Merry Christmas!

May the sweet joys from the Babe of Bethlehem fill your home this day.

Merry Christmas!

The Stockings Were Hung

This weekend I finished up my last Christmas order!

For this order I made a variety of stockings with different Christmas symbols stitched on the front. I really enjoyed this project. The stockings in the pics still need to be ironed and the toes need to be fluffed a little, but you can get the general idea.

I hope you are finding your own stockings hung with care today!

Shh... a secret recipe!

Each Christmas brings the arrival of these delicious darlings on the porches of neighbors and friends. We have to deliver them or I would eat them all - every. single. last. one.

I have been asked for our secret family recipe over and over through the years, so I thought I would share it here in the Hollow! It is so incredibly easy, you will giggle.

Harvest Moon Hollow Peanut Clusters

2 12 oz. bags semi-sweet chocolate chips
2 12 oz. bags milk chocolate chips
2 12 oz bags white chocolate chips
2 cans cocktail peanuts (more or less depending on your affinity for nuttiness)

Melt the chocolate together, stirring constantly. Turn off the heat. Stir in the peanuts. Drop by spoonful onto wax paper or tin foil. Refrigerate until hard.

That's it! I told you it was easy, peasy, lemon squeezy as my children like to say. These little devils are best kept in the refrigerator until ready to devour. They also freeze wonderfully well. The recipe can easily be reduced or increased without effecting the results. We have been known to make batches with six bags of each - with peanut clusters dripping from every surface in our home.

My children start their Christmas break in two hours - I am so excited to have them home and to have the festivities really begin. I hope your weekend will be just as delightful!

**image from www.tasteofhome.com**

12 Days of Christmas Kindness

Our family is participating in the above Christmas challenge this year!
Click here to read more specifics.

The idea is to do at least one random act of kindness each day until Christmas, to help us remember what is really important. Each member of our family is going to write our kindness down each day and put them in a special place. On Christmas Eve we will share our acts of kindness with each other before reading from Luke.

Feel free to join us in the challenge!

Merry Christmas!

Merry Bidding!

Harvest Moon Hollow is now on ebay!

We've set up our first listing and are hoping to have an ebay store before too long.

Different items will be available at our ebay and Etsy locations.

Please check out our first listing by clicking here.

Merry Bidding!

Final Christmas Quilt of the Season!

My four snowmen have become...

this little beauty!

I really love how this one turned out, the pics just don't do it justice.

This last quilt is now up in the shop!

There was a question as to where the snowmen came from. Harvest Moon Hollow holds the copyright to these cuties, if you are interested in a pattern, just send an email my way.

I sent off my final mitten quilt today and I am one tired lady. But there is still a long line of custom orders to attend to, so I guess the resting will come after Christmas. However, right this very second I am going to go put some chili in the crockpot and a little cornbread in the oven!

Have a wonderful afternoon!

Christmas Favorite

I'd thought I'd share another Christmas favorite with you today! We love Pandora radio, especially at Christmas time. For those of you not familiar with Pandora, the founder explains it this way -

On January 6, 2000 a group of musicians and music-loving technologists came together with the idea of creating the most comprehensive analysis of music ever.

Together we set out to capture the essence of music at the most fundamental level. We ended up assembling literally hundreds of musical attributes or "genes" into a very large Music Genome. Taken together these genes capture the unique and magical musical identity of a song - everything from melody, harmony and rhythm, to instrumentation, orchestration, arrangement, lyrics, and of course the rich world of singing and vocal harmony. It's not about what a band looks like, or what genre they supposedly belong to, or about who buys their records - it's about what each individual song sounds like.

Since we started back in 2000, we've carefully listened to the songs of tens of thousands of different artists - ranging from popular to obscure - and analyzed the musical qualities of each song one attribute at a time. This work continues each and every day as we endeavor to include all the great new stuff coming out of studios, clubs and garages around the world.

It has been quite an adventure, you could say a little crazy - but now that we've created this extraordinary collection of music analysis, we think we can help be your guide as you explore your favorite parts of the music universe.

We hope you enjoy the journey.

What I enjoy about Pandora is the ability to type in a favorite song and then have an entire station created just around my favorite song. Inevitability I end up with a station I love. I have created countless stations from Appalachian Strings to Celtic Folk, depending on the mood I happen to be in.

Now, to the Christmas part! Our favorite Pandora stations that we have created for Christmas are The Nutcracker and Harry Connick Jr. Holiday. Whether we are feeling contemplative in front of our glittering Christmas tree, or are ready to bop around the kitchen making our favorite Christmas cookies, Pandora always seems to have just the music we are looking for.

If you've never tried Pandora out, give it a whirl at www.pandora.com. And the best part is? It's all free!

***There seems to have been some curiosity over what our miracle was. After years of prayers we were able to secure the funding for a surgical procedure I will be undergoing in January. We are very, very thankful.***

Merry December!

I hope each and everyone of you had a marvelous Thanksgiving. Our little family experienced an honest to goodness miracle over the Thanksgiving weekend, and we are standing 'in wondering awe' at the mercies of a loving Heavenly Father. I hope your Thanksgiving was just as wonderful.

December is here at last!

We just love Christmas here in the Hollow! What could be better then a season filled with magic and delight?

Let's kick of the season with one of our favorite holiday recipes!

We LOVE Miss Paula Deen's Corn Chowder.

You can find the recipe here.

I only put 1/2 a stick of butter in at the end. It is plenty rich without the full stick of butter. This recipe is especially good with sour dough bread bowls from Panera Bread. My son looks forward to this recipe all year long, it's that good.

Merry December!