Psyched

This always happens. All of a sudden it's December, Christmas trees sold on the corner, I'm scrambling to buy gifts, and plotting Christmas breakfast. I'm pulling out boxes of trinkets seen once a year, and untangling lights stored en masse as one giant ball.

I go with the flow, doing the holiday thing. Then, all of sudden it hits me and I feel light and lovely and cheery. Ready to sip eggnog and hum a Christmas tune.

It takes me a while to feel it. I'm definitely not that person hanging their Christmas lights the day after Thanksgiving.

But I'm no Grinch. I have a holiday heart. Sometimes it just takes the revelation that soon there will be Christmas cookies by the dozens to jump start it.




Actually most years all it takes is hanging all the ornaments on the tree. It's my daughters absolute favorite thing to, and it was mine too when I was her age.

The anticipation of putting up the tree was almost too much to bear. She was asking for days, and for days we always had something else we needed to get done. Finally we could put her off no more and we wrestled the tree in the house, bought some much needed new lights, and began unearthing all of the mismatched ornaments collected over time.

My mom fortunately bought my brother and I ornaments every year. Thankfully for her, my first Christmas tree with my own family was not totally naked. It was adorned with all sorts of lovelies with so many memories. From the misshapen ones I made, to the fun little snowman made out of a jingle bell.

I remember pulling out many of these same treasures when I was little, and finding just the perfect place on the tree for each one.

                       

I've tried to make a little tradition out of it for my kids. Have the tree lit and ready for gussying up as soon as they get home from school. And I try and greet them with something festive to sip on while working.

The holidays are also the best time of year for fun drinky drinks. This week I'm all about the holiday beverages. This one is perfect for kids and whatever decorating task you may have. It's a raspberry peppermint float and it is delicious.

I had a bit of a hard time finding peppermint ice cream. I know Fresh and Easy sells it, but I wasn't planning a trip there any time soon so I went ahead and just did mine Cold Stone style. I crushed the heck out of some candy canes and then smooshed them in to some vanilla ice cream. The kids did say I didn't crush the candy enough, but I liked the rather large bits of candy as a second treat at the bottom of my glass. Feel free to just buy whatever peppermint ice cream you can find.

Raspberry Peppermint Floats

makes 4

2 cups frozen raspberries

1/2 cup sugar

1 bottle seltzer water

4 candy canes crushed

4 large scoops vanilla ice cream

candy canes for garnish

In a medium sauce pan heat the raspberries and sugar over medium low heat. Let simmer slowly for about 5 minutes, until the sugar is dissolved and the berries are broken up. Add the berries to a food processor or blender and puree until smooth. Pour this mixture through a fine mesh sieve to get out all the seeds (if you don't mind seeds you can skip this pain in the butt step). Chill the raspberry puree.

Mash the ice cream and candy canes together and store in the freezer until you are ready to assemble the drinks.

Get out 4 smaller glasses and in each glass add 1 tablespoon of the raspberry mixture. Pour in about 3/4 cup seltzer water to each glass and gently stir in the raspberry puree. Scoop one large scoop of peppermint ice cream to each glass and garnish with candy canes.

  

This ratio is a perfect, not overly sweet balance of fruity, minty, creamy and slightly fizzy mineral flavor. If you like your drinks on the sweeter side I'd suggest adding a tablespoon of simple syrup to each glass when you add the raspberry. That would also make the raspberry thinner and stir better, but it's a bit too sweet for me.

I hope your holidays are getting very merry! I'll be back with more to sip on to help make things merrier.

Oh, another thing I'm a bit psyched about besides cheery beverages. Look, it's me, on Tasty Kitchen. I was so excited I sort of screamed a bit when I saw it. And doesn't Laurie from Simply Scratch do a fantastic job of making everything look pretty?  I really feel very honored that people tried it and liked it. It makes taking pictures of food and typing about it seem less silly.