Holiday Fun Archives - Creative Jubilee

Merry Christmas!

By Christina Lee| December 25th, 2020|Holiday Fun, In the Kitchen|

It’s been a tough year and this Christmas will be unlike any others. Many people won’t be able to travel or spend Christmas with their family. Many people have lost loved ones or are hurting. I, along with my immediate family, am one of the lucky ones who has good health, a stable job and a warm roof over my head. In today’s times, that’s all that matters.

While this will be the first year that I won’t be able to spend Christmas with my extended family, I am more than happy and humble to be afforded the opportunity to share Christmas with my mom and my sister. I invited them over for a small, intimate gathering at my place. It will be the first time I host Christmas. Because things are very different this year, we focused on making this cozy and warm — and at the center of all of this is gratitude.

To get into the holiday spirit, we made hot chocolate and gingerbread cookies. This time I decided to make the icing. I usually get store-bought icing along with sprinkles and an assortment of little candies to decorate cookies, but I couldn’t pass up the idea of homemade icing — especially since it only took three ingredients to make. Plus, I also secretly enjoy playing with food coloring. Mom, Susanna and I each sat down at the table decorating light bulbs and only light bulbs this year since Mom lost all of the Christmas cookie cutters. Sticky fingers and crumbs on our faces, we managed to decorate a tray full of cookies!

As the Christmas music played in the background and the living fireplace warmed up the room, I rolled up my sleeves and put on my chef’s hat. On the menu is vegetable pasta with summer squash, red and yellow peppers, onions, sun-dried tomatoes, and capers, and cheesy spinach-stuffed pork chops. With the banging of pots and pans, I was able to plate the pork chops with pasta and sit around the dinner table together. We raised our glasses and toasted to family, health and a better year ahead.

It wouldn’t be Christmas without presents. Cooper was most eager to open his last day on the Advent Calendar, this time with Grandma and Auntie Susanna. With a hearty treat in his mouth, he was already onto the next, sniffing out his Christmas gifts under the tree. He was eager to get a new set of tennis balls since tend to lose them by the handful. I watched Mom and Susanna open their gifts and tore a few open myself.

Despite this hellish year, we are so lucky to have each other. From our family to yours, Merry Christmas.

Spreading Holiday Cheer

By Christina Lee| December 10th, 2020|Crocheting, DIY Home, Handmade, Holiday Fun, Humbling Hobbies and Habits, Oh My Crafts!, Yarn Addict|

Are you making your gifts, buying your gifts, or do a little bit of both? I guess it’s a little late in the season to be asking you about your holiday gift-giving game plan, but it’s still fun to ask and hear about it. This year, I did a combination of both: making some gifts and buying others. Throughout the year, I went through a number of phases: making coffee cozies, trying my hand at new hobbies (ie: punch needle embroidery and marker drawing) and continuing to build row upon row of my knitted and crocheted blankets. Along the way, I made new friends after starting a new job the previous year and spent time checking up on old friends throughout this hard-hit year. If you haven’t already checked up on someone, it’s a good time to pick up the phone, write an email, send a card or mail a care package. All the while, I decided to dust off my crochet needles and put some finishing touches on my coffee cozies. I love making custom cozies that pair with a plain porcelain cup — especially for the holidays — since most of us are bundled up and ready for a tall cup of hot cocoa. There’s nothing more heartwarming than happiness in a mug.

For once, I ended up getting most of my holiday cards and Christmas gifts out by early to mid-December. Everything was wrapped, stuffed, packaged, sealed and stamped — all ready for my trip to the post office before the holiday rush. Some careful planning on my end helped make a handful of these gifts extra special. The best part about sending these gifts and spreading holiday cheer are the happy faces and photos of their Christmas cheer.

Hot Cocoa in my Cooper cup

By Christina Lee| December 1st, 2020|Creative Inspiration, DIY Home, Holiday Fun, Humbling Hobbies and Habits, In the Kitchen, Oh My Crafts!|

With Thanksgiving out of the way, it’s officially Christmas season every single day of this month. Christmas music on KOIT 96.5, living fireplace (with the Christmas tree), warm scones and hot cocoa in my official Cooper cup.

