Homemade Christmas and Simple Snowballs

"Dashing through the snow..." ~Jingle Bells

This year I decided to make a few homemade gifts for a lot of the ladies in my family. Chalkboards are so popular in decor and they are also convenient so I made a few. It is quite simple actually. I just hope everyone loves their presents.

I just bought a silver tray and painted it white and chalkboard painted the center and then placed it on a picture stand. That was my first attempt. I am going to use picture frames for the remaining gifts I will post on those once I see how they will go.

"Cookies & Milk"

These are my Simple Snowballs. It is a very easy recipe. Just mix one box white cake mix with 2 eggs and 1/3 cup of oil. Stir in 1/2 a cup of pecans. Roll into balls, flatten, & bake. Then while still warm roll in powdered sugar and then once they cool do it again if you want them really "Snowball-y." The above pic is only rolled once. Grab some ice cold milk and a cozy blanket. Take some of these cookies and turn on a Christmas movie while you are sitting next to the tree. That's cozy!

Simple Snowballs

1 box white cake mix

2 eggs

1/3 cup oil

1/2 cup pecans

powdered sugar

Mix first four ingredients. Roll into teaspoon balls, flatten a little, & Bake at 350. While warm roll in powdered sugar. Let cool and roll again for a real snowball effect.

Warm Wishes

Mrs. Timbs c. 1940

Holiday Series 4: Open House Christmas Party

Dear Friend,

We have now come to the final section of my Vintage Holiday Series. Section 4 is about having a complete open house party. Stocked with a well thought out menu and tons of recipes, this section is sure to delight anyone that is lucky enough to host and be invited to this party.

Holiday Series 4: Holiday Open House

"Over the river and through the woods to Grandmother's house we go..."

"There's no place like home for the holidays..."

See that sugar plum recipe down below? We made those and I'm going to share mine in another post.

"Sleigh bells ring are you listenin' In the lane the snow is glistenin'.."

There it is, the last section of my Holiday Series for vintage party ideas. I hope you enjoyed it. I am going to have another series next starring a very beautiful book from the 1940s. I hope it will be loved by all and perhaps these series will inspire ideas in the hearts of each one of you. Thank you so much for stopping by I greatly appreciate each one of you.

"Good tidings for Christmas and a Happy New Year."

~Mrs. Homemaker

Linked up to Vintage Thingie Thursday @ http://coloradolady.blogspot.com/.



Holiday Series 3: Children's Christmas Party

Dear Friend,

Today is part 3 of my holiday series. Starring in this part of the series is a Children's Christmas Party. This plan for a children's party is so sweet and simple. What a wonderful way to make the faces of tiny tots light up with delight for their very own Christmas party.

Holiday Series 3: Children's Christmas Party

Simple little menu with fun filled foods for the children and adults, too.

I love the snowman. He is so cute and squatty.

Cute little ideas for "trees." I love the idea of hanging candy canes as the bottom layer.

This page shows ideas for decorating and a fun little game the children would love.

There you have it. Another section of my vintage holiday series. I hope you enjoyed looking at it.

~Mrs. Homemaker



Holiday Series 2: Christmas Coffee Party

Holiday Series: Christmas Coffee Party

How many of us either like to drink coffee or know some people who do. What a wonderful time to get together for coffee and refreshments during the holiday season. Perhaps invite friends over for a card writing party or a cookie exchange along with a coffee party. Many of the recipes for this series are made a day ahead of the party.

Here is the vintage tablescape for the coffee party menu. If you really wanted to go all out vintage this tablescape would be simple to re-create.

There you have it, another vintage holiday party that is sweet and simple to create. Hope everyone enjoyed looking at it.

~ Mrs. Homemaker



Holiday Series 1: Holiday Breakfast

Dear Friend,

It's that time of year when we start talking about sleigh bells and mistletoe. Parties are planned, cards are sent out, and presents are bought. I wanted to share with you a special vintage holiday book of fun holiday themed menus and party ideas. I'm going to call this my Holiday Party Series. I hope everyone enjoys getting some use out of it or simply looking back at Holiday ideas from long ago.

Holiday Series: Holiday Breakfast



Here is the book this series is

going to be coming from.



I bought this book with a lot of other very old books from the 20s-40s. I don't know the actual date, as there is no date on the book anywhere. All the other books had dates. It fits the mood for a holiday post so I hope it is enjoyed by all.

I just love the quaint little sugarplums in the wine glass. They are so sweet and rather easy to make. I will be delighted to get to that post and share the pictures of the ones I made, too.

Rationing was still very much alive during the holiday season but somehow everyone still found a way to make the holidays

"Merry and Bright."

Below is the original index so everyone can see what delightful things will be coming up with each series.

 Here is the menu. This would be cute to print and frame if one is going to have a vintage holiday breakfast.

I just love the display of the Holiday Breakfast. It is so simple but yet it is so lovely. The fruit tree would be so simple to make with a Styrofoam cone and the white tea setting is so lovely against the white cone.

Happy Holidays! They are now upon us. 

The next section will be a Christmas Coffee Party.

~Mrs. Homemaker

Vintage Desserts

Above is the directions to cookie making. This page comes from my 1942 Betty Crocker Cookbook of

All-purpose baking. Another favorite book of mine. There are a bunch of different variety of cookies from that same book below. I love how sweet and simple the photo is. It reminds me of the pastel color photos from long ago. (I love everything vintage and I still do not know what those types of photos are called.)

Here is my version of "Jumbles." They are a very soft and fluffy sugar cookie. Notice in the above photo "Cinnamon Jumbles" in the blue crock. I made mine plain so they would be more of a sugar type cookie. If you want cinnamon then simply sprinkle the top with cinnamon before baking. Also, buttermilk makes a huge difference in this cookie. The buttermilk makes the cookie more puffed up and gives it more of a distinct flavor rather than plain milk.

From my Health For Victory Cookbook comes this wonderful apple crisp. It smells so delicious baking in the oven. It is not the typical crisp that we know of today. The golden gooey goodness is made with honey. If you don't like honey then you can just use 1/2 cup of sugar. I believe honey was substitued a lot because honey was not rationed and sugar was very tightly rationed.

Sugar was the first food to be rationed, as the war with Japan caused our nation’s supply of sugar to quickly be reduced by more than a third. The Office of Price Administration issued 123 million copies of War Ration Book One, which contained stamps that could be used to purchase sugar. (1940s.org)

I thought this would be interesting to all the vintage lovers. 1940s Slang Terms:

Take a powder – to leave
Fuddy-Duddy – old-fashioned person
Gobbledygook – double talk, long speech
Fat-head – stupid or foolish person
Chrome-dome – word for a bald headed man
Eager beaver – enthusiastic helper
Stompers – shoes
Grandstand – to show off
Brainchild – someone’s creative idea
What’s buzzin’, cousin? – how’s it going?
Khaki wacky – boy crazy
Hen fruit – eggs
Hi-de-ho - hello

Some fun terms to be used today. I found these at 1940s.org. If you get the time you should visit there it has a lot of good information.

As I read and think about the 1940s and everyone living in that time I often find myself wondering if ideas from then would help our country today. It's no big secret our country is struggling with money and many other things. When the war started with Iraq would it have saved our country money to ration things such as were rationed in the 1940s? Rationing documents are everywhere and I bet the government still has the original idea and plan that started it all. I could be wrong because I usually am but I think another large part of our debt is due to the war. Wars cost money that is why rationing began in the first place to save money. The government asked us for our money in buying war bonds. I know everything wasn't "hunky dory" in the decades that have passed. I also know there are many other factors to the mess our country is in. Okay, that's my rant for now but I just think of this from time to time.


As I'm constantly compiling information for the Diary "Blog," I am still unsure of where I want to go with this. I know what I want my readers to feel, see, and hear but I just haven't found my groove of this yet. Any suggestions would be most appreciated. Should I write as in a diary or should it be more informational as I live my 1940s life? That's where I'm quite confused with all this.

Mrs. Homemaker

Food groups & Extending shortages

1943

Dear Friend,

Today was a very trying day as we are trying to put up the vegetables from our "Victory Garden." We are very fortunate this year because our tomatoes have produced in abundance even with this drought. Putting up vegetables and making jams, pickles, sauces, jellies, conserves, and simply canning really helps with the war effort. Many people grew Victory Gardens to supplement their nutrition and to help with rationing. Rationing began in 1942. With the war raging on overseas, more items were added to the list of rationed things this year. Of course, our American allotment of rationed items were only a minor inconvenience compared to those in Britain. It took a great effort from everyone on the Homefront. Even though rationing is not around now I am still trying to find ways to save in our economy today. I am very thankful for my Your Share booklet as it is full of inspiration for the frugal homemaker.

Here is the back of the book which talks about the 7 basic food groups one should be taking in each day. Below is a larger image of the circle chart. This image is hard to see so I made a larger image below.

 This good group wheel shows which foods we should be eating everyday to keep healthy. This wheel differs greatly from the modern food pyramid or chart that is used today.  Below is an explanation of each wedge in the wheel.

It is strange to me how there really was no high amounts of overweight people here in the '40s. One reason could be that there are not very many processed foods to be bought. I do know one major reason is rationing but people still ate good and very healthy. I have many menus from this period and the menus are large. There are many dishes to be served.

These two excerpts below show how to extend foods when times get tough.

"It is very important that we save our fats to be returned to the butcher shop. Many butcher shops will give back points for the amount of fats returned. Below is an excerpt from Betty Crocker All-Purpose Baking cookbook which will help all to ration fats easier." Many on the Homefront found ways to be frugal and also did whatever it took to get by. I think it was very wise to return fats to the butcher to get extra ration points. Many ideas from these passages can still be used today.

I started out wanting to post as if I were actually "living" in the era but I couldn't make up my mind on what my readers would want to read/hear. Any suggestions would be helpful. Thanks for stopping by.

Mrs. Homemaker