. YUM!!
During the holidays I love warm eggnog with whipped cream. I usually only get it during the holidays so that makes it,special.
I love these beautiful ribbons!
Also your website and emails. Thank you for the inspiration.
I’d select the delicious buckeyes–chocolate and peanut butter delights. Best of all, my daughter-in-law makes them for me, so no cooking involved on my part. Just eating–and lots of it!
I love a nice fat candy cane.
Christmas delights always remind me of baking with my mother. Her cookies were all amazing, but my favorite was always her fudge. She had a recipe that used cook-and-serve chocolate pudding. That and a big glass of milk were sublime. I’ve yet to find another fudge recipe that compares.
I love to make a batch or two of Chili Cashew Party mix. Uses Tabasco’s Chipolte Pepper Sauce
My mother’s trifle! I dream of it all year long.
My favourite edible Christmas treat is my sister Gloria’s fruit cake. She soaks the dried fruit in rum for days prior to the mixing and baking . It is absolutely delicious and I am looking forward to receiving another one this Christmas. Yum, yum.!
My favorite Christmas treat right now is Chocolate Peppermint Brownies (thanks to Stonewall Kitchen). Yes, it’s cheating a little but still made by me and more time to stitch (and nosh).
Fudge!! No matter how often we run out of time to make all of our favorite delicious holiday treats between Thanksgiving and Christmas time, our family fudge recipe always makes the cut!!
CHOCOLATE
I’m a sucker for those big tins of Danish butter cookies. I start buying as soon as I see them in the store.
Oh Mary my pavalova without doubt.
Candycanes love them it’s the only treat I love at Christmas time for myself I do share but it just one treat I look forward too
My favorite edible that I only enjoy during the holidays is homemade cranberry relish! It goes on everything particularly on homemade rolls and dressing. It is tart and sweet and it goes really well on toasted leftover rolls with a little butter the day after too!
What a sweet treat either of these gifts would be—even sweeter than the Snickerdoodles that I love.
The one thing I would love to have is my mother’s divinity. It was a lot of hot, sticky work that had to be done quickly, before the candy cooled, but there was nothing else like it in the candy tin. And she made it only once a year, for Christmas.
No! Only one?! Then I suppose it would have to be my husband’s coconut date balls. They are scrumptious! They’re two-bite sized with chopped walnuts, dates and Rice Krispie’s rolled into balls then rolled in coconut. He only makes them at Christmas, and it wouldn’t be complete without them!
I’d pick Forgotten Cookies, a family recipe that I make every year. You whip egg whites, vanilla and sugar into a stiff meringue, and mix in lots of pecans and chocolate chips. Then you put them into a preheated oven, turn it off, and “forget” them overnight. The turn out light and crisp and delicious!
I love Christmas pudding.
Stuffed Mushroom – yum!!
In our family, the treat we enjoy only at Christmas is shortbread cookies. For my husband especially, it just isn’t Christmas without them!
Thank you for this chance to win Mary and Di.
A slice of moist rich fruit cake. Yummie!!
Every Christmas, my mom would make her homemade fudge. It was her own private recipe, never wrote it down, so we were unable to duplicate it. This would be the one edible food I would love to have at Christmas time. The fudge was fabulous.
Poppyseed and nut rolls my grandmother use to make. Her recipes were all in her head. However, my mother-in-law, (bless her departed soul), gave me her recipe for them. She even left me the special pans to bake them in.
The ribbon is beautiful! I would pick pecan turtle clusters!
I love pecan pie during this season! Yum!!!
Those sunset colors are so beautiful. If I had to pick only one edible treat that I normally enjoy only during the holiday season, I would you pick my mom’s homemade fudge. It was from a Hershey’s cocoa can (which would be an antique now). It doesn’t use marshmallow creme. She sometimes added in walnuts or peanut butter. It was/is a “hard” fudge when cooled as compared to most fudge you can by today.
Swiss almond macaroons–melt in your mouth bundles of goodness! (I plan to bake some next week.)
Well, for me it’s got to be cinnamon rolls. They’re complicated to make with my dietary restrictions, but the rich buttery cinnamon goodness is worth splurging on.
Thanks for the wonderful blog!
Thanks for the chance to win this. I would love to try ribbon embroidery. One of my favorite holiday treats that I am making for my postman this afternoon is called Christmas crack. It is a strange recipe, but soooo good!
I make a mean Christmas fruitcake! I know a lot of people don’t like fruitcakes but I use a James Beard recipe, only use whole candied fruits, and load it up with Jameson Irish Whiskey! What’s not to like? Bon appetite!
My favourite nibble at Christmas is my husbands iced ginger biscuits. This year I can’t have them as I’ve just got out of hospital after a Gastric Bypass, so I’m on a puree diet for ages !
What lovely ribbon! If I am to choose one holiday treat, I believe it would be divinity! It’s heavenly, a bit tricky to make (especially in humid environments), and once I bite into a piece, it’s like instant Christmas! A lot of special people have made this delight in the past and it brings back some very nice holiday memories.
My homemade toffee! I used to make goodie bags for my employees (40 bags) at Christmas when I worked. They were filled with different cookies but they always asked for the toffee.
Oh, I just LOVE Di van Niekerk’s work. She’s amazing!
My favorite would be my mom’s nut cups. They’re kind of like a thumbprint cookie made in mini muffin pans filled with a batter of brown sugar, pecans, and walnuts. She’s ailing right now, so it may be that soon I will have to make them myself, but until then, I will treasure every morsel she makes.
Stuffing. Actually, the whole, full blown turkey dinner, which we had at both Xmas and Thanksgiving, in my house. But to pick one from that holiday array, stuffing would be the one. Hot with gravy, or cold out of the fridge. 🙂
Not an eat exactly, but I choose eggnog.
I want mincemeat pie for Christmas. My mother always baked it and no one in my family likes it. Should one bake a pie…just for oneself! Since she is now gone, I have no one with whom to share my childhood special Christmas pie. Falling slightly behind mincemeat pie is good, moist fruitcake. My family just does not like those food that I think of as the essence of Christmas treats.
Rose cookies.They are tedious to prepare but such a treat .
Christmas fruit cake dripping with brandy, lots of dates, nuts and lots of cherries. Just thinking of it makes my mouth water. Yum yum
I have a craze for real Italian ice cream, we always try them out during our December holidays at the sea side. We do not get them locally.
What do I eat during holidays that is solely for now: christmas pudding–yep, only at Christmas!
Silk ribbons from Dicraft will be the biggest best ever gift to get for Christmas. I just love them all.
A big slice of moist rich fruitcake, always a special treat.
I chose sugar cookies…shaped and iced. Reminds me of flour-covered hours spent with family and friends producing them!
I love my mom’s molasses crinkles! They’re out of a cookbook she has, but she adds extra ginger and some of the other spices, and they’re truly wonderful. Somehow the ones I make never turn out as good as hers 🙁
Praline Pecans..my husbands favorites but mine are coconut macaroons dipped in dark chocolate
Easy sugar cookie recipe :
2 sticks butter
1 cup sugar
1 egg
1tsp vanilla
2 cups flour
1/2 tsp baking soda
Bake at 375degrees.10 min
Place on undressed baking sheet..flatten with glass bottom that’s been greased and dipped in sugar
Not your Mom’s but great for anytime!
Dark Chocolate Covered Cherries
I have to say it would be milk chocolate english toffee. It has that buttery nutty taste all enveloped in chocolate.
Also I have to say that the silk ribbons look just about as yummy!
Lovely!! No doubt, my choice is gramma’s pumpkin pie (with my mom’s persimmon pudding taking a very close second). Can’t wait to see what other people eat:)
No hesitation here, Christmas would just not be Christmas without Christmas cake: well ‘fed’ (brandy of course!) fruity fruit cake with a good layer of marzipan topped with snowy icing – not cut until Christmas Eve of course.
Spiced and sugared walnuts
My great great grandmother’s sprigerle cookies
Lovely giveaway, Mary! Thank you for coordinating it!
The treat I love at this time of year that I don’t eat anytime else are Mexican wedding cake cookies, but made with the substitution of crushed candy canes instead of nuts. My mom makes these, and I just love them.
Silk ribbon embroidery is my absolute favorite embroidery.
Cheese straws are my favorite holiday treat. Reminds me of Christmas treats Mother always made.
Pie. Apple pie. Here apples are in season, so pie is too. The problem with cookies, is that I can’t eat just one. So, pie please. And silk ribbons. I love those earth colors. Perfect for a moody beach scene. Of course, they are all lovely.
The one edible I must have at Christmas is home made sugar cookies with icing! Does not matter what shape they are. I crave them and bake them even if I am not entertaining.
Valerie J-R
The one special treat would have be Baklava!
As a child we would go to my great aunts house on Christmas Day. We would all gather there after church and there would be these amazing German Christmas cookies. I think they are called pfeffernusse – kind of anise cookies I think. I’ve tried them in so many German Christmas Village events and I’ve never found the exact flavor. Who knows what the old one made them with. But I sure loved them. Once she died, the tradition stopped and that particular recipe went with her. I was just a cousin, so no access to that recipe file!
My favorite Christmas goodie is homemade English toffee. It brings back wonderful memories of time spent with my mother in the kitchen making all sorts of goodies and cookies for the Christmas season. This treat was our favorite.
Oh, so hard to choose one holiday treat. I have been enjoying some homemade rocky road fudge. So festive and tasty.
Bumbles – Peanut butter balls covered in chocolate. yum yum.
OOh, my favorite Christmas treat is gingerbread men. No icing, just plain. They are so delicious with hot cider.
I have taken her classes at the Sewing Expo In Puyallup, Washington! The colors of the ribbons are wonderful.
My favorite thing to eat is peanut fudge.
I adore pecan mini tarts. They are a delight to make and a special treat to enjoy!!
Those ribbons are just gorgeous! Thank you for introducing me to so many beautiful materials.
Right now the holiday flavor that is calling to me is peppermint – as long as it’s attached to some dark chocolate!
I’ll take a slice of pecan pie please. It absolutely satisfies every taste bud on my tongue.
Thank you to you & Ms. van Niekerk for the very generous ribbons & book. That would be all the Christmas I need!
My favorite treats at Christmas are chocolate truffles.
Oh, this is so easy to answer. I make some cookies that have a dough base spread with a mixture of ground raisins, pecans, and orange marmalade, then that is rolled up into a cylinder to be sliced. It’s sticky and to make the slices round I have to freeze the cylinder just a little while, and have a super sharp knife to cut the slices. They taste just like Christmas to me.
Shortbread! Funny how when I was a kid I couldn’t for the life of me understand how anybody in their right mind could possibly like something that was basically flour, butter and sugar. Good thing my tastes have changed! We also make a really nice hash brown potato recipe that we reserve for a treat only at festive occasions.
Those ribbons look scrumptious!!
Hi Mary! My favourite Christmas treat is eggnog! (Preferably with rum in it, but not mandatory). Happy December to everyone.
What a fun question. My answer has to be Christmas Cookies, more specifically, my Spritz, and my grandma’s Frosted Creams, which I haven’t tasted since she died 43 years ago on Christmas Day. I should make them sometime. After all, I have her recipe in her own handwriting. If I win this, I promise I will make them, then relax and stitch with these lovely ribbons!
Oh for me, what a difficult decision. So my first choice is plum pudding covered in a warm custard sauce. My 2nd choice is the much maligned Christmas fruit cake. Love Christmas!
My one treat would be a bowl of fresh cherries – they usually come ripe just before Christmas here in Aus and have such a short season.
I would love to have a hot fudge sundae.
Oh, this is an easy question to answer! My Christmas treat would have to be luscious, creamy, dreamy fudge, the kind my grandma used to make, the recipe that’s on the back of the Marshmallow Fluff container, the kind that makes my mouth water right now just thinking about it!
Thanks, Mary!
oh, oh, my…what glorious colors….and I just love the wooden spools for the beautiful ribbons….
My mom always made German Vanilla Strips. They are made with almond flour and are delicious! We also like Italian Rainbow Cookies, made with almond paste.
Yum…..
I love all of these gorgeous silk ribbons! They would work for so many projects!
My favorite edible treat for Christmas is gingerbread. The spices warm you from the inside, and it always smells like home.
My favorite time of the year. My house sparkling with bought and handmade Christmas decorations. Beautiful music that fills the air. And my house smelling so wonderful from all my baking. I especially look forward to making my Mothers peach cookies. Two hollowed out cookies, filled with luscious filling, painted with vermouth and red foodcoloring, then rolled in white sugar. Plastic leaf stem added for finishing touch. So delicious and nostalgic. Yummmmm!
Hi Mary and thank you (and Di) for your generous give aways!
The one Holiday treat that I would pick are decorated sugar cookies with lots of frosting, sprinkles and sugar, Breakfast ~ Lunch ~ Dinner!
If I could choose only ONE Christmas treat? Hands down it would be my MIL’s. white apricot brandy Christmas cake! It is the yummiest with just a soupćon of the booze and it’s loaded with glacé fruit and pecans. Oh mmmmmmm! It’s just the best!!
Merry Christmas Mary! I hope Santa brings you and your niece health, wealth and happiness ! In that package I hope Santa also tucks away your heart’s dearest desire.
Thanks for another great year that zipped past waaaaaaayyyyyyyy too fast!
Regards
M
Eggnog! Only available this time of year
Popcorn balls! Again only available this time of year but I love the ones I make
I love it when my mom makes Buckeye balls. I could just sit around eating them all month.
A few years ago we found a beautiful recipe for marbleized pumpkin/cheesecake pie. It is so pretty and tastes even better. I may need to make a tester pie before Christmas, you know, just to make sure it still works before the big day.
Oh, once a year I indulge and have butter tarts…. ooey gooey butter tarts.
Today though I am going to make some peanut brittle.
Two days ago I made gingerbread houses for the four grandchildren.
Christmas is baking time. After Christmas is the time to learn a new skill… working with ribbon.
Merry Christmas.
One treat? That’s a tough one, but I think I’d have to go with peppermint bark or chocolate almonds. Every year we make it and every year I devour it. Chocolate is the fifth group in this family.
My “only at Christmas treat” is Chocolate Marshmellow Fudge. I like to crunch up peppermint and fold it in along with a good sprinkling of red crystal sugar on top!
Of course, you don’t want to eat it while doing the embroidery or ribbon work!!
Only one edible treat? What kind of holiday season is this?! It would be… Finnish Christmas stars made with flakey puff pastry and a tiny dollop of preserves. Yum.
Nothing says Christmas to me like Swedish meatballs. My family has eaten them for Christmas Eve for over a hundred years. My great-grandma made them until she was about 90, when she taught my mom to do it. These days I make them and bring them to wherever Christmas Eve is being held.
At this time of the year I get to enjoy CRAB. Nice fresh local California Crab with melted butter. Also Sourdough bread.
Thanks Mary and Di for such a lovely giveway! Those colors are joyful!
My favorite holiday treat is gingerbread! Spicy, rich gingerbread cake, maybe with chocolate ganache icing, or heavy whipped cream. Cook’s Illustrated published a recipe a few years ago that has several different kinds of ginger, 2 different peppers and some other things as well. It is the gingerbread of dreams, sooooo good!
I hope to get some “me” time to sit with my weinerdog pups, Rosie, Daisy and Poppy and do some ribbonry work while watching Judge Judy on TV!
I share your love of Di van Niekerk books and silk ribbons and have a project and materials gathered to complete (it’s been on my bucket list for 2 years!) Thank you for sharing your passion for hand work and love of the arts with us.
My selection for only one edible treat (really!!) that I normally enjoy only during the holiday season would be a treat I make with my grandchildren, Peppermint-Marsh. We take large marshmallows and dip an end in chocolate then sprinkle with peppermint chips. Their wonderful by themselves and great added to a smores or hot chocolate.
Brandy Balls!!!….My mother made this treat exclusively at Christmas as far back as I can remember! They were her “go too” gift for nearly everyone. Ground up Vanilla Wafers, Karo Syrup, walnuts, and brandy rolled into balls covered in powdered sugar then put in glass jars with a ribbon and gift tag …ready to distribute to neighbors, friends and even teachers!. These delicious treats got tastier as they aged and each wonderful bite held the spirit of the Holidays and my mother’s generosity. I loved helping her make these delicious treats then pack them in the glass jars. My mother’s keen eye kept me from eating as many as I packed. Whenever I taste one of these treats, no matter who makes them, I know it’s Christmas and that my mother is sending her love.
I love strawberry bread. I have a recipe from a lady I used to work with and my husband loves this bread
. When strawberries are in season, I buy a lot and freeze them pre-cut just for this recipe so I can make it all year round.
I just love anything sweet, eg Mince Tarts, White Christmas, Christmas Pudding and shortbread.
I would choose my Scottish shortbread. It is so buttery and crisp and perfect with either a wee cup of tea or coffee. It is the perfect comfort food and brings back lots of memories of my childhood and family. No need for icing – only sugar tops this traditional yummy treat.
Christmas Dinner – turkey, roast potatoes, sprouts, yorkshire pudding. Yum!
Thank you, Mary for this fun giveaway 🙂
Thank you Mary. My favorite treat during the holidays are powdered sugar snowballs cookies. They are melt in your mouth delicious.
Gingerbread, anything that is made with spices that fills the home with beautiful aroma’s of love and happiness.
Scandinavian Almond Cookies are my favorite Christmas treat. I bake 2 batches so I can gift them to frineds and family and still have some for myself! Kathy
My favorite edible holiday treat is eggnog.
Christmas Fruitcake – not just any fruit cake but the one that my friend, Irene, makes every Christmas and I am one of the lucky recipients of her baking.
My favorite holiday treat is my mother’s spiced walnuts. Just the perfect amount of sugar and spices. She would make me a special batch without cloves.
I just love Plum pudding & custard , brings back beautiful memories for me.
Favorite treat is Grandma Kate’s sugar cookies. Also a Favorite of my husband’s. I usually make them every year at this time, not this year.
My favorite holiday treat would have to be kolaches -prune with posipka please. Growing up, kolaches would be at every get together so they definitely mean family to me. They shouldn’t be delegated to “special events only”, however, I never seem to get around to making them until the holidays. But that just makes them extra special. I have admired Di’s amazing materials and craftsmanship for many years and dreamed of owning some of her delicious ribbons.
Di van Niekerk’s website is amazing. Finding silk ribbon to embroider with in my area is difficult, but she has everything one could want. My son played in the Natal Philharmonic for a year many years ago, so I know the country she lives in and it is beautiful. As for Christmas sweets, I make two things each year, only for Christmas, and they are fudge and peanut brittle. My family all wait for their respective boxes of candy. Thank you for doing these give aways!
I like my mother’s peanut butter oatmeal drop cookies: she makes them every christmas. I also like the sugar cookie cutouts, which I would decorate, but santa’s head would always break off. And, I like my mother’s cranberry dish, with whole cranberries suspended in cranberry sauce, and her banana dish, which is kind of a trifle, with layers of bananas and pineapple custard. I just found the peanut butter oatmeal drop cookies online, at etsy and at walmart, and I ordered some (although they are easy to make), so I am rather happy about that. Happy Holidays!
Rebecca, the Girl with 9 Cats. 🙂
Champagne truffles
During the holidays when I was a child, my grandmother and both great grandmothers would bake Christmas cookies for us. Each had their own favorite recipe for what we called Russian tea cake cookies. Since they were not from the exact same towns or regions in Europe, they are different while still being similar. Even now, the three tea cakes are my favorite, all are covered with powered sugar, one has lemon and orange peel, one has pistachios instead of walnuts and one is full of spices. I used to make them for my daughter and have passed the recipes to her.
One thing still on my bucket list is to learn to do ribbon embroidery!
My Christmas gave would be Mince pie!
The treat we only have at Christmas is a scrummy trfle made with mangoes for the fruit and cointreau for the oomph- delicious!!
Just like Di’s ribbons!!
The one holiday treat I would pick is not sweet at all (hope it doesn’t have to be). My treat would be the steamed clams and spaghetti that my grandmother made. We followed the Catholic Italian tradition of no meat on Christmas Eve, so that’s when we ate it – along with lobster salad, octopus salad, and cauliflower fritters. It was a wonderful time!!
I’m hungry too! I’m looking forward to banquet, a Dutch pastry made with almond paste. I don’t make it myself, so I have to score it from Dutch friends.
Jane
*banket to correct the spelling
Gingerbread .
Christmas cookies are my favorites. Traditionally I’ve always made several varieties. My absolute favorite is pecan puffs made with pecans in a shortbread style dough and a generous amount of vanilla. They are double covered with powdered sugar after baking.
Barb W, MO
fruit cake…the dark one made with lots of rum!!!!
My Christmas splurge is Aunt Bill’s Brown Candy. Pecans, butter, sugar and cream. What could be better. Merry Christmas
Love Silk embroidery! Took a class on it and it is captivating to look at with its’ 3D effect and the colors are so sweet yet rich in creative cluster work! Can’t wait to see more of what you are doing with it! Merry Christmas and I love your personal touch on your website, like we’re old dear friends!
Thank you!
Nancy
My treat would be my homemade Australian Nanaimo Bars!! I only make them at Christmas! I would absolutely love to win one of these prizes. Keeping my fingers crossed!
I enjoy having dates. They are sweet and wonderful!
Happy noshing!
Hi, and thank you for this lovely give-away!! My favorite holiday treat is home made fudge. I make a batch and freeze it so that I can munch on it through the next few months.
I love salted caramel fudge and make it specially for the holidays.
Lebkuchen!!
A delicious german cookie, covered with dark ch0colate, full of spices. Love it!
My mother’s fruitcake!! Yum!!
My mother’s sherry soaked fruitcake.
I would love to have my mother’s Christmas Cake but as she hadn’t been able to make it for a few years before her passing because of health and Alzheimer’s I will have to pick our whipped shortbread cookies. Thank you so much for the chance to win one of these ‘delicious’ looking silk ribbon prizes.
Pecan pie for breakfast, lunch and dinner. It is stereotypical southern American pie, but it is so good. Just don’t go close to your fabric while eating it!
Wow, what beautiful colours!
But in answer to your question: gingerbread filled with almond paste, or even the cheap version, made with mostly white beans and very little in the way of actual almonds 🙂
Tough call between family recipe for iced sour cream sugar cookies and Mexican wedding cake cookies. Now I’m hungry too.
What stunning prizes! Thank you both for this opportunity. My favourite Christmas treat is Christmas Cake. I make it with my mums recipe and try and have it made by Dec 1st. It then gets “fed” until it is iced just before celebrations start. Thimbles full of brandy, rum and sherry alternating make this rich fruit cake a winner. We are from Yorkshire originally so it it served with slices of mature cheddar cheese!
Peanut butter blossom cookies! Love making them and eating them every holiday.
Oh My! My favorite holiday treat — Cranberry Apricot tea bread.
The silk ribbon in the giveaway is beautiful.
Merry Christmas
Fran
I love to have Divinity during the holidays….it reminds me of my childhood and my mom would make it for Christmas.
My favorite Christmas cookie is Mexican Wedding Cakes. It was a tradition in our family for every Christmas that I can remember for the last 75 years at least.
Christmas pudding with brandy custard! Christmas in North Queensland, Australia is hot and humid. Christmas lunch will be inside under the air-conditioner and fans, then we’ll have the Christmas pudding with brandy custard, a bit of a nap if I’m lucky, and then a swim at the beach. At dinner time we do it all again, but play board games instead of going to the beach.
Hello madam, the delicacy that I only eat at Christmas is a Dresden cake called Stollen. It is tasty and it feels like a child again.
Thank you very much and Merry Christmas.
Silk Ribbons are yummy! Speaking of yummy, there are a fair number of sweet treats I associate with Christmas. My first thought was of the Ribbon Candy my Mom & Grandmother liked to get at Christmas. It was very pretty, but I wasn’t all that fond of eating it. Our other tradition was my favorite and I still try to honor it every year. Swedish baked goods. Especially Cardamom Braid. There was Limpa (Swedish Rye) and Mandelkranz (almond braid with fruit) usually, too, but Cardamom Braid with sugar on top was my favorite. One year an almond cake came home from the Swedish bakery in Arlington, MA where my Mom would buy the specialties. I’ve looked for it’s like ever since and never found anything as delicious anywhere and that bakery is no more. These days I go to a Danish Bakery in Seattle for my Swedish baked goods fix. They do an almond braid that is out of this world and you can find their Kringle at grocery stores around the area and a few even carry the Cardamom Braid! So, Nordic baked goods in general!
I started making truffles 25 years ago and it has become an annual tradition for me and the grandkids to make. Easy yummy togetherness.
My favourite treat is a Terry’s chocolate orange. I could safely eat a whole one!
I make caramel corn only at Christmas time, mostly to give away as gifts to family, friends and co-workers. It’s a super simple recipe, with just four ingredients and no candy thermometer required. Each batch makes about 8 quarts of delicious snacking. Some years I make 8 batches! Everyone seems to love it and they say they’ll be disappointed if I ever stop making it for them.
My favorite holiday treat is my mom’s homemade eggnog! It’s the best!
I thought it over and most treats I can find or make the rest of the year. Lox is seldom available the rest of the year and expensive enough to not indulge most of the year. Not the usual sweet treat! I must say those ribbons would be a lovely sweet treat!
Christmas time there are lots of baked treat to love. My favorite is Buche de Noel (Yule log). I make it using Julia Child’s receipt.
I love Di van Niekerk books, panels and silk ribbons, at this moment I am working on one of her panels.
Thank you Mary and Di, Merry Christmas to both of you. I wish you both a very peaceful Christmas Holiday.
Mince pies
Home made delicious … that’s all you can say! It’s Christmas
Eggnog! I just Love eggnog and it is only available during the holidays. Which is probably a good thing! It just screams Holidays to me and brings back so many warm and happy memories of family and good times.
Eton Mess. I have fond memories of my Grandmother making/serving this deceptively simple concoction of fresh strawberries, crushed meringues, & whipped cream when we visited over Christmas/New Year.
Definitely gingerbread cookies. Not even decorated, but warm right from the oven with a mug of tea or coffee.
One edible treat? That’s a different one for me. The end of 2019 I got Covid and then the beginning of 2020 I got it again. But this time it was really bad. I was down for 2 months and during that time I lost my since of taste and smell. I rely on my family and friends to tell me what things taste or smell like. If I remember either one everyone can tell I get a smile on my face. I just lucky I made it out ok. If I could taste it would be just about anything.
Oh my goodness, nostalgia for my favorite childhood Christmas “Date nut log” my dad used to make… I wish there were a recipe written down somewhere so we could recreate it!
It has to be the dark, sticky gingerbread that my mother made, only ever at Christmas. We ate it on Christmas morning with cups of hot chocolate, after walking back home from the carol service.
Peanut butter blossoms – the all important chocolate and a cookie part for a bit of variety
If I could have only one seasonal treat, it would be my Aunt’s (a relative of the heart, not of blood) Italian cookies. Before any of us were old enough to be married, Christmas time was the only time she made these. Once weddings and grandchildren were in the mix, they became a staple at every family event.
I love silk ribbon embroidery but I’ve never had real silk ribbon to use before and what I dream
about at this time of year is a slice of chestnut and walnut torte.
So hard to save, but the various Norwegian treats we would have but especially for me krumkake and sandkaker.
I love the nut sticky buns that Mom always made for breakfast on Christmas morning. The ones at the supermarket bakery without the cream cheese icing are almost as good.
I use silk ribbon for making fabulous bows, plus I have a silk ribbon cabinet with a few cubby holes left to fill…..….every Christmas holiday I make creamy pralines!!!!! When it really gets cold, homemade marshmallows and hot cocoa mix..
