Meaningful Christmas Gifts

My tree is still up. The flu has sidelined me on the couch while my family is skiing for the day. I'm thankful that my husband decided to take on the task of bringing the girls and packing up all the ski stuff. I'm reflecting on this past Christmas and some of the handmade gifts that were given to our family. My mom gave my brothers and myself, a recipe album. It's filled with the recipes that I remember my grandma making throughout the years. Her tried and true recipes written in her handwriting. I plan on baking my way page by page and posting the results here on this little blog. My grandma "MaGert" as we called her, would cook for friends and neighbors when someone was sick or when there was a death in th family. She was a remarkable woman. We also received an amazing cartoon matted in a frame of our family with our extended family. The original picture was taken on our yearly vacation at the beach. Each person is carefully drawn and the whole cartoon is in color. It is one of our favorite things and will be treasured forever. I purchased many handmade gifts on etsy this year. If I had planned a bit better, I would have purchased more. There is always next year....I'm thinking of doing a post of all the beautiful handcrafted goodies with links to the shops. If only I can figure it out how to do that!