Where are you Christmas?

Although, we have many reasons to celebrate and be in the Christmas spirit, Husby and I are just not in the mood. This has been a wonderful year for us with the blessing of our son, but we have also had a lot of sad/difficult moments as well. I think the recent is also a combination of daily life stress, holiday stress of traveling with B and all the craziness we will be experiencing while on vacation (when we were sortof looking forward to a low-key, quiet family Christmas with our parents). I think we will need a vacation to recover from our "vacation". Since we are leaving before Christmas and not returning to our house until after New Year's, we have decided to not decorate this year. I am really sad, as Christmas is one of my favorite holidays and without the decorations, it just does not feel like Christmas. My birthday is next week and I am honestly feeling like it is just another day (I always heard after 25 birthdays are just birthdays, but I guess I never believed it). I am looking forward to spending time with my boys and it being a quiet evening, nothing dramatic...don't even need a gift, but if a gift is given please let it be something like a charm necklace representing B (like his birthstone or something along those lines).

Our Christmas wishlists are all centered on home improvements and B. I asked for some more Mommy books to read, some toys and books for me to read to B, and professional photos of B. I think Husby has only requested more tools and gift cards to HD and Lowe's for the home projects.

However, I love all the Christmas specially-themed treats. If you know me, you know I cannot pass up Chick-fil-A's Chcolate Peppermint Milkshake. Well today, I saw this...


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Peppermint Patty Frappe Recipe from Southern Living

Prep Time: 10 minutes
Yield: Makes 3 cups

Ingredients

• 2  cups  vanilla ice cream
• 1  cup  milk
• 9  miniature or 3 (1.4-oz.) chocolate-covered peppermint patties, chopped

Preparation

Process ice cream, milk, and chopped peppermint patties in a blender until smooth.
Grown-up Frappés: Decrease milk to 2/3 cup. Add 1/3 cup crème de cacao.

and to go with the Frappe...

Milk Chocolate-Peppermint Bark again from Southern Living

Total: 6 hours, 25 minutes
Yield: Makes 2 3/4 lb.

Ingredients

• 1  teaspoon  butter
• 3  (11.5-oz.) packages milk chocolate morsels
• 12  cream-and-mint-filled chocolate sandwich cookies, broken into pieces
• 1  cup  small pretzel sticks
• 1 1/4  cups  coarsely chopped soft peppermint candies, divided

Preparation

Line 1 (15- x 10-inch) jelly-roll pan with parchment paper; grease with butter. Microwave milk chocolate morsels in a large bowl at HIGH 1 to 2 minutes or until melted and smooth, stirring at 45-second intervals. Gently stir in cookie pieces, pretzel sticks, and 3/4 cup coarsely chopped candies. Spread in prepared pan. Sprinkle with 1/2 cup coarsely chopped candies. Let stand until firm (about 6 hours). Break or cut into pieces. Store in a cool place up to 3 days.


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I think I need to go get some ingredients and make these to get us in the holiday spirit.