It’s a special “fruit”and nut cake that contains dates, maraschino cherries, Brazil nuts, and pecans with very little batter. So good!
Cb
Love Love Love Silk Ribbon Embroidery.
Favorite Snowball Cookies.
There are so many to choose from. I don’t have a sweet tooth so I would have to say turkey liver pâté on a keto cracker with a bit of blue cheese on top. Yum!
Beautiful silk ribbons. Now I’m dreaming of getting my hands on such lovelies.
I look forward to short bread cookies this time of the year.
Sugar Cookies with red and green sprinkles. They bring back memories and always taste better at Christmas!
“If you had to pick only one edible treat that you normally enjoy only during the holiday season, what would you pick?” Hmm, that is a hard one. I’ve spent a lot of time lately trying hard not to eat sweets or even think about them and this is a very hard time of year to do that. I would have to choose between sweet potato pie, sunshine pie (think lemon meringue, but with oranges), and spiced pumpkin cheese cake. Hard decision. Can I have one slice of each?
Mince pies! Christmas isn’t Christmas without mince pies.
Sausage rolls would be my edible Treat of choice for the holiday season. My mother used to make them this time of year. Whenever we have sausage rolls, it brings back wonderful memories of my childhood. The flaky pastry and savory taste are a delightful bonus!
My favorite treat years ago was walnuts, when the walnut bowl made an appearance, I knew Christmas was approaching! Now, it’s chocolate covered cashews.
Chocolate Log!
We used to have a standard chocolate Swiss roll with a whipped cream filling and buttercream icing, but with food allergies we now have a gluten-free chocolate log (it’s flourless, so really a roulade I think) with a whipped coconut cream filling; it’s actually better than the original.
I know this sounds weird, but the one Christmas treat I must have every year is my Nana’s fruitcake. My Dads birthday is in Dec and every year she would make him a fruit cake. We all waited for it with anticipation. We would do the happy birthday thing on his day, each have one slice of cake and then wait until Christmas Eve for the rest. Luckily Nana gave me lessons one year so I can make it. BTW, any other fruitcake other than Nana’s is awful!
I love Christmas. Christmas cake with glistening cherries and other fruit plus a few crunchy nuts…tis a tummy delight. ArielR.
I really like dark fruit cake — the heavy kind, that everybody likes to make jokes about. Most people seem to steer clear of making/buying it, so I rarely get some to eat.
But, I agree that food and embroidery don’t mix!
I love Christmas pudding and look forward to it as a treat once a year.
My favorite holiday goodie was my Aunt Kathryn’ read mincemeat pie made with real meat, plus all the other fruits and spices that go in it. But real meat as the foundation of the pie.
And on homemade pie crust.
Yummy
My holiday treat would have to be Cheese straws.
I have two candies in mind. Chocolate covered cherries, the ones with the sweet liquid centers and peanut brittle. Christmas is the only time you can find the cherries and the only time that I make peanut brittle.
Maraschino cherry bars.
The holiday treat I dream about (or one of them anyway) is Cashew Shortbread. Divine!
I love peanut butter kisses cookies! I only make them during the Christmas season.
I would choose Black Walnut Honey Fudge. My grandfather was a beekeeper and of course they had black walnut trees on the farm in Iowa. My grandma always made this fudge at Christmas time and I have continued the tradition
My favorite Christmas treats are the delicious caramels that my sister makes for us each year.
I look forward to making and eating our traditional sugar cookie recipe each Christmas. Our whole family takes part in decorating the cookies and baking them and the creativity our boys have in decorating is wonderful. Can’t wait until our expected twin grandchildren can participate in this tradition, too!
Chocolate fudge!
My favourite holiday treat is Turkey! In New Zealand Turkey is not available year round and coming from England love all the festivities and traditions of Christmas!.
ribbon candy, especially the peanut butter kind
My special Christmas treat is chocolate covered cherries that we make ourselves. MMMMM.
My favourite xmas treat that is decadent (and expensive!) is the Haigh’s handmade Christmas pudding truffles. They come in a pack of 5 and are only available in Nov/Dec. Absolutely amazing. Probably a good thing they’re not available all year round! It’s the special food treat I look forward to eating the most.
Hello Mary, my dream choice for Christmas time is Marzipan, it reminds me of family get gatherings at Christmas time, mom would have all sorts on the nibble table like sweets. chocolates, nuts, her home made spice biscuits, and mince pies, but my all time favourite was the Marzipan rolls that she would cut into pieces for everyone but not many liked the marzipan, so I always had some leftovers to take home with me to eat in quiet times on my own, we were left with great Christmas time, they are good memories to have as now our family is spread over the world, and memories keep us going into old age.
My favorite holiday treat is pinwheel cookies. Perhaps they do not mean “holiday” for others, but my mom only makes these crispy treats once a year and even though I’m in my 60’s, these are still my favorite cookies from childhood and she still makes them for me every year. She will be 90 this month and it will take her most of the day to make my cookies, but I don’t mind cleaning up after her.
I would like a Christmas Ham. Because we always have breakfast at my house before my children go on their way to other family members it is never economical to have a ham for one.
That’s a hard choice humm maybe cranberry nut bread. It brings my parents to me in memories. Wishing everyone joy this last month of the year .
It’s very hard choose my favorite goodie during the holiday I think it would be snickerdoodle cookies.
My favorite thing is frosted sugar cookies. I never seem to get enough.
The silk ribbons are beautiful! My favorite Christmas treat is homemade fudge, specifically chocolate peanut butter fudge. Thank you for the giveaway, and all I have learned from you. Merry Christmas!
The silk ribbons are extremely beautiful. I would love to be able to be the winner! I like crazy quilting and have done a lot with silk ribbon but have not had a chance to use this brand. Please pick me!
The silk ribbons are extremely beautiful. I would love to be able to be the winner! I like crazy quilting and have done a lot with silk ribbon but have not had a chance to use this brand. Please pick me!
Merry Christmas and my enjoyable treat are always cranberry turtles.
Please pick me!
Merry Christmas and my enjoyable treat are always cranberry turtles.
The silk ribbons are extremely beautiful. I would love to be able to be the winner! I like crazy quilting and have done a lot with silk ribbon but have not had a chance to use this brand.
Our family always looked forward to Potica. My grandmother, my mother and myself made this at Christmas time. I had to watch closely to learn to make it. Sweetened chopped walnuts, plumped white raisins spread on a bread dough and rolled jelly roll style. Many loaves were made at one time. Our families anxiously waited for the bread to bake and to be enjoyed. We all loved eating that warm slice of bread together.
My favorite edible is White Chocolate Raspberry Cheesecake. Each Christmas Eve after church our family eats it while watching our favority version of “A Christmas Carol” and “How the Grinch Stole Christmas.”
Holiday treat? Gingerbread, fresh and warm, with extra ginger for a little kick. Bring on the holidays!
“… only one edible treat that you normally enjoy only during the holiday season, what would you pick?”
Chocolate mint is a real treat for the holidays. Also, there are so many holidays in the year 🙂
You should get my autoreply which shows my my e-mail is working. It’s not a bounce. Thank you for doing this and all your helpful newsletters and web pages.
Peppermint Hershey’s kisses and the companion Hershey’s chocolate bark bells!
My favorite holiday treat has to be gingerbread men. I love sneaking tastes of the dough, rolling them out and cutting them, decorating them and of course, eating them! Just thinking of them makes me happy, happy!
I’ve always wanted to try working with silk ribbon. I’ve got my fingers crossed for luck!
I LOVE Shortbread cookies, homemade. They are worth every calorie since they are made primarily of butter…yum!
Every year for Christmas, my mother would make chocolate covered peanut butter balls for my brother, his favorite and Mexican wedding cookies for me, my favorite. Three years ago as her health faded, I picked up her tradition and made the peanut butter balls but I felt guilty making the cookies just for myself so I didn’t make any. She passed away two years ago. I made the peanut butter balls again this year but this time, I did make my favorite, Mexican wedding cookies.
It shimmers in the lamplight
The shades seduce our eyes.
It brings on thoughts of flowers
And animals looking wise.
It slides right through our fingers
And puddles like a dream,
Silk ribbon is the best thing
My fabric has ever seen.
Every Christmas I look forward to Cape Breton Pork Pies. Shortbread cookie pastry tart shells filled with a date filling topped with lemon icing. Yumm!!
Oh, my favorite is Gingerbread Latte Cake… especially now that you can’t get a gingerbread latte unless you are in Canada!!
What gorgeous ribbons! I would eat cookies. My mom always made a platter of delicious homemade cookies and I would eat at least one of each. Back then, I didn’t gain weight, either! Happy holidays to all!
I like to make Mint Chocolate Brownies for me family. They love it and this is the only time of year that I indulge them.
My favorite Christmas treat would be Christmas toffee candy.
Imagine a lovely selection of ribbon adorning my favourite Christmas mince pies
Wow silk ribbon, how wonderful i love silk ribbon designs..
Now to the one thing i would stuff myself on it would be… I would make and eat (probably all of them) my mums Rum Balls, only made at Christmas as it is strictly a Christmas treat. If you want the recipe i can share… Yum now i’m hungry.. Love your work Mary, and i have lots of pics around my ribbon embroidery cushions i make… hugs and thank you ..Ruth Harvey
Pick one edible treat during the holiday season – I love Christmas fruitcake 🙂
Thank you very much, Mary, for the great giveaway!
Edible treat? It’s a toss-up between two:
Puerto Rican Pasteles – which I devoured as a child when living in Puerto Rico,
or
Colombian Tamales – My Mother-in-Law’s- which I devoured as an adult while living in Colombia.
I love white chocolate covered pretzels- easy to make and you just can’t beat the sweet/salty taste!
Rum Balls!!!
Thanks to both you and Di for this chance! I love with Di’s ribbons. The favourite edible treat I enjoy at this season is the yummy shortbread that my BFF bakes for me every year!
Oh wow. There are so many things I could choose. One comes to mind that I could never let a Christmas go by without having some Swedish lefsa rolled up with butter and brown sugar. Devine.
Hello Mary: In Puerto Rico, we have special treats for Christmas. The most I love is called
“Tembleque”. It’s made with coconut milk, cornstarch, sugar and some spices and other stuff. It’s yummy and I love it
My holiday baking for family and friends wouldn’t be complete without making several recipes of our favorite Christmas pudding. This fragrant pudding has all the traditional richness and spice of my Grandmothers, without the fat busting suet! It is a steamed pudding, made with more heart-healthy canola oil, lots of dark and golden raisins, pecans, grated carrots, apple butter, orange zest and of course drizzled with brandy after it cools. The usual cake and pudding ingredients are not mentioned here. These puddings can be made weeks ahead , store in a cool dark space and enjoyed for months after, although none last much past the holidays. It is served with a warm Carmel-Orange sauce. Enjoy!
Only one treat?! It has to be my sister’s date nut mini muffins. It’s not Christmas without them.
Those silk ribbon gifts are to die for!
What beautiful silk ribbons. Such gorgeous colours. I love to eat my moms shortbread at Christmas time.
My edible treat for Christmas is an old recipe of potato candy. It was first given to me by my mother-in-law many years ago. It is extremely sweet and special.
Christmas Stollen, without a doubt. My father was born and raised in Germany. While he migrated to the US, the remainder of his family still lives there to this day. When I was growing up, each holiday season, my aunt would ship a stollen to us to enjoy on Christmas morning. Today, I’m more likely to get my stollen fix from Trader Joe’s. And I still love eating every last crumb!
I always have to have Poor Man’s Cake. It’s a recipe dating to the world wars that uses no eggs and no butter. It’s sort of plumped raisins and walnuts held together with a spice batter. I’ve eaten it at Christmas my whole life.
It has to be Sand Tarts. The very, very thin sugar cookie that my husband’s family has made for decades. And which takes a tutorial to learn how to roll it so thin… we just had our cookie day (more than a half dozen relatives rolling, cutting, sprinkling colored sugar or cinnamon sugar, someone to (wo)Man to ovens…). Oldest person there was Betty, aged 86, and youngest was my grand daughter who is due to be born today!
The treat that I would pick that I associate with the holiday season is cut out Christmas cookies. I remember as a child doing the cutout cookies with my mom.When I had a family of my own I continued with them and when I became a grandma I did with my grand children. I especially loved the different color sprinkles we used and my children and grand children they loved the sprinkles also.
I love silk ribbon embroidery. I have done a little and am familiar with her works. She came up in a search and I got so caught up in her beautiful work that I completely forgot what I was doing the search for. I love those gorgeous colors and my favorite holiday treat is baklava. And this is funny because none of my family particularly like it. I read your articles all the time and if I don’t have time I save them to read when I can spend more time. Thank you for the tips and reviews. It would make my Christmas to win one of the wonderful gifts.
I live in a climate that is hot at Christmas time and my favorite is a decadent Pavlova with all the trimmings
Oh Mary! This has to be the most difficult giveaway question you’ve ever asked! How to narrow all the delicious holiday goodies down to just one favorite? There are so many: Christmas cookie cutouts – the soft ones with cream cheese frosting and sprinkles, pumpkin roll, Bacardi rum cake, peanut butter fudge, my Aunt Wilma’s fig-filled cookies. But ok, if I have to choose one, it has to be my white chocolate pecan cheesecake topped with brandied fruit and a dollop of real whipped cream. Now you’ve got me thinking about it, I don’t know how I will be able to wait for Christmas.
One only treat to eat during the Christmas season?
Well, in the Southern hemisphere we are very fortunate – it has to be cherries – ripe, red, luscious, juicy cherries.
I have done a tiny amount working with ribbon – it would be lovely to do a lot more! Thank you to Di. And to you, Mary.
If I had to choose one special christmas treat it would the Buche de Noel created by Andre at this tiny little bakery. Sadly Andre retired and his Buche de Noel is but a memory……..