Earlier this year, Cooper and I decided to make these photo cups as gifts to the family in honor of his tenth birthday. Each mug has a photo of Cooper as a puppy and a more recent one throughout the year, paired with a family photo. Of course the red and green ones have a special holiday family photo with Cooper. It’s especially difficult to get Cooper to look at the camera if we are all in the photo, but sometimes the photographer just has that magic touch. Regardless, I love that we have Cooper cups for every season, but the Christmas ones just seem more magical.

Well, now that I have my hot cocoa in my Cooper cup in hand, it’s onto holiday cards.

Happy Thanksgiving!

By Christina Lee| November 26th, 2020|Holiday Fun, Humbling Hobbies and Habits, In the Kitchen|

If you’ve got loved ones, a roof over your head, and food in your stomach, you’ve got more than many people around you. With the unforeseen circumstances of the Covid-19 pandemic and the unsettling increase case count, this Thanksgiving will not be like any others. Friends, family and loved ones may or may not be able to pull up a chair at the dinner table, and thus, it’s so much more important to find meaningful ways to stay connected with the people you care about most. Inspired by safety and health precautions, I spent this year’s Thanksgiving with my Mom and sister.

While we missed out on our usual 30lb turkey and my Dad’s famous sticky rice stuffing, we did make it up with cornish game hen and sides of brussel sprouts, sweet potatoes and candied yams. And because no meal would be complete without dessert, we (over-) indulged in an apple and persimmon crumble along with pumpkin pies from Petaluma Pie Company (worth the extra trip!).

Today was all about being thankful for good health and being able to spend time with family. I am ever so grateful for these blessings and having my loved ones humbly share this holiday with me. Staying safe for a better tomorrow.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Oh Christmas Tree, Oh Christmas Tree

By Christina Lee| December 25th, 2019|Holiday Fun, Humbling Hobbies and Habits, In the Kitchen|

If there’s anything that can steal the spotlight from Santa and his reindeers, it’s the Christmas tree that lights up the living room, warms up the house and acts as the backdrop to any and all family photos — including this one. Standing tall and decorated, there isn’t anything that’s going to push this Douglas Fir aside, except maybe a tree that can look just as tall and decorated but also fills the belly.

This year, there’s going to be a new tree in town. It’s made of cocoa and it’s about to be glazed and dressed in confetti and sprinkles. It’s got its own set of elves working on holiday time and a table full of decorating pros. Accompanying it will be an army of butter cookie bliss frosted in red and green fitted outfits.

It’s even got it’s own north star that rivals that of the Douglas Fir’s. But we can’t skip to dessert without whetting our appetite with some hors d’oeuvre. I’m afraid that this tree is going to have to stay in its own swim lane and wait for the dessert calling in a few hours.

I dug up an old recipe that I made years ago and I thought this would be the perfect time and place to assemble it in none other than a Christmas tree mold. It takes a little bit of prep you can do the night before, but it’s essentially mixing cream cheese, smoked salmon, garlic, capers and lemon together to create the base. After letting the flavors marinade for a few hours and even a day, then you can mold it into a Christmas tree and dress it up with cilantro, toasted pecans and your favorite chip. It’s plentiful and rich with flavor, and it makes a good centerpiece on the table.

Now here’s a bit of trivia: At the end of the day, which tree came down the fastest? The salmon tree, the chocolate tree or the Douglas Fir?

From our family to yours, Merry Christmas!!

Happy Thanksgiving!

