Homemade Christmas

This year my family decided that the gifts we would give for Christmas will be homemade.  Starting in Sept.  I made fleece throws for my niece's two children. Her daughter who is nine is really into zebra fabric.  I was lucky to find the fleece with that pattern.  Her eleven year old brother is into black so I used a leopard print for his throw.  The idea was given to me by my dear cousin who, for my birthday back in August, made one for me using this darling fleece covered with kitty faces. Then in December my daughter and I made throws for her aunt and uncle in Arizona using Southwest themed fabric. Thiswas a fun project requiring no sewing and was  great to sit in front of the TV to do.

In my November blog I showed you the purse I had made for my niece. I also made one for my daughter, but I can't show it until after Christmas. This is kind of fun to taunt her with it since she reads my blog also. 

But then there were the guys.  For my niece's husband  I made my first batch of jalapeno jelly.  He is a Texan in the true since of "It's got to burn you eyes, nose, and throat to be hot enough".  In the last year, he discovered jalapeno jelly.  So I gave it a whirl.  It looks real pretty with its orange red color.  I had my daughter taste it as she had sampled the store bought jelly he liked. She said it was hotter than what he had tried before so it should pass muster for any Texan. 

Finally made the last Christmas gift this morning--more jelly.  I always make jelly for my father-in-law. This year I tried using a black cherry/grape juice.  It didn't gel.  I went on-line and looked up what to do and redid the whole batch.  It still didn't gel.  This morning I decided to call that batch "pancake syrup", went to the store and bought cranberry juice (which I had used before), and made his jelly a third time.  Looks like this one will turn out.

This has been a great experience in taking the commercialization out of the holidays and return to a simpler way of giving. Guess I better start thinking up ideas for next Christmas as waiting until Sept. was almost too late.