Merry Christmas
I love ribbon, how can it be that I haven’t used it in embroidery I think it’s time to start. Maybe for Christmas. I can dream while mixing up a batch of ice cream based egg nog batter my favorite for Christmas Eve.
I love light fruit Cake, made early and only enjoy this time of the year. yum
Hmmm…. Only one?!? Well, Russian teacakes! They are also, sometimes, called Mexican Wedding cookies. Even tho’ I try to avoid wheat, my daughter has discovered that these can be made just as deliciously with almond flour! Yay!
When I was quite small, our family would always bake our Christmas cookies the day after Thanksgiving and put them away in a crock to wait until Christmas Eve. One year we baked 144 dozen!!
I wish I could be my age now and be able to participate with that fun gathering!
Thank you, Mary, for always offering these wonderful surprises for your readers! You are a blessing to us all!!
The one treat I only enjoy during the holidays is Stollen. Growing up, my Aunt made it for us every year. I now buy it and some years have a hard time finding it – especially during the pandemic. I have already ordered mine this year.
Di’s silk ribbon is wonderful. Thanks to her for donating it and you for offering it.
Pecan Pie! It’s my favorite pie, and my grandmother always made it for Thanksgiving and Christmas. Now that I keep an eye on my weight, I can only justify this calorie bomb once a year!
Although my family’s frosted sugar cookies, apricot-filled kefli and grandma’s figgy pudding are all contenders, my favorite treat is Cream Wafers, a flaky, delicate sandwich cookie filled with frosting that absolutely melts in your mouth. They’re fiddly and time-consuming to make but so worth it!
I would love to go back in time for my grandmothers Mincemeat pie
Back in the day, everything was done from scratch. The mincemeat with rum took most of the year to ferment. The baking was in a actual oven. It took a bit of time since Leadville,my childhood home, was at 20,250 ft
My favorite holiday treat is homemade divinity made by my mom. Her rosettes and spritz cookies are also wonderful.
I would love to snack on homemade caramel corn. Homemade is so much better than store bought caramel corn and it’s super easy to make. It’s sugary, salty and crunchy all at the same time making it hard to stop eating. I make several batches at Christmas to give away to friends and family.
I love working with silk ribbon. It works up so fast!
Jean
Home made fruit mince pies. I now have the perfect pastry recipe and tweak the filling each year striving for 10/10
My favorite “once-a-year” candy is Swiss Colony’s Butter Toffee. Buttery, flaky toffee enrobed in a rich milk chocolate – mmmmm. They make the very best. We try to make them last but they never do…
I’m Christmas dreaming of my mother-in-law’s nut tassies! They practically melt in your mouth!!
What beautifully coloured ribbons, they look like they’d be a joy to work with.
It’s fairly hard to choose just one Christmas treat; there’s so many good ones available, especially as countries exchange Christmas traditions. It wouldn’t be Christmas for me though without a traditional Christmas pudding full of fruits and nuts, so that’s my pick.
One seasonal treat? Prune tarts! the pastry is half butter half cream cheese and they are shaped like pinwheels.
Thanks for all the ways you expose me to lovely things and wonderful ways of doing things
Candy-cane covered pretzels!
I adore silk ribbon and regard all those that I have as treasures. If I could choose just one delicious treat to have only during the holidays it would be… a small maple sugar figurine like those we got in our stockings as children!
Spritz cookies made with a cookie press. I have my grandmother’s cookie press and her Christmas tree disk, which fits my press and I use it each year to make Christmas tree cookies. It’s such a treasure for me and the cookies are delicious!
The Christmas season is full of baking for gift giving. It is a way to share with neighbors and friends a little sweetness as we celebrate. One treat I leave for Christmas morning is my gingerbread waffles. They are only made on this special day and I love them!
Holiday treats that taste like Christmas as a child are Stollen and Lebkuchen. My local bakery makes an amazing Stollen and Trader Joe’s Lebkuchen are surprisingly good!
Such delicious ribbon colours! These would provide just the inspiration and encouragement I need to make 2023 a more creative and less stress-filled year.
Dreaming about chocolate mousse right now
🙂 my favorite edible treat during the holiday season is speculoos cookies.
I love to dunk them in my Christmas tea (cinnamon and orange) let them melt away on my tongue.
I never eat Thanksgiving pumpkin pie at any other time of year. And I love it! I need to find a mini-pie recipe so I’ve got some for me and some to give away.
These ribbons look fantastic! -Eileen
The Christmas goodie I’d like would be the old Christmas cookies I had as a child but gluten/allergy free so that I could have them now and of course since we are wishing they’d taste the same and someone else would have baked and cleaned up for me too.
Hard to choose one favorite, but it would have to be my
grandma’s su
g
Hard to choose just one favorite, but it would have to be my grandma’s sugar cut out cookies. The recipe is from her high school, Girl’s Tech in Milwaukee, now closed for many many years. Made with Crisco, so not a health food! You have to role thinner than thin. My favorite Christmas was when she told me my cookies were as good as hers! Thank you, Linda
The Silk Ribbon by Di van Niekerk is so incredibly gorgeous! I have used ribbon in the past in some of my jewelry designs but nothing as fabulous as her ribbon. It would be a thrill to win 🙂
My one edible treat that I enjoy during the holidays is my Great Grandmother Campbell’s Shortbread Cookies.
Merry Christmas and blessings to you and yours for the New Year.
Cheers, Debra
My favorite Christmas treat are Gingerbread Men.
My favorite holiday food that we usually only enjoy at Christmas is my grandmother’s Christmas cookies. Every year my
grandmother would bake her cookies, and then she and my grandfather would spend hours decorating them. They truly were works of art. She shared the recipe with me and I would bake them, my husband decorates them, but they are not the works of art that I enjoyed as a child. Still yummy though!
Every year I make poppyseed rolls and nutrolls for the holidays. This year I made 14. I freeze them for us to enjoy during the holidays and take them for covered dish get togethers.
Hmm…my favorite edible treat for the Christmas season. Well, I guess I have two. One is the candy known as “Peppermint Patties,” which my siblings and I only seemed to eat at Christmas time – it isn’t so much MY favorite, but is one of my sister’s favorite cookies, so whenever I think of them, I think of her 🙂 And the other one are those Danish sugar cookies you buy in tins. As a child, I loved them, and I especially liked having the pretty tins afterwards to keep things in (usually crafting supplies!).
I have experimented a bit with silk ribbon lately (mostly the 2mm size) and these ribbons look gorgeous! I would love to try working with them! Thank you for this opportunity!
It is hard to believe that the holidays are almost here! I would have to say that my absolute favourite holiday treat is Christmas Stollen, that yummy sweet bread stuffed with marzipan, cherries, macadamias, and other goodies. Happy holidays to you.
Holiday favorite dessert is a real French Nepoleon
Holiday favorite food: latkes and applesauce; jelly donuts!
I absolutely LOVE DiVan Nierkirk’s Silk Ribbon. Thanks to you I added the Ribbon Embroidery and Stumpwork book to my wishlist a few moons ago and had to take it back off again. LOL A friend called me and we decided to place an order to Dicraft for each of us to buy the book and some beautiful ribbon as well. I would love to win ribbon from her collection 🙂 She is such a beautiful designer and I am so grateful to have your website as well!!! As for the “question” my answer is Cranberry anything – do drinks count here? 🙂 Apple Cranberry cobbler if fantastic… Thanks for adding me to the list of potential winners Mary!
These ribbons look gorgeous.
I’m craving fresh sugar cookies! And hot chocolate
My all-time favorite Christmas treat is Italian strufoli. They are small dough balls cooked in oil until golden piled in a pyramid and covered with honey syrup. For added color, lots and lots of colored sprinkles. This is heaven on a plate.
My mother is originally from Germany. Every holiday season includes Lebkuchen. This is a spice, dried fruit cookie iced with a thin lemon glaze. The dough is quite stiff and I can’t imagine how my Oma mixed the dough by hand.
Happy Holidays!
My favorite Christmas treat is iced sugar cookies. I enjoy decorating them with my grandkids.
My favorite holiday treat is Cranberry Bliss Bars, they are just plain yummy!
May you have a Blessed and Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!
The one treat that means Christmas more than any other to me is Aunt Kay’s peanut butter balls. There are many richer, more elegant Christmas goodies but none that evoke the love our family has for these simple sweets that were her loving contribution every year. She has been gone now for a decade or so, but every year, as people arrive, wherever we are celebrating, they ask, “Are there any of Aunt Kay’s peanut butter balls left?”
I would have a cookie/pastry my late mom used to make, and I have continued the Christmas tradition for my own family. We call them“Nut Cups”, but it is also known by some as Pecan Tassies. However, we use pecans or walnuts! Also, they are very fussy to make, with several steps, and so we only make them at Christmas. But they are so, so good, and worth the effort!
That would be tangerines. When I was young, we always got a tangerine in our stocking on Christmas Day. They were not readily available so it was a extra special treat for us. Now they are more available and not as special, but the taste always brings back Christmas Day to me!
My favorite Christmas treat is Kristiana Kringle, iced almond puff pastry! Good for dessert or breakfast the next morning!
I also think a “frosted” sugar cookie is the perfect holiday treat!
That silk ribbon looks edible 🙂
I love silk ribbon as reflected in my email address adopted about 30 years ago as I was teaching silk ribbon embroidery at a local fabric shop. I have an earlier copy of Di’s book that I dearly love and have used extensively.
I love to make microwave peanut brittle from my dad’s recipe. He made it every Christmas season and since he’s gone, I’m continuing the tradition. That reminds me…I need to put peanuts on my shopping list.
Hello New to this blog. I have done some silk ribbon embroidery. It is very satisfying and works up quickly for small projects. The one Christmas treat I would take over all others is a tangerine. While growing up in the 60’s in PA, we ate a tangerine once a year when it was in our Christmas stocking on 12/25. To this day, though I eat tangerines more regularly, I cannot smell one without going straight back to childhood Christmas.
Cheers!
Waatlemoen
I enjoy eggnog mix the most. I never add any alcohol to it. I just love the mix. Yum. The taste of the season for me.
I love peppermint mocha creamer. It goes in coffee, hot chocolate, spiked hot cocoa….yum.
My treat is peanut brittle
I love working with silk ribbon as you get a good result very quickly.
The Christmas treat I would love to have is my Mother’s home cooked ham. It was baked in a scone dough for several hours in an old wood stove and the flavour was divine.
Ooh this is easy! I have been thinking of my husband’s family’s Italian iced biscotti recipe. We make them every year… delicious cake like “S” shaped hand rolled cookie with icing and sprinkles.
The treat I am most looking forward to is Nanaimo Squares. There are three layers – a chocolate/nut/graham wafter layer, a custard then a chocolate top layer. Delicious!
Gingerbread cookies are my favorite treat! I am thinking about making Christmas gingerbread men ornaments, too.
I am just getting started in ribbon embroidery. I have some ideas swirling around my head.
Pralines.
My favorite Christmas goodie is a homemade pizzelle made with vanilla or almond extract. It’s just the best with a hot cup of tea, coffee or hot chocolate. Yummy!! My parents Czechoslovakian neighbors made the best.
What wonderful give aways!! Woohoo!!
How do you pick just one? Ok, I have to give you two: my all-time favorite is peanut brittle you make in the microwave. A recently discovered favorite is Lemony Gingerbread Whoopie Pies from Taste of Home. Have a great Christmas!
Buttertarts!!! Love them. Can’t get enough of them.
What delicious ribbons! I adore all of the varieties of Christmas cookies. Rum balls, Russian Tea Cakes, decorated cut outs, peanut butter kisses, 7-layer cookies, jam thumbprints, pfeffernusse, Scandinavian cardamom cookies, chocolate crinkles…..
What a dream come true for needle artist to have what she needs to fully express with silk ribbon. Something It’s something that has made me joy filled to see you have it offered through your site for others to get.
Many blessings to you and your staff during the Holidays Dana
The treats I love most over the holidays are the German sugar cookies made with my Great-Great-Aunt Grace Sego’s recipe. Her addition of sour cream gives them unmatched tenderness so they almost melt in my mouth. I only make them over the holidays but send most of them to family members elsewhere. They are legendary in my family.
I love ice cream in the winter and at Christmas I especially love peppermint ice cream. Maybe with a little brownie on the side!
Triffle for pudding. Yes!!
The edible treat I’d eat all year if I could is pecans in maple syrup. You add a cup of pecans and half a cup of maple syrup and gently simmer them until the maple syrup crystallises on the pecans. Yummy.
My favorite holiday treats are special cookies my husband makes from his family’s recipe called “Rocks”. The first Christmas I spent with my future in-laws I was very leery of trying them because they DO look rock-like and are very heavy, but they are delicious and now my favorite cookie. They have chopped dates and pecans in them. He only makes them between Thanksgiving and New Year’s and they are often served with Brandy Alexanders.
The edible seasonal treat for me would have to be cherries…….it’s a Southern Hemisphere thing…..the glossy red orbs, the sweet tangy flavour……it’s just so much a part of the festive season in Australia . Oh and Mary what a gorgeous giveaway, I so love the reels they are wound on as well. I’ve researched silk embroidery before, but not attempted any so far.
The sweet treat that I only eat during the holidays is Triple Ginger Cookies. I make a double batch every year and one batch I only share with my daughter and my husband. The other batch I share with everyone.
If I had to pick only one edible treat that I normally enjoy only during the holiday season I would choose a Christmas Mince Pie!!
Here in Australia at Christmas we do enjoy a Christmas Mince Pie!!
I love silk ribbon. I’ve made several things. I live the colors, shine and textures! All the different stitches plus fun to do! I hope you pick me!! Keeping my fingers crossed! Teresa Cain
I look forward to eggnog drinks both virgin and spiked. I also love divinity. I use to make it when I was young but I burned up my mom’s mixer making it, so I was forbidden to make it again.now I buy it at Christmas now
I would want Mrs. Koy’s Hungarian Apricot or Nut Keflies. I try to make them as she taught me, but they just aren’t the same. I really miss her way of making this yummy Holiday cookie.
I would love to use silk in my embroidery. So beautiful.
Trifle
I would love to eat trifle this holiday season.
Apple pie! I’m just discovering ribbon embroidery!
Love de color combination! If a had to pick just one treat it will be the fruitcake
Cranberry sauce
I love making a variety of cheesecakes throughout the year but one special flavor is reserved for the holidays when eggnog is available…Cranberry Eggnog Cheesecake. Heavenly!
Beautiful colors! I would enjoy gazing at them while eating way too many fudgie bourbon balls—my favorite Christmas treat.
The food that I love is a honey baked ham. I love English Toffee also.
Everyone of your emails inspires me to continue my projects. Thank you so much for sharing your wonderful projects and tips.
Mums desert – Trifle
I still have the old Betty Crocker Cooky Cookbook that we used every Christmas. My FAVORITE was and is the Candy Cane looking cookie. Almond flavored butter cookie dough, half of the batter was colored sort of red.
My favorite holiday treat is my mother’s recipe Apricot Nut Bread!
My mum’s pavlova with plenty of cream and chocolate shavings on top.
I think Di’s ribbons are the best. Would love to win this giveaway.
I would definitely include my Christmas truffles. I am busy making a whole variety of truffles as Christmas gifts, which I always make myself for my family and friends.
I want a personal touch to share with them, and leave a small legacy after I die. Something they will always remember me by at every Christmas.
Aren’t those ribbons delicious! Fabulous colours. My favourite festive food is mince pies which are very popular here in the U.K.
I”ve drooled over Di’s book for years now! Hopefully… 🙂 I think I’d have to go for homemade pecan pie!!! Not much better than that!!
Homemade mince pies. Mixing all the dried fruit together and leaving to macerate, before tucking into pastry cases and popping into the oven and filling the kitchen with a festive smell. I can hardly wait for them to cool down before trying!!
Christmas pudding
What a tricky question!:) If you ask about treat, I would pick ginger bread, but if you ask “anything edible”, I would definitely prefer the Czech potato salad, which is for me THE Christmas dish. We make it also during the year, but it never tastes as good as it does at Christmas.
Well my preferred food would be Lindt chocolate balls
Eggnog
I love doing flowers with silk ribbons.
Oh what fabulous ribbon…. I can understand your excitement over them.
The one treat I loooove that is a Christmas only treat is fruit mince pies – I start buying them as soon as they are available, and keep buying them until they are sold out. I need to be careful and not buy too many, as I did one year and ended up eating them well (read months) into the New Year, and being well and truly ‘over’ them, and barely had any the following Christmas!
Blessings
Maxine
The one edible treat I would select is my grand ma’s potica, pronounced po-teetz-sa. It is a recipe she brought with her from Slovenia, and she would make it every Christmas. Potica is made with a sweet yeast bread dough. After it rises, it is rolled out very thin. Then it is topped with a mixture of brown sugar, honey, walnuts and butter and a few other goodies. It is then rolled up jelly roll style, and finally coiled to fit in a round pan before it was baked. We would eat it on Christmas morning at breakfast. All day long and after dinner we would eat slices of Potica until it was gone in a few short days. As I write this I can see all those wonderful memories of my Aunt, Uncle and Grand-Ma arriving at our door on Christmas Eve holding a large round tin with her home made Potica inside. That is the sweetest memory!
Christmas pudding (Fruit). UK
My favorite holiday treat is home made toffee.
Stollen (German sweet bread with candied fruit- not a fruit cake!) on Christmas morning and for as long as it lasts after. This is a family tradition.
For me it would have to be milk chocolate coated Brazil nuts.
They are becoming harder to find, but luckily our local post office/deli have supplies at Christmas!
Gingerbread is my favorite and brings back such memories. Every year my beloved Godmother would make gingerbread houses for each child.
Nothing is better at Christmas than recreating my mum’s Christmas pudding, custard and brandy butter.
Just one edible treat? Italian panettone, for sure!!! Thank you!!!!
This time each year my mouth is getting set to enjoy spritzkuchen, buttery cookies my mother used to make. With just a touch of almond extract, they are delightful whether dipped in chocolate or sprinkled with colored sugars, or dotted with red hots or, or, or. We used to make many dozen and they disappeared very quickly.
I’m looking forward to making these savory sweet goodies called “Esterettes” in my family at least. They are dates stuffed with a pecan half, wrapped in a thin flaky cheese pastry shell, sprinkled with a tiny bit of cayenne, and baked. They store well, as long as I can’t see them every time I walk by.
My favorite is peanut brittle. I guess I better get busy and make some.
My treat this time of year without a doubt is pecan pie! It is too rich for most days but the time between Thanksgiving and Christmas seem like the appropriate time for it.
The ribbons are lovely!
Barbie
Favorite treat is a special deep-fried cookie made by my grandmother, called Karafoy, Yum, yum, yum
Mincemeat pie.
If I had to pick only one edible treat that I normally enjoy during the holiday season, it would be my homemade shortbread. Yum!
The one treat I make only at Christmas is a German Coffee Cake. It’s a rich egg and sour cream batter with a brown sugar, cinnamon and walnut swirl throughout punctuated with maraschino cherries. All layered in an angel food cake pan. Yum!
Chex mix from the original recipe, you know with real butter!
I would pick fresh cranberries, only enjoyed at Christmas and Thanksgiving. Love them all the same.
The ribbons are glorious! My grandmother’s frosted ginger molasses cookies are my favorite Christmas treat.
Thank you for this lovely giveaway.
Branded Fruitcake!!!… I know fruitcake is the subject of many a joke, but I think it gets a bad rap!
One edible treat? That is a hard one. I guess I would say Christmas Cookies. They are something people enjoy making, giving, getting, eating and come in so many shapes, sizes and especially stories to share.
Carla, check out this site! Maybe they will have the blue ribbon you need to complete project. My favorite food at Christmas is to make our father’s sausage rolls on Christmas morning with homemade red pepper jelly.
The one treat that I can’t go without during the holiday season is my grandma’s cut out cookies. They may take a bit of time to make with cutting them out and decorating them but that first bite makes it all worth it. YUM
My homemade chocolate cheesecake!
I love those pastel butter mints that come out this time of year. The ribbons are all yummy in themselves…
With these lovely silk ribbons I would like to take up a new type of needlework in my old age. My favorite Christmas cookie is a recipe I found in the Boston Globe about 40 years ago called Shortbread Fingers, dipped in chocolate and nuts or sprinkles. I had to hide them from son, they were his favorite too. Merry Christmas to all!
My forte in the kitchen is making fudge & candies – it especially feels like the holidays once I get in there making. BUT the thing I anticipate the most & search for in the store is (several) boxes of White Fudge Covered Oreos! They’re the best ☺️
I love sweet potato cheesecake. I have a recipe from Galatoire’s restaurant in New Orleans and make it every year.
My favorite holiday “treat” is the spiced wine that can be found in the various holiday markets. It’s so nice to drink a glass of this hot wine outside in the chilly air.
Stollen
I love Dark Chocolate Peppermint Bark at Christmas time.
Love silk ribbon embroidery and these collections have an amazing variety of colors. Would be a joy to work with these!
Mmmmm, fudge. Luscious, delectable fudge!
My family looks forward to receiving a tin of peanut butter fudge this time of year; it’s a tradition with us. Lately, I’ve also branched out to other flavors, like decadent eggnog fudge. Yummmm.
I sure hope you took care of your hunger before reading these emails, Mary. Reading about everyone’s holiday indulgences surely wouldn’t help!
Warmest merry Christmas wishes to you and yours.
At this time of the year I love to indulge in delicious Christmas Mince pies and mouthwatering shortbread. Because it is so hot here in South Africa I will sip a refreshing ice tea out on my patio as I dream of my next embroidery project.
I have different treats every year but the one consistent treat, one that I truly love, is eggnog. I even used to make single servings of it after school from an old 1940’s cookbook that my mother had. Nowadays, I settle with good commercial eggnog, sometimes with a shot of brandy in it.
Light Christmas cake
I actually like fruit cake a lot but it’s impossibl to get outside the Christmas season.
Gongerbread – warm from the oven with serious whipped cream! Add a cup of tea and it just doesn’t get better than that!
Family favorite….Roll Mops! What’s that you ask…?? Sweet Lebanon bologna spread with cream cheese (though I like it with pineapple cream cheese) rolled up and cut in half, served as an appetizer.
White trash. It is a chocolate coated cereal? My friend makes for me.
First of all: thank you for all the great tutorials and information! I look forward to each and everyone.
It’s hard to say a favorite food but I really look forward to angel food candy. I always have to buy it when family is around, or I will eat the whole container myself.
Thank you again
So many of our families treats come to mind but the one I would and do miss the most is my mom’s shortbread, nobody could make them the same as her, I try every year- close but not quite.
My praline fudge. It’s not strictly a holiday treat but I save making it for the holidays to give as a gift and to enjoy myself.
Needles, ribbons and my two unfinished pictures…
fruitcake — from the dime store of my childhood — mostly spicy cake, but with a smattering of candied fruits. When I think of Christmas, that frugal fruitcake comes to mind.
Hands down my edible treat would be my mother’s Russian tea cake cookies. During the Christmas season Mama was the “Queen of Cookies.” She made about a dozen varieties, which she stored in Christmas tins lined with wax paper. The tins were kept on top of her sewing machine cabinet close to the back door. It was easy to sneak a cookies as you headed out the door. I miss Mama but I have her handwritten recipe card and each year I make the Russian tea cake cookies. It brings back wonderful memories of childhood holidays. SusieQ
Every Christmas for the past45 years, I have made my mum’s Plum Pudding recipe – the type boiled in a calico cloth. As a child, it was my job to clean the raisins and sultanas of ‘stray’ stalks. Being one of seven children, we all had a hand in it. It was boiled in a ‘washing’ copper in the backyard, with my brothers keeping the fire stoked. After hours of boiling, we’d hang it up to dry and it always amazed me how quickly the calico cloth seemed to ‘dry’. The unveiling on Christmas Day was always a much anticipated moment – did water get in – never.
The pudding has always been served with homemade egg custard, vanilla ice-cream and sherry trifle. Delicious!
Mum loved Christmas and embraced the true spirit of the season, inviting anyone from our neighbourhood for Christmas lunch, if she knew they were going to spend it alone.
Merry Christmas to you and yours,
Kathy
In Puerto Rico, holiday season is distinguished with delicious treats and Tembleque is my favorite. It’s very simple but tasty, we make it with coconut milk, coconut cream, cornstarch, sugar and vanilla. Happy Holidays!
I love peppermint bark this time of year. It never tastes as good any other time, but at Christmas, it is wonderful!!! Thank you for giving us this opportunity to enjoy Di’s lovely silk ribbon.
If I had to choose one treat that I enjoy during the holiday I would have to say Holly Cookies. They are not only festive but they have so many memories of Christmas’s past. Growing up as a child at home, to making them with my children to watching my children make them with my grandchildren. Such wonderful times!
This sounds silly, but I often think about candy corn at Christmas time. It was usually on sale after Thanksgiving, so I would stock up knowing that I wouldn’t see it in stores for another year. Candy corn always makes me think of Advent.
Wanting to get back to ribbon embroidery after many years away from it. As a diabetic my snacks will be keto but cheesecake is always a favorite. To make it festive, top with a cranberry compote.
I’d love to win these lovely ribbons. Maybe I’ll get lucky. I enjoy you blog and videos Mary. You have wonderfully interesting things to say and share. Blessings, Rhonda
My Mom’s fruitcake… I remember the fruit, cheesecloth, and brandy… I try to find one that resembles it every year during the Holidays but so far, nothing tastes like hers did.
My grandma made cookies we called Scruffles – a yeast dough cookie rolled like mini-croissants bursting with cinnamon. Last year I taught my nephews how to form them so they can help me make them. (Something I wished I would have been able to do with my grandma, I figured out how to make them from the recipe she left with her notes.)
I would pick carrot cake. I love it!
One edible treat? Maybe mince pies, since they hit all the nice boozy, fruity, spicy notes I love around Christmas.
Hi Mary!
My edible treat would be my homemade spritz cookies. Delicious!
Thanks for the chance to win!
I have a needlepoint group, who meet weekly at our local needlepoint shop. Every Christmas / Hannakah we have a luncheon at a member’s house. One member makes a homemade, mouth-watering chocolate sauce. You can pour it on ice cream, etc., but I spoon it straight from the jar. She always uses these cute jars and decorates them with different ribbons and cute labels. My mouth starts watering as I drive to the luncheon! So good!!!!!!!!!!!
Hi Mary. This time of year, I like to make Bon-bons, which are hershey kisses wrapped in an almond or pecan dough. My family also does a cookie swap at Thanksgiving, so I love getting varieties of cookies that I don’t make. I try to make them last, but sometimes that doesn’t work out!
Christmas day drinking made from scratch eggnog. eggs + heavy cream + whiskey rested, blended, dusted with eggnog. laughing with family in a cozy room. ahhh… a little bit of heaven
Even though I don’t overly enjoy apple pie my dad really did. So every Thanksgiving and Christmas we would have several apple pies for dessert. The smell of them baking and just the taste of the fresh baked apples reminds me of him and the “old days”.
If I could choose one edible treat it would be the jelly oranges and lemons which you can get in the UK at Christmas. They remind me of childhood Christmases’ with my grandparents. At 40 I realise now how special those Christmas times were and would do anything to have my grandparents back for just one day. Long answer to a question about food……..oopsy!!
Jay’s Sweet and Smoky Snack Mix – makes 6 qts (Paula Deen’s Holiday Baking 2010)
Hi, Mary,
What a fun question!
My edible treat would be gingerbread men.
Thanks for running this giveaway.
Beth
The treat we always have during the holidays is spiced apple cider with molasses cookies. The smells fill the house with all of the holiday feels! It wouldn’t be Christmas without them.
