Coping With Holiday Stress and Baby Jesus Cake – HBHW Newsletter

December 23 2009

Editorial

Merry Christmas!

I hope you and your family have a wonderful Christmas. I’d also like to thank you for being a HBHW subscriber. This website and the newsletter wouldn’t be possible without the wonderful community of frugal minded women (and a few men) who always generously share their tips, advice and recipes. Enjoy the next few days. I know I will 🙂

I don’t know about you, but I still have quite a few things left to do. There is some last minute grocery shopping that has to be done later today, a few more presents that are waiting to be wrapped and of course there’s some cooking and baking to be done tomorrow and Christmas day. With all that going on it’s easy to lose sight of what’s really important. Today’s featured article will help you copy with this holiday stress and focus on the important things – spending quality time with loved ones and enjoying this miraculous time.

One of our favorite ways to help our daughter pass the time those last few days before Santa makes his big appearance is to sing Christmas carols. Here are a few of our favorites. Enjoy!

Christmas Songs (pdf)

Valerie Neal surprised me last week with a neat little gift. It’s instructions on how to make a birthday cake for Baby Jesus. What a neat idea. I’m planning on making a cake with my daughter tomorrow.

Baby Jesus Birthday Cake (pdf)

You can also view the same instructions here.

It’s always a bit of a struggle to balance the Santa Claus traditions with the ones that convey more of the actual meaning of Christmas. Making this cake will be a nice way to celebrate the birth of Jesus (of course we’ll also still leave cookies and milk out for Santa).

That’s it for this week. As always, I welcome your comments and suggestions. Feel free to email me at susanne@hillbillyhousewife.com

Warm Regards,

Susanne – The Hillbilly Housewife

Inspirational Quote

“Christmas is a day of meaning and traditions, a special day spent in the warm circle of family and friends.” – Margaret Thatcher

Sponsor

Get your copy of the free meal planning resource pack today at www.MenuPlanningCentral.com or join at http://www.MenuPlanningCentral.com/main.html

News From The HBHW Club

This section is all about the HBHW Club. Each week I’m going to share some tidbits of what’s going on at the HBHW Club with you. I hope you enjoy these extra tips, recipes and ideas and of course would love to have you join the club.

As a HBHW newsletter subscriber, you can join for only $10 per month here: http://www.hillbillyhousewifeclub.com/special.html

And to make it even easier, I’ll let you try it out for just a dollar for the first 7 days.

Here’s one of the recipes that were submitted this past week.

Crispy Cocoa Peanut Butter Balls

* 1/3 cup Karo syrup, either dark or light
* 1/2 cup brown sugar, packed

* 1/2 cup peanut butter, either smooth or chunky

* 3 cups Cocoa Krispies cereal

In a big saucepan, combine syrup and sugar and cook over medium low heat, stirring often.  When bubbles come up around the edge of the mixture, remove the pan from heat.  Immediately stir in peanut butter until completely melted and blended in.  Dump in the cocoa krispies cereal and mix until the cereal is well blended in.

Butter your hands and roll spoonfuls of the mixture into bite sized balls.  Do this fast.  Put on a cookie sheet covered with parchment paper or waxed paper and let sit at room temperature until completely cooled and set, about 1/2 hour.  Depending on the size you roll the balls, you can get about 3 dozen out of this recipe.

And here are some of the other recipes that have been added in the past few days.

• No Fat Sponge Cake
• Danish Cookies
• Vegetarian Black Bean Tortilla Bake
• Fruit Filled Coffee Cake
• Easy 7 Layer Bars

All in all, we have over 260 new recipes in the member area already.

What else has been going on at the HBHW Club? We’ve been talking about how our Christmas Menus and the types of dishes we fix has changed, more last minute frugal gift ideas and how to make some well balanced meals with less meat. We’ve also welcomed quite a few new members to the club over the past week or two.  I’m sure you have a lot to contribute to the conversation. Ready to join us? Try The HBHW Club for only $1. We’d love to have you! http://www.hillbillyhousewifeclub.com/special.html

Featured Article

There is so much to do right before the holidays, it’s easy to get stressed out and lose sight of what’s really important this time of the year. Here are some simple tips to combat that stress and refocus on what’s really important.