By Christina Lee| November 28th, 2019|Holiday Fun, In the Kitchen|

It’s no doubt that we spend a significant amount of time slaving away in the kitchen to prepare a fanciful Thanksgiving meal. Many of us spend ample time coming up with new ideas (or stealing them off of Pinterest), shopping for ingredients, doing the all-intensive prep work and then cooking the night away. Part of the reason we put so much effort and love into our ingredients is because we are proud, humble and grateful for being able to spend it with friends, family and loved ones. Throughout the year, it may be difficult to carve out time to spend with family. It’s easy to check up on them using email or social media, and give yourself a nod that they are doing well. That’s the easy way out and I am guilty of it. While Thanksgiving shouldn’t be an excuse, it is a way for us to come together as a family, focus on each other and sit around the dinner table to enjoy turkey and good company. For that, I am thankful for having my family near and in good health.

As head of the household and big brother to his family, my Dad takes on the big turkey which means the oven is occupied for most of the day so I have to do most of my cooking at home before going to my parents’ house. Along with others, I am a side dish kind of gal and traditionally, I make the candied pecan yams and the brussel sprouts while others bring potato salad, green beans, sticky rice and dumplings (we’re Chinese, so Asian fusion). And of course, my two cousins make the BEST desserts: pumpkin pie, pecan pie and apple pie. You, of course, need a bite of each to really put yourself in a food coma.

Aside from the feast, my sister and I like to come up with something fun and creative. This year, we decided to add in some acorn accents to accompany the baked turkey and the chocolate turkeys. We made one kind of candied acorn with Nilla Wafers and the other was acorns made of donut holes and pretzels. I’m not sure if more of the contents went into our bellies than on the table, but we did manage to get a good handful on each plate. Both were colorful, festive and fun, and brightened up the dinner table — although the red table cloth already did a good job of that!

As our guest arrived, the table got full. Standing around the table with our hands held, we bowed our heads, said a prayer and gave thanks for each other and this feast. From our family to yours, Happy Thanksgiving!!

OK, now dig in!

Pumpkin Decorating at the Office

By Christina Lee| October 31st, 2019|Holiday Fun|

When someone at the office sends you a meeting request and blocks off your calendar to decorate pumpkins, you decorate pumpkins! I can’t remember the last time I decorated pumpkins with my co-workers. I’m usually sitting at a table full of kids half my age ready to jump in whenever they need me to, so I’m glad I was able to pick out my own pumpkin and have some fun. I came prepared to roll up my sleeves, put in some arm muscle and get my hands dirty, but there was a better idea out on the table.

In front of us was a spread of animal face stickies, colored feathers and polka dots, creepy spiders and more. It was a tough decision between the red fox, the unicorn and the funny faces, but I had to go with the raccoon and his striped plushy tail. It was a fun way to take a break from the office, meet new faces and get into the Halloween spirit.

And if fluffy, cute unicorn faces weren’t enough to get you motivated, there were also pumpkin cupcakes, s’mores rice crispy treats and brownies.

Happy Halloween!

A Christmas Cookie Classic

By Christina Lee| December 23rd, 2018|Holiday Fun, In the Kitchen, Learning from the best|

One of the many Christmas traditions I look forward to is making these jam thumbprint cookies. Inspired by Barefoot Contessa, these rich, buttery cookies have become a Christmas cookie classic in the Lee household and it’s almost expected that I make batches of these cookies for close friends and family. The toasted coconut, the sweet smell of jam and the buttery goodness fill the entire kitchen and it almost feels as if you’ve inhaled 3000 calories when you haven’t even taken a bite or licked the spoon. But who’s counting calories? Seriously. It’s the holidays and you’ve earned every bite to the very last crumb.

This year, I seem to have lost count on how many batches of cookies I made. When I’m in the kitchen, it’s serious business. I’ve got the assembly down to a T: there’s the mixing of the dry and wet ingredients, the resting window, the balling of the dough, the dipping of the dough into the egg wash, the slathering of the coconut, the insertion of the thumb and the best part, the spooning of the flavored jams. It’s at least a four to six hour kitchen marathon and I don’t actually stop until I’ve filled the cookie boxes or tins. If you look at the size of the boxes, you can tell I went large, so I must have made at least a gazillion cookies. But in the end, it’s worth it because these jam thumbprints are in high demand.

Well, I’m ready to pack these up while I munch on the “broken” cookies. Merry Christmas!!

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