Definitely egg nog with lots of nutmeg
My mom’s/grandmother’s Christstollen, with the marzipan and powdered sugar. I can almost smell it baking…
The silk ribbons all look incredible, as does the new book. Di’s work is so fabulous.
If I could only chose one favorite item to have during the holiday season it would have to be my homemade Eggnog. We always served it on New Year’s Day when we had friends over to enjoy all the football games. Definitely not the healthiest item but oh so delicious.
There are large peppermint sticks that are only around at Christmas. We break them up and put them in a nice dish and enjoy during the season!
I would pick chocolate peppermint bark as my one favorite holiday treats. I loved candy canes as a child; now I crush peppermint candies and sprinkle them over a melted dark chocolate base on a jelly roll pan.
My dear mother would make Spritz cookies ONLY during Christmas time. They are pure butter cookies and she used an old (I believe it was my grandmother’s) cookie press. My mother was born in 1912 and passed away in 2003 but her Christmas cookies live on in our memories and at Christmastime.
My one go-to holiday treat is Banana Cake served after Christmas Eve dinner of Shrimp Etouffe. It is breakfast for Christmas Day, too. Sooooo yummy!
Memories…….my father would alway request these soft chocolate homemade cookies with this wonderful chocolate frosting. The cookies do not last long but you can see that everyone was enjoying every crumb. You don’t see these wonderful chocolate frosted cookies these days. I have often wondered why. I still have the recipe and have taught my children how to bake these cookies intertwined with stories of Grandpa.
Thanks for an opportunity to win such a generous gift
The one thing I always eat is “Mrs Allen’s pumpkin bread ” I have hD this almost every year since I was 6.
When I moved away I took the recipe with me and made it for my family and now that they are grown they make it for their families.
By the way Mrs Allen was a neighbor of mine
For me, it is Christmas Spritz!! As far back as I can remember, my Mom would make them tinted green with tiny rainbow colored candy non-pareils!! She would make a double batch which would disappear almost immediately!! They would almost melt in your mouth with their buttery goodness! Thanks for letting me share this memory!!
Linda in NC
Madeleines
Oh, that’s an easy one. My mom makes her own chocolates (I did too for a long time but have taken a break) and they are incredible. Especially the truffles. Nobody in our family could live without those chocolates!
I just don’t eat much sugar anymore, but……fond memories of my mother’s divinity!! Considering she lived in Texas, she always had to decide whether it was too humid to make it that day…..ah, divinity!
I love short bread cookies and fruit cake with hot chocolate drink. I’m just new in ribbon embroidery and tried to perfect my first rose bud and a full bloom rose in a stem…
I love Christmas cookies, the frosted kind. I have dough in the freezer right now waiting to be baked and decorated!
My favorite Christmas treat is a pomegranate. Growing up in New York in the ‘50s, these were called “Chinese apples”, I have not the vaguest idea why. I still look forward to one at Christmas.
I would prefer to have chocolate covered toffee!
Homemade fudge
Chocolate covered toffee!
Panettone, an Italian sweet bread sprinkled with candied fruit, evokes images of living with my Nona Angelica. I broke my hand mixer trying to create panettone years ago…now it’s available everywhere, and made with chocolate chips. I’ll stick with the original. Thank you for asking
Fruitcake
My favorite Christmas treat has always been my mother’s cut out sugar cookies with buttercream icing❤️❤️❤️
The one edible treat I love during the holiday season is eggnog with a sprinkle of nutmeg….yummmmmm….truly the taste of the season for me.
I bake cookies only at Christmas because I LOVE to eat them way too much. I always make several batches of chocolate chip/oatmeal/nut cookies from my Mom’s recipe. I’ve made it so many times over the years I can just about make them without pulling out the recipe card, but I use it anyway to be sure I don’t make a mistake, at least for the first batch. Yum.
It will have to be Christmas Pudding
Oh, I would absolutely hands-down pick my Great Aunt’s roast beef, mashed potatoes and gravy. They were absolutely legendary and cannot be duplicated by any other person. Oh, how I miss her!
My favorite edible item would be pure, plain chocolate fudge, no nuts, nothing else –
JUST CHOCOLATE !!!
Drinkable – Eggnog.
Pasttime on Christmas day – woek on Di’s piece with the white horse. I love and about all of her work.
These hand-dyed silk ribbons will turn embroidered flowers into a masterpiece!❤️ I love marshmallows and “Three Chocolates” mousse cake.
My very favorite Christmas treat is Orange Slice Cake! It’s a fruitcake with only orange slices, dates, and nuts. Delicious for days!
Soft, luscious, creamy, homemade Caramels are my pick. My mouth is watering just thinking about them. Plans to start them next week, may have to be altered to a sooner date.
Eggnog
This is an easy question for me to answer. There’s a caramel-pecan-chocolate creation called a Sweet Georgia Brown made by Purdy’s Chocolates in Canada. It’s similar to a “Turtle” candy. If I was restricted to one type of treat during the holiday (which I would hate), that’s the one I’d choose.
This is a lovely give-away, very generous of Di and very generous of you to arrange it. Merry Christmas.
these are sure pretty silk ribbons.
My mother found a recipe in the 60’s for Nugget (pronounced New-get) Shortbread cookies from the Denver paper for holiday cookie with a hard icing in white and then holiday decorated icing applied once the white was dry. these are my favorite especially since they have mini chocolate chips in it.
A large, delicious slice of carrot cake with plenty of nuts and lots of icing.
I would love to have my mother’s coconut cake. Sadly, she’s been gone 18 years now, but I would really love to have that again! It was just wonderful!
Kentucky Bourbon Balls–dark chocolate over a bourbon scented filling with a pecan on top! Yum!
I would have to chose as my favourite treat at this time of year a dark fruit cake. Even as a little girl (and that’s many years ago) I would help my Mom each year make them. To this day I make her recipe each year and it always signifies to me the beginning of the holiday season. And as I am making the Christmas cakes, I have all the happy memories of doing so with Mom.
Hi Mary,
What a lovely giveaway! The treat that I look forward to at Christmas time is panetone. I love it lightly toasted with butter!
Joan
Oh! If I could only have one edible treat that I usually have during the Christmas season, it would be my Mother’s fruitcake. I know, I know; all the fruitcake jokes! But hers really is good. Really! And since she is now 90….
Chocoladepepernoten! (Little chocolate covered gingerbread balls)
The one food we only eat at Christmas season is fruitcake. Most people turn up their noses at such an item, as I used to do also. But when I tasted my mother-in-law’s fruitcake 50+ years ago, I completely changed my mind. However, I will only eat her recipe and when I make it now, my husband and I think warm memories of her.
Wow, what a giveaway! Thank you. I think Cream Cheese bars like my aunt makes would be so yummy about now. I haven’t had any of those in a long time.
A sizeable portion of an alcohol soaked christmas pudding with a brandy laced thick, cold cream. Finishes off a christmas meal perfectly.
I could not do without Plum Pudding . I love making them, watching them dry while hanging up and that unique smell. I also love the pudding warm with cream and sugar or cold with butter. Nothing says Christmas ⛄ like a Christmas pudding. Merry Christmas
Egg Nog, which is drinkable vs edible but my absolute favorite Holiday treat!
I could tell you a secret about eggnog – which is a huge favorite in my family, too. It freezes well. And there is nothing quite like breaking out a frozen quart of eggnog on the 4th of July. Let it thaw in the fridge until it’s pourable but still a little icy, and … wow! So yummy! I know it seems weird to drink it in summer, but it works. It needs to be a good quality eggnog to work really well.
I love divinity! Especially my mom’s version; unfortunately, she’s no longer with us so I have to try to make it myself. Somehow, it’s just not the same without her magic touch.
A dessert that I always make and enjoy only at Christmas time is pecan praline cheesecake. My son-in-law declares that it is a food straight from heaven!
Growing up, it wasn’t a holiday meal without mandarin orange slices in an orange gelatin mold! It’s silly, because it’s so simple you could make it anytime, but Thanksgiving and Christmas were the only days it came out. Maybe I should change that!
Thanks for gifting such pretty presents (and running such a helpful website!)
Gingerbread cookies! My favs!!
My mother was a great baker and every November she would start baking several different traditional German cookies. They were stored in a cool dry place until the 1st Advent Sunday, when she took out a selection and arranged them on a plate. On that Sunday, and the next three Sundays that preceded Christmas Eve, we were allowed one cookie from each type along with hot chocolate (or coffee when we got older). Christmas music and candle light completed the picture. It was a time for the family to get together and slow down after a hectic week and made us feel cozy and protected. My mother has since passed away and the torch was handed to me (being the only girl in the family). Every year I get out the list of cookies along with the recipes my mother had and bake the same selection as she did. My kids experienced the Advent Sunday coffee hour as well and though they are grown now and out in the world, I pack a tin of cookies for them and send them in the post to wherever they happen to be. The tradition continues. Frohe Weihnachten!
Oooooh, that is soooo nice! Thanks for telling us your story, Karin! That’s a lovely tradition!
I love fruitcake, always have. My current favorite (if I’m not making my own version) is from Seawolf Bakery in Seattle Washington
Thanks for asking—it’s definitely FROZEN chocolate covered Key Lime pie on a stick!! To be sure, this is a treasure of the Conch Republic & is a major contributor to their GDP. Luckily, a tiny gift shop in Tequesta imports these delicacies & every year my friend & I get them for our birthdays in January. YUM!!
Oh yum! I have never in my life heard of them. It does sound good! I love key lime pie – but it’s admittedly usually a summer dessert here.
I love roasted chestnuts and I don’t see them at any other time but the Christmas season. So that would be my pick.
In Kansas, chestnuts are in season in October. There’s a chestnut orchard not too far from where I live, where we can go pick on picking days. They’re picked off the ground, not from the trees – and gosh, they can be painful to handle! You have to wear sturdy boots and good work gloves, or you’ll be well and truly splintered! This year, the crop was sparse due to drought, but we were able to get several pounds. We have to steam them or roast them, then vacuum pack them and freeze them if we want them around for Christmas. Otherwise, they get dried out by the time Christmas rolls around and they aren’t any good. It’s funny how everyone knows the song about chestnuts (roasting on the open fire), but so few people have ever really enjoyed them! Definitely memorable little morsels!
My stepmother’s chocolate cake with peppermint frosting. Superb!
What beautiful colors! I have founded such incredible stitching, fibers and art in your emails!
Fruit mince pies! Always a favourite, & preferably home made. These were a feature of every Christmas since I was a child.
It would definitely be my late brother’s mince pies.
I just got done reading your article about the silk ribbon. What a visual treat! I would love to be a winner.
My favorite treat at Christmas is cookies. Christmas cookies. The more the better. My absolute favorite cookie is sand tarts. My grandmother could roll them so thin they were almost transparent.
Many blessings to you on this holiday season. Thank you for the many lessons and patterns throughout 2022. Let’s hope 2023 is a bit better all round!
Happy Holidays, Tammy
Rich Christmas cake with marzipan icing ! You don’t need to eat much but soo good
Chris from Oz
My mother-in-law made a fried Christmas cookie she called “poor boys”. It’s a Polish cookie that is also called Angel Wings by others. After her passing my husband who is 75 years old still makes these cookies for our children and grandchildren every year.
I’d choose my mother’s peanut butter chocolate cookies. They were rich and delicious and she made them for me every year. Sigh. Good memories. ❤️
Homemade chocolate fudge!
sugar cookies!!
Thank you <3
My favourite treat would be my mom’s lemon shortbread with a cup of Earl Grey tea, a perfect pairing on a winter’s day to peruse NeedleNThread!
My mom calls them tootsie rolls. They are made with our crust, sugar and cinnamon all filled up and baked. Then she slices them. My moms been making them since I was a kid. They are delicious with a glass of milk.
Scotcheroos Because they are so yummy. I never grew up with these. Discovered them on a cookie tray as an adult. Truly, delayed satisfaction. Friend April
I love my mother’s Date Nut Shortbread cookies – they’re very thin and tender, not crumbly like some shortbread can be.
I always make a batch of peppernuts (pfeffernusse) for Christmas. And because the batch is so large, I am able to share with co-workers and friends. Many of whom have never tasted the crunchy little peppery cookies! They are amazed to find actually pepper goes into the recipe. Merry Christmas to you all!
One – I have to keep it to one!? It would be a cookie we make only around the holidays, that was my mother’s recipe for “Melting Moments” – a delightful light cookie made with cornstarch and flour, frosted with an glaze with almond extract. THAT was difficult… because there are SO MANY Christmas cookies we love, crave and anticipate!!
Fudge.
My Mom’s Shortbread. Real Scottish Shortbread. Can’t eat this stuff anywhere needle work is happening though!!
Its hard to chose but I think my favorite would be nuthorn cookies. This is a recipe that came from my mother and that she used to make for Christmas.
I love Christmas yule log and lots of silk ribbon colours
Tough question… so many choices, but the winner definitely has to be Crème Brûlée 🙂
I would definitely pick my candy cane gluten free cookie recipe. I do so love them and when my best friend who is no longer with us told me that they were the best cookies she’d ever tasted, they became my favorite, not only for the yum factor but for the memories.
I would most certainly choose my Mother’s Nut Bread Roll. She has made this rich cinnamon and nut-filled roll for all my life. My Grandmother, who was from Czechoslovakia, made the same recipe my Mom uses. I never knew my Grandmother as she died two months before I was born, so as silly as it may seem, this lovely treat helps me to know just a little bit about her and that she enjoyed cooking for her family just as my Mom and I do also. I think I’d better head to the kitchen…..
If I could have only one edible treat during the holidays, I would choose a “drinkable” treat, eggnog.
Stollen with marzipan is my favourite!
Thanks Mary, love drooling over all the gorgeous ribbons, such beautiful colours
Hmmm, that’s a hard one, but to expand the horizons of those who’ve never had one, I’ll put a Peppermint Jo-Jo from Trader Joe’s. They only have them at Christmas and they’re a real treat!
I love Mince pies, especially homemade!! So glad to have come across your site. I love doing ribbon embroidery but can’t get the ribbon here where I live.
Hi Mary,
My favorite holiday treat is my Mother’s Cucidadas (Italian cookie). Oh, such wonderful memories I have of making them with her.
Thanks for this great give-away!!
Sandie
Short bread cookies as I only make them fir Christmas.
Chocolate peppermint bark – chocolate on the bottom, white chocolate in the middle, crushed candy canes on top. Only at Christmas because once the tin is open I can’t eat just one!
At this time of the year my family enjoys Biscochitos or fruit and mince meat empanaditas. Christmas in New Mexico is filled with Recipes, Traditions and Folklore for the Holiday Season. Merry Christmas!
Definitely Boston cream fudge!! Made with farm fresh heavy cream and hours of hand beating. Even my brothers had to participate in the beating if they wanted to enjoy the fudge. Yum!
Rosettes-sugary, crispy and delicate-a Norwegian traditional sweet
Gingerbread!!! Mmmmmm
Egg nog & Norwegian fried rosette cookies, though I have the shaped cast irons for making rabbits & decorative eggs for Easter time too. Reindeer & snowflakes & tree shapes form childhood memories. Wouldn’t it be a treat to be making silk ribbon confections this month! Christine
my favorite Christmas food is homemade fudge
My favorite holiday food would be my Grandma’s refrigerator cookies. I have her recipe and make them but Grandma’s taste better, at least in my memory.
I love turtle cheesecake that I like to make for Christmas dinner.
If picking only one treat, it would have to be my mom’s shortbread. It melts in your mouth!
Christmas crack. It is so easy to make so I’m not sure why I only make it at Christmas.
Oh, YUM! I love the stuff, but I’m trying VERY hard to stay away from sugar these days!
I’d pick gingerbread cookies!
I think cookies of any kind remind me of Christmas. Preferably cutouts of different shapes and decorated with sprinkles.
My seasonal treat is rum balls! I fell in love with them as a little girl; my grandmother always had some in the big cookie box that was set out for Christmas lunch. Of course, as a child, I didn’t quite understand that there was *actual* rum in the rum balls, and I got a bit tipsy on them one year until my grandmother figured out what was going on and cut me off.
My grandmother is in assisted living these days, and no longer makes rum balls, but every few years, I’ll make some for myself to eat sparingly!
I’m really enjoying the responses – lists and lists of fabulous bakery treats! For me, the holiday edible that heralds the winter season is a Lithuania Torte from the Lithuanian Bakery in Omaha Ne. Amazing layers of apricot! There’s simply NOTHING else like it and I’ve had one shipped to my family for the past 30 some years. Thank you for offering us these beautiful ribbons!
My Chocolate covered cream balls. I make various candy every Christmas and no other time of year . These melt in your mouth and just say “HAPPY HOLIDAYS”
I wish I could eat right now my ant’s caramelized walnuts with dates. Delicious!!
My favorite holiday only food is actually a beverage, egg nog. I love the rich creaminess with a sprinkle of nutmeg. It smells as wonderful as it tastes.
My pick would be Sausage Balls. I only make them for Christmas morning breakfast, a tradition we started when my son was 3 and continue to this day. He turned 48 this past August. The only other time I made them that wasn’t for Christmas breakfast was for my parent’s 50th Wedding Anniversary party. I made 500 then and hope never to make that many at one time again!
Dear Mary:
So many yummy Christmas treats to choose from, but one food I only have at Christmas is candied carrots. They go so nicely with the turkey, cranberry sauce, stuffing, etc.
Thank you for your kindness in offering lovely things to your readers, and to Di van Niekerk for her generosity as well.
Take care.
Holiday treat – I used to love christmas butter cookies. I was bitten by a tick and can no longer have any mammal products. I don’t know what my new (dairy-free) holiday treat will be.
The Dream Bundle in my favorite.
During this holiday I like to have my once-a-year prime rib roast .. I don’t eat much meat ordinarily but treat myself to this once a year (to the chef’s horror, I like it well done) with lots of horseradish.
My Mom made chocolate cookie that we called Candy Cookies, and they are a must have every Christmas. I don’t make them very often because I can’t leave them alone, but I make them every year for our family celebration.
Thank you for all the pleasure your site brings me all year long, Mary and Merry Christmas!
Ghirardelli peppermint/chocolate mints
Holidays and baking go together like butter and bread (my great-grandfather was apprenticed as a baker in Alsace-Lorraine), so I have MANY favorite holiday treats (baking at our house starts before Thanksgiving!). The one that has to top them all, I think, is Dresden stollen (WAAAAYYYY better than any fruitcake you ever had, I promise)! I love a slice lightly toasted, still warm, with butter. I’ve been keto for a year and a half now, but that would be worth a one-time cheat!
My edible treat would have to be Gingerbread men made from my Grandmother’s Swedish recipe. I inherited her vast collection of cookie cutters and love the little men best of all. A yummy treat that bring back sweet memories of time in the kitchen with her. Thank you for turning me on to Di’s website. I have ordered from her in the past as was not disappointed!
If I had to limit myself to one that only, it would be iced sugar cookies. They take some time to make what with rolling and cutting the dough into shapes but I think they’re delicious.
Jacquelyn
I love little sticky toffee puddings, made with cranberries, with Devonshire cream. These are much easier to make than a steamed pudding and everyone gets their own little pudding. A perfect dessert after turkey dinner.
My mother’s shortbread cookies garnished with red and green candied cherries, delicious and bringing back memories of Christmases past/
Gingerbread!
Ultimate winter treat: French toast made with Panettone. Because it’s available only during the winter. And OMG, the calories and fat! Still: YES, please! No maple syrup needed. Extra credit for grated-on fresh orange zest And maybe a topping of chopped toasted pecans. Because calories don’t count during the winter! LOL
I would always enjoy traditional fruitcake during the holiday season.
If you had to pick only one edible treat that you normally enjoy only during the holiday season, what would you pick?
I make shortbread using an Irish recipe and imported Irish butter (I live in Australia) only at Christmas as a special treat. It’s delicious (and addictive) so luckily Christmas is only once a year!
What beautiful ribbons. Could look and drool over them all day Mango, I would give up chocolate for mangoes and trifle. Look for to them every Christmas.
I always look forward to my mom’s potato salad and sweet potato casserole. But if I had to choose one thing it would be her vanilla fudge!
I would nibble, eat, relish, enjoy stollen that I made. I grew up with my Mother making something from her childhood. It has to be homemade; store bought just isn’t right
One edible treat? That’s a tricky one but I’ll go with leftover mashed potatoes and leftover mashed turnip (also called rutabaga; the large purple root vegetable with the orangey-yellow flesh. Often waxed to keep longer), fried up together to a golden brown and served with leftover turkey and gravy. It is the best!! Make lots of mashed potatoes and turnip, to be sure to have leftovers for Boxing Day. Happy holidays everyone!
If I had to pick one treat it would be my Mom’s homemade cream cheese filled pumpkin role. She is an amazing cook and it was hard to pick just one!! Love you Mom!
My grandmother’s Nut Balls, often known as Mexican Wedding cookies. My absolute favorite cookie with it’s double coating of powdered sugar!!
When I remember Christmas, it is mostly fruit cake I remember, liberally exchanged among households in Kerala while visiting in December. I particularly like the kind that has chopped dates in it. There is something about encountering the date skins’ slightly crunchy sweetness in the middle of sponge-like cake that is absolutely bewitching!
I just love, love, love your blog. I am an occasional embroiderer (?) and can never hope to reach your level of mastery, but a person can dream! So dear Mary, thank you for sharing this content.
Wishing you a very merry Christmas and a happy new year in advance from a little village in Kerala, India.
I would love some traditional Christmas fruit cake like my late Aunty Rosa used to make. I will just have to make my own using her recipe.
Thank you for this great opportunity to win beautiful ribbons.
For the holidays it has to be Eggnog!!
The treat I most crave is the fudge we used to make when I was in middle school and high school. Mother had a jelly roll pan that had a design in the bottom; we accidently used that pan one year, and really loved the design it gave the top of her fudge. I insisted on using that pan every year after that. All I can remember was that it had no marshmallow cream in it.
If I had to pick just one edible treat that I normally enjoy during the holiday season, I would choose my Great Aunt Beulah’s fresh coconut cake. Aunt Beulah used fresh coconut to bake her cake, and the cake almost melted in my mouth. Yum!
Only ONE holiday treat? A bit harsh only getting to choose one! After giving it some thought (and with a nod to my Grandmother’s insanely good scalloped potatoes) I have to go with the Rum Stollen that we have on Christmas morning… have always had on Christmas morning… and will always have on every Christmas morning the future brings us. That is the one food absolutely welded to our family celebration: Sitting by the tree, carols on the stereo, flannel jammies, fireplace, coffee or tea, Rum Stollen and togetherness.
Oh, Christmas Pudding without a doubt!! And memories of childhood, looking for the sixpence!
I’ve been experimenting with ribbon embroidery for the past couple of years, and am amazed by the variety of effects it’s possible to achieve. I would LOVE to play with some of that gorgeous hand-dyed ribbon!
I’ve been experimenting with ribbon embroidery for the past couple of years, and am amazed by the variety of effects it’s possible to achieve. I would LOVE to play with some of that gorgeous hand-dyed ribbon!
If I had to pick one holiday treat, it would probably be my partner’s daughter’s trifle. It’s deceptively light, and sinfully rich!
I would pick Turtles chocolates as my favorite treat.
Love the gorgeous silk ribbons and would love to win some! My favorite holiday treat is a Starbuck’s Peppermint Mocha with whipped cream!
A traditional delicacy in this country- arroz doce (literally- sweet rice). mmmmm
My grandmother’s Christmas sugar cookies! The only gift on our wedding registry that wasn’t purchased for us was a rolling pin, so I just ordered us one so I can attempt to make them myself this year.
I’m a decorated sugar cookie addict at Christmas. Love them, but only allow them at Christmas.
Pumpkin Creme Cheese Cake Roll
I miss my grandmother’s mince meat pie with real meat. I make it every year with nonesuch mincemeat but it is not quite like my memory of her homemade mincemeat. However I don’t have the recipe and it is close.
My pick would be Divinity.
Oooh! Both of these gifts are stunning! Thank you so much Mary and Di for giving us an opportunity to win one of these!
The edible treat I would pick would be Butter Tart Bars. Every year whether we have lots of goodies or only a few, we always try to make sure that we have them for Christmas Day.
Merry Christmas!
Oooh, Di van Niekerk’s silk ribbon/embroidery/books are luscious!
I would pick homemade Pizzelles, a waffle cookie if anyone is unfamiliar. I grew up with anise flavored pizzelles, but you can make any flavor you want (vanilla, chocolate, lemon, etc). It’s not like they’re “the best tasting” thing in the world, but they’re nostalgic and traditional where I grew up and I usually only have them when I go back for Christmas.
Ribbon Candy!
Ooohhh. Yummy shortbread, specifically the cornstarch shortbread. Melts in your mouth delicious.
My favorite thing to eat is frosted sugar cookies with sprinkles
Hot Cocoa with a Kick, which I make with cocoa, chocolate chips, almond milk, and a heaping serving of red chile powder, garnished with a candy cane.
Gingerbread cake for me!
I have 2 traditional items I make – chocolate fudge and spritz cookies. Obviously, each has its own flavor, but if I have to pick one – it would be my fudge because occasionally I will make spritz at other times of the year, but not often! Fudge I only make during the holidays.
I would have to be mince pies!
Christmas would just not be Christmas without Christmas cake as long as it has a good layer of marzipan.
Elma’s Rocky road and Fudge. Can’t have just 1 – can you?
My favorite treat at Christmas is my special gingerbread men and ladies that I made for school Christmas pageant bake sales. I would bake dozens and they sold out very quickly as they were a favorite. They were a perfect blend of Christmas spice and molasses but what made them special was the royal icing piping of details along with the mix of candy placed for eyes, buttons and other little details. Bite off the head and there was gingerbread with sugary Skittles, another part would be gingerbread with a chocolaty mix of Smartie and most interesting was a bite of gingerbread with a licorice Goodie in it. The spicy gingerbread with the sweet icing and the mix of candy bites was a fun treat before the show.
If I had to pick only one edible treat that I normally enjoy only during the holiday season, I would pick my grandma’s popcorn balls! Popcorn has always been my favorite snack but just the memory of making them and using left overs to make ornaments for the tree with her makes the treat so much more meaningful.
Many treats from years gone by. I would love to have some of my Dad’s divinity that never got stiff. Always runny in a pan and we laughed every year as we used a spoon. Oh how I miss him but enjoy the great memories.
The treat I would pick for the x-mas season would be butter tarts. They are wonderful.. Have a lovely holiday season. NF
Must have eggnog!!
These colors are luscious! In the sunset bundle of silk ribbon, what are the ribbons wound on? It looks like wooden clothes pegs! Could it be? Looking forward to mincemeat pie as my stitching companion! LOL
Popovers! They go with the roast beef
I love all kinds of homemade cookies! I eat them with abandon and pure enjoyment during the Christmas season!
Crispy roast potatoes. I’m now nightshades free diet wise so I can’t have them rough!
Hi Mary,
My favorite of all the favorite goodies I make for Christmas is Maple Walnut Fudge. The rest of the year I buy it — I buy a chunk at our local farm stand and eat it all up in the car on the way home!
June
My favorite holiday treat is called a Napoleon. Three layers: bottom chocolate and coconut cookie base, second layer is a custard cream cheese and on top chocolate.
homemade rhosky cookies
peanut butter kiss cookies are not safe in a room with me.
Thank you all for the give-aways this year. Since we live in the Southern Hemisphere, the best food at this time of year is salad – the garden is producing the first lettuces and salad mix and rocket, so salads with the first tomatoes are the best. One of my favourites is sliced tomatoes with slices of mozzarella and fresh basil leaves, all with a light dressing and some fresh olives. Yum.
