Tis the Season to gather with those you love, and sing in this Holiday Season. From Nat King Cole to Bing Crosby to Mariah Carey, popular entertainers have added a new spin to every Christmas favorite. Start the evening off right by throwing on your favorite holiday CD, or break out your tattered piano tunes, regardless, make some holiday music during this festive weekend!
My suggestion: start with Joy to the World!
One week from tonight our house, and possibly yours, will be filled with loved family and friends. Best prep? Start baking! As true as these recipes were 4 years ago, they will prove equal to this year’s holiday crew. Make them with love and you will all be very merry indeed! With love, from my kitchen to yours, happy eating! xxoo
The Joy of Cooking is the hands-down best all-time cookbook to look through for all your traditional Holiday cookie recipes. Since it’s 
general publication in the 1930’s serious chefs, along side of everyday housewives, have all relied on its advice. Since the first edition, there have been several incarnations of this cookbook, but the following quoted advice and cookie recipes come from the 1975 publication.
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As we come upon the third anniversary of the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre, I find it unfathomable that America is still in a stalled response. In my most right-wing-NRA-toting nightmare I would never have believed that December 14, 2012 would not have been enough for Americans to demand the changes needed to halt our present school shooting epidemic.
As of 2013 there have been approximately 162 school shootings in America. School shootings. Yes, I am only discussing shootings in schools. The place where children go to learn about rivers and stars and algebra and Huck Finn. Where they and their friends eat mac and cheese in a noisy cafeteria, and still stick gum under their desks while being asked to imagine making the world a better place. Where they are encouraged to dream and explore and fail. Yes, dream and explore and even fail because it takes all three to learn sometimes. But as of late, schools are also a place where we are, “frightening our young people by planning for intentional acts of harm,” (Schlozman). A place where we practice lock-downs. Schools are now targets.
Nine Cent Girl 