Play dough is a great holiday activity, you can make custom colors depending on the holiday and use different tools as well. I got this play-dough recipe from a cook off I had a few months back, it was one of the very best and keeps forever in the fridge in a sealed bag. [more]

I was speaking with a friend recently about party-planning, and she confessed to me that she hates cooking. It stresses her out, and makes her feel incompetent and flustered. I'm the exact opposite: Cooking actually relaxes and de-stresses me. When I'm in the kitchen, mixing and pouring, or kneading dough, with the smells from the different ingredients rising up around me and my T. helping in her own messy ways, I feel a sense of peace and calm. [more]

One tradition T. and I started two years ago (a tradition which, thankfully, has not fallen by the wayside yet) is to make our own paper snowflakes the weekend we decorate the tree. The first year we did these, they were simple paper ones, and I used a hole punch to attach the string at the top. We hung them from the tree, from the kitchen ceiling lamp, from the dining room chandelier--we had white paper snowflakes everywhere. This year we got more ambitious and decorated them with silver and gold glitter. [more]