Coping With Holiday Stress

Frugal Tips

[RSSImport display=”3″ feedurl=”http://www.hillbillyhousewife.com/category/frugal-tips/feed” displaydescriptions=true end_item=”

” start_item=””]

Do you have a tip to share? Fill out the submit a frugal tip form and I’ll be glad to add it to the site and share your tip in an upcoming edition of the newsletter.

Recipes

Here are some of the most recent recipes that have been added to the HBHW site. Enjoy!

[RSSImport display=”5″ feedurl=”http://www.hillbillyhousewife.com/category/recipes/feed” displaydescriptions=true end_item=”

” start_item=””]

Do you have a recipe you would like to share? Click here to send it to me and I’ll be happy to add it to the website.

I’m Looking For:

This section is going to be all about you. If you are looking for a particular recipe or a tip on how to do something, submit it here and I will post it in an upcoming newsletter. I’ll give you my input and other readers of the newsletter will have the opportunity to share their recipes and tips as well. So take a moment to post your questions and of course if you have a tip or idea for any question posted in this section feel free to leave a comment under the appropriate post.

I’m Looking For Requests
[RSSImport display=”20″ feedurl=”http://www.hillbillyhousewife.com/category/newsletter/recipe-requests/feed” displaydescriptions=true end_item=”

” start_item=””]

I’m Looking For Responses
Below you will find some of the recent responses to the “I’m Looking For” Requests. You may also want to go directly to this section and browse through all the recent submissions and replies. To do so, click on “I’m Looking for” here, and start looking through them.
[RSSImport display=”20″ feedurl=”http://www.hillbillyhousewife.com/comments/feed?cat=recipe-requests&withcomments=1″ displaydescriptions=true end_item=”

” start_item=””]

Inspirational Story

Each year on Christmas Eve we sit down around the the Christmas tree and read the story of the birth of Jesus from the bible. I thought I’d share it in today’s newsletter with you.

THE BIRTH OF JESUS

“About that time Caesar Augustus ordered a census to be taken throughout the Empire. This was the first census when Quirinius was the governor of Syria. Everyone had to travel to his hometown to be accounted for. So Joseph went from the Galilean town of Nazareth up to Bethlehem in Judah, David’s hometown, for the census. As a decendant of David he had to go there. He went with Mary, his fiancee, who was pregnant.

While they were there, the time came for her to give birth. She gave birth to a son, her firstborn. She wrapped Him in a blanket and laid Him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the hostel.

There were shepherds camping in the neighborhood. They had set night watches over their sheep. Suddenly, God’s angel stood among them and God’s glory blazed around them. They were terrified. The angel said, “Don’t be afraid. I’m here to announce a great and joyful event that is meant for everybody worldwide: A Savior has just been born in David’s town, a Savior who is Messiah and Master. This is what you’re to look for: a baby wrapped in a blanket and lying in a manger.”

At once the angel was joined by a huge angelic choir singing God’s praises: “Glory to God in the heavenly heights; Peace to all men and women on earth who please Him.”

As the angel choir withdrew into heaven, the shepherds talked it over. “Let’s get over to Bethlehem as fast as we can and see for ourselves what God has revealed to us.” They left, running, and found Mary and Joseph, and the baby lying in the manger. Seeing was believing. They told everyone they met what the angels had said about this child. All who heard the shepherds were impressed.

Mary kept all these things to herself, holding them dear, deep within herself. The shepherds returned and let loose, glorifying and praising God for everything they had heard and seen. It turned out exactly the way they’d been told!”  (Luke 2:1-20).

Final Thought

That’s it for this edition of the Hillbilly Housewife Newsletter. I hope you’ve had as much fun reading it as I had creating it for you. I also hope that you have found the information helpful and useful. And by all means feel free to forward the newsletter to family and friends or even better, encourage them to subscribe to it.

Do you have a question, a tip, a recipe or a story you’d like to share with us? Email it to me and I’ll include it in a future issue. Can’t wait to see what you have to say.

Warm Wishes,

Susanne – The Hillbilly Housewife