My own homemade marshmallows! I used to spend hours inventing new flavors (Mexican chocolate, all the citruses, coconut, gingerbread…) to give as gifts and take to toast at the bonfire at my big NYE friend gathering, but life has moved on and it just doesn’t make sense to do it anymore even if I could find the time. But sometimes I do miss them.
I would choose mince pies! I only have them at Christmas time, but they are so good I would love them year round.
Belgian Lukken waffle cookies!!!! For sure! Baked one at a time on a cast iron lukken izer til they are paper thin and crisp! “Waffle cookies” were the only cookie we ever had at Christmas and we only had them at Christmas! So of course they are THE holiday treat.
They bring back vivid memories of my Grandma filling a whole porcelain tub with dough! Us kids helping roll out dough in skinny lengths. And days and days of baking them one at a time and making stacks and stacks of a dozen cookies in each stack. We had to “wait til Christmas” to eat any…. unless of course you helped make them!
Bacon-wrapped stuffed dates would be my choice of treat. I could eat them whenever, but they’re fussy to make so I save them for the holidays. Hmm, I have dates, goat cheese and bacon. Excuse me while I go wrap up a batch!
Oh dear! Picking out just one special food from the Holiday foods list is hard! I think I’d have to choose my Mom’s Homemade Cranberry Sherbet. It’s not hard to make, and doesn’t have lots of ingredients, but does have multiple steps so take fair amount of time and takes up a good bit of space in the freezer – so it doesn’t happen every year! Now that I’m thinking about it – my bet is that it will stick in my mind and just might have to ‘happen’ this Christmas. Thanks Mary! (I think . . .?!)
My Dad’s oyster stew, a tradition from his Dutch mother. After my Dad passed away, my Mom stopped making it, but I still make it on Christmas even if I’m the only one eating it.
Mary, Thank you for all the wonderful blogs and lovely give-aways.
Charlotte Russe cake. Not sure why it is called a cake. In a large bowl lined with lady fingers, a very light barvarian creme custard and decorated with with fruit. At our house it was either strawberries or cherries.
A special fruit salad that I make that is only for the holidays.
Every year I make homemade cinnamon buns for my family to have Christmas morning. They are somewhat laborious to make but worth every minute and we all love the beautiful swirls of cinnamon, currants and walnuts that run throughout the bun.
Eggnog. But not just any eggnog. My dad used to make nonalcoholic Tom & Jerry’s for all of us kids at Christmastime – from scratch! (And this was someone who we’d all joke about not being able to do much in the kitchen beyond boiling water the rest of the year!) Anyway, when I take the time to follow his recipe and make this hot toddy for my family & friends, the aroma and texture bring back heartwarming memories of all the laughter and joy of having my father home for the week between Christmas and New Year’s Day.
Thank you for reminding me of the delights & memories evoked by our senses. It’s been a tough couple of years being separated from family & friends during holidays and celebrations.
The treat most enjoy this time of year that I don’t eat at other times, is the vanilla krentzia cookies from my husband’s grandma’s recipe.
What a luscious group of silk ribbons, would love to win!
Divinity! It’s as wonderful as these lovely ribbons would be under my Christmas tree!!!
My choice for food I only eat at Christmas is fruit cake. I grew up eating one my mother made each year. The first year I was married I found a recipe for fruit cake in The NY Times Sunday magazine and I have been making that recipe each year since which is now over fifty Christmases. It is full of nuts and fruit and is yummy.
My Mother’s pecan pie. I really need to try harder to find that recipe!
Baklava. Yummy with nuts and honey. Lovely silk ribbons.
The treat that I never have any other time of the year is homemade egg nog. One sip, and I am relaxed and happy and in the holiday mood!
My favorite thing to buy / eat is Fruitcake & Eggnog… I realize it is not for everyone, but for me, you can’t have Christmas without Fruitcake & Egnog.
My favorite candy is English Toffee. As a child we used to gather around in the kitchen while mom, under dads close watch, cooked it. I cannot make it during the year cuz I would make myself sick eating it. I can only make it to share!
My favorite treat would be my bourbon balls. I only make them at Christmas time. I do share though. Everyone loves them!
The edible treat that I only have over the winter holiday is brandy butter. It is a holiday tradition for me due to the memories of it as a child in Engkan.
To me holiday treats are like a bowl full of memories, each treat has its own sweetness. For my birthday one year, my mother made a chocolate cake with peppermint ice cream as layers and frosting. My mother put it outside, think 2°F, as there was not enough room in the freezer. The cake could not be cut, knives were heated with candles, boasts were made, talk of acetalyne torches, and yet despite the humility and ingenuity of all of those who tried to cut said cake, it just sat there dented, but uncut. About a glass or two of eggnog later (to me an eternity,) there was only a slighty soggy mess that was the best cake ever. I still have a chocolate birthday cake on Christmas Eve, I think this year it will need a layer of peppermint ice cream, with extra napkins for the memories.
The first Christmas after my husband and I married many years ago we attended a party hosted by college friends and neighbors. One of the dishes they served was a cheese log consisting of cream cheese, blue cheese, and various seasonings wrapped in chopped pecans and parsley. I liked it so much I asked if our friends would share the recipe. Cheese logs have since become part of our every Christmas celebration.
My favorite treat that I get only at Christmas when my sister makes them is a bar I grew up calling Montreal Slices and have recently learned is called Nanaimo Bars in Canada. They are a graham cracker/butter/cocoa base, topped with a vanilla pudding/confectioner’s sugar icing, and finished with a baker’s chocolate and butter glaze. Yummy!
My favourite edible treat at this time of the year would be English Sherry Trifle. It brings back so many memories of Christmas past. Layered with jelly or jello, jam roll soaked in Sherry, mixed fruit, custard and topped with whipped cream…my mother always made a beautiful one..I can see my parents and family sat around the dinner table with paper hats on our heads eating the trifle and listening to the Queen’s speech..so trifle is my choice..
Definitely fruit mince pies! Those took me a while to figure out when I first moved to a Christmas-celebrating country, but once I got past the initial shock (some people just call them mince pies – big surprise first time I discovered what they really are!), now can’t imagine Christmas without them!
I enjoy cookies made with my children. Most are my Mom’s recipes. Everything from choc chips, potato chips or Italian cookies. They make us all think Christmas.
Hi Mary,
It’s got to be Italian meatball cookies, just like my grandmother used to make. Thanks for the giveaway.
Snowball cookies. These little gems are finely ground pecans blended into shortbread batter and rolled into balls. Bake. A few minutes after being removed from the oven they are rolled in powdered sugar, then…as they begin to cool off and some of the butter is oozing into the powdered sugar…you roll them in the sugar again. Then…eat, smile, repeat! Merry Christmas
meringue kiss cookies
So very colorful! I can think of so many ways to use the ribbons!
To be able to taste my grandmother’s Divinity again.
My MIL’s rum balls…they pack a punch! She’s been gone many years but I still make them for my grown children. ❤️
What edible treat only seen at Christmas time? I think for me it would have to be Divinity with pecans. It I my all around favorite Christmas candy.
I would love to eat my mom’s pralines. Actually I would love to eat anything she made.
A favorite holiday recipe of mine is Orange Dream Pie taken from an old Pilsbury Baking Contest booklet. It is difficult and time-consuming to make but oh is it scrumptious !!!
Mama’s Divinity
Coconut cake
My favorite treats at Christmas were the cookies my German grandmother made- especially the springerle and zimsterne (embossed anise cookies and cinnamon stars). I think maybe this year I’ll try my hand at making some!
Zimsterne are one of my Christmas favorites, too! I’ve never had homemade – just the tiny box you can find now and then around the holidays in specialty stores. I haven’t been able to find them for a few years. I love the consistency and that thin layer of crisp frosting. They’re such pretty little cookies to have available when friends and family drop in!
Spritz cookies !!! Mom had the best recipes for vanilla, chocolate, and vanilla/chocolate spritz cookies.She’d use different tips for the cookie press so there was a variety of shapes and sizes. They all went into a giant glass cookie jar with a silver lid. Nothing is better than a cup of tea and a handful of bite-size spritz cookies. My sister and I still use her recipes every holiday season only now its our grandchildren grabbing the cookies by the handful.
Love your embroidery! You are always and in many ways an inspiration!! My favorite holiday food is Fudge chocolate Fudge. Only make it during Christmas! Thank you !!
Cranberry Turtle Bars, Gourmet, November 2001
(Plus all of my Grandmother’s Scandinavian cookie recipes.)
Dear Mary,
Your new shop looks fantastic!
My favour treat, eaten once a year on Christmas Eve, as a prelude to the big feast on Christmas Day…….. is nicely chilled chicken liver pate with green peppercorns on thinly sliced and lightly toasted crispy sourdough bread. Yum!
Thank you.
Louisa
rum and raisin dark chocolate bar, specially one made by Darrell Lea in Australia
I am a textile junkie. These ribbons are stunning! I have just eaten my way through a tin of sugar cookies that were meant for the holidays. Time to bake more!
My favorite Christmas treat is handmade carmels that my neighbor makes only during the holiday. It’s an old fashioned treat and we all look forward to her sharing them with our family!
My favorite holiday treat is a cookie I love to make because they are really good & easy to make…Mexican wedding cakes. This is a rich butter cookie with either chopped walnuts or pecans. The dough is rolled into 1” balls & baked. As they come out of the oven & off the baking sheet, they are immediately rolled in powdered sugar & set on waxed paper to cool. Then I roll them in powdered sugar a second time & place each one in a tiny Xmas muffin cup made specifically for candy (and as it turns out, Mexican wedding cakes!).
Eggnog!
I would choose egg nog. I love eggnog and am frustrated that it is not available year round!
Did you know you can freeze eggnog? 🙂
My favorite Christmas treat would be my dear mother’s homemade New York cheesecake with cherry topping….yum…just remembering my anticipation at the holidays!…Thanks for this opportunity!….Happy Holidays!❤️
My favorite has to be Pumpkin Roll with Cream Cheese Filling! It’s delicious & looks so pretty arranged on a platter.
The ribbons are beautiful, thanks for sharing them with the lucky winners! ❤️
Such lovely ribbons ❤️. My favorite Christmas treat is a cranberry recipe that I learned from my grandmother. Cranberries & apples & pecans (ground up in the food processor ) stirred into a package of orange jello with a cup of sugar. Yum. Merry Christmas Mary.
What a very wonderful array of beautiful silk ribbons. I miss and look forward to buying some marzipan butter stollen which I find in a local supermarket each Christmas, delicious. Merry Christmas.
If I only had one treat to eat during the Christmas holiday I would pick shortbread cookies made by my friend Lauri.
Just one is very tough! I guess I would say sausage cheese balls.
I’m 77 years old, and I was an only child – born on my mother’s 40th birthday. So given my age and my mother’s age, I’m a bit old fashioned when I get nostalgic. Anyway, when company would drop by during the holidays, Mother would serve fruitcake and eggnog. The eggnog was homemade, so it’s a wonder we didn’t all die from salmonella! (Or maybe chickens didn’t have it back then.). Now I’m reduced to store-bought fruitcake (unless someone gives me some homemade) and eggnog, but it’s still good and brings back that feeling.
I would pick June’s Fudge,
Old fashioned fudge recipe from my mom’s friend June.
Hi Mary,
I wasn’t hungry until I read that you were hungry! Luckily it is meal time here in VA so I can eat with no guilt LOL.
If I had to pick one edible I only get at Christmas it would be Eggnog. I love the stuff and remember my grandmother making it from scratch and serving it to me with a big dollop of home made whipped cream on top in special crystal cups used only for that purpose and only at Christmas. I drank mine but also used a spoon to get a little whipped cream and a little liquid in each bite till the cream was gone. Glorious!
It’s hard to choose just one, but I’d have to say mince pie – MY mince pie! I only use Borden’s condensed mince meat (with my homemade crust) but have found it difficult to find in the past few years. I tried making my own mince meat but it wasn’t too good. The jar of Borden’s mince meat (ready to pour) has too much vinegar in it. It has to be the condensed version – or nothing!
Thanks for all you do all year long!
I should say my one edible treat is “ribbon candy”, but actually it is red velvet cake. Trying to avoid sugar as much as possible and this is my favorite, sugary, decadent cake. So a few small cupcakes at Christmas are just right. Of course, there is always cheese cake. But there are too many to choose from.
What beautiful ribbons! If I could only pick one edible Christmassy treat, it would be the foil-wrapped chocolates which hang on the Christmas tree. There’s something about taking one off the tree on Christmas day, and the crinkle of the foil, which is just so irresistably nostalgic.
My favourite treat at Christmas would be my homemade Christmas cake
Thank you very much for running this give away!
My favourite Christmas treat is homemade gingerbread houses! I’ve hosted a number of gatherings where I bake and other people bring their kids to make the houses. Gingerbread is great already, but it always tastes best when it comes with another year of happy memories!
Hi Mary,
I too have a cookie as the edible treat I look forward to during the holidays that my mother would make. Thumbprint cookie’s coated with finely chopped walnuts or pecans. Then topped with a dollop of apricot, peach , or strawberry jam or candied red or green cherries for Christmas time.
I would love to have a big cinnamon roll topped with chopped pecans . It needs to be served warm with a hot tea or coffee . So yummy in my tummy.
I love pecan pie but I only make it at Thanksgiving time
Hand dipped milk chocolates.
Irish fruit cske
I know that I am too late for the drawing, but it is never too late to thank you for all of the lively designs, colors and embroidery information that you provide. I love your in-depth histories and descriptions of old and new threads and designs.
Also, I have been thinking of dates filled with hard sauce and a walnut. That is what my mother made every Christmas. She also made a lovely plum pudding served with hard sauce and hot lemon sauce!
On that note, Merry Christmas and Happiest of New Years!
Ann Haverkamp