OK, you knew this would happen. You knew that I would include a bunch of links to food and crafts! (I prefer to refer to it as food, fellowship, and fun!) After all, the Christmas season is a joyous time of year, and these things are an integral part of the celebration.

I have decided to make different pages for individual recipes and crafts as I thought it would clutter this page too much to include everything on it. Therefore, if you see something that is of interest to you, simply click the link and it will take you to that page.

Anyway, I have to admit that I borrowed (OK, bootlegged) these from other web pages, and would like to express my gratitude for those of you who unknowingly submitted materials for this page. If you are one of those and really have an issue with the content, please let me know and I will remove it if we cannot reach some kind of understanding.

That being said, let's celebrate!

Christmas Recipes and Crafts

Gingerbread:

I have wanted to make a gingerbread house for many years now, but just haven't made the time. Perhaps this is the year! This page contains the recipe I might use as well as a some links for other gingerbread ideas.

Grandma's Christmas Fruitcake:

A lot of people don't like fruitcake. As a matter of fact, there is this commercial where someone sends a fruitcake to someone for Christmas, they box it up and send it to someone else, they box it up and send it to still another person... Well, I may be proving that some of us are sicker than others by saying this, but I like fruitcake! Hence, the fruitcake section! The recipe is one my mother has been using for years, and I think it is just wonderful.

Punch and Other Drinks

And what Christmas party would be complete without some kind of Christmas punch! It is always fun to go somewhere and try the punch. (Sometimes it is more fun than others!) Anyway, I thought it would be fun to do some research into punch recipes and gather them together. This page is the result of that research and contains some really interesting (non-alcoholic) concoctions. I hope you enjoy the fruits of my labors as much as I intend to!

Other Recipe Pages:

These are links to other pages I have found that have a wide variety of recipes with a "Christmas flair" (if you will).

An Epicurious Advent Calendar

An Advent calendar with an Epicurian twist. In other words, each day in December a different recipe is offered!

Christmas Recipe .com

All kinds of Christmas recipes ranging from full menus to individual recipes.

Santa.com Christmas Recipes

Click the food and drink menu item along the left and it will take you to a nice list of recipes. A nice site!

Santaland Christmas Recipes

A large number of links to sites with the theme of entertaining guests at meal time.

Craft Links:

I have simply included a number of links to pages that have Christmas related crafts and activities. I saw no sense trying to reproduce all of that material here as these pages have already done the work for me! Actually, the descriptions are complete (sometimes with illustrations) and need no further clarification from myself.

The Jesse Tree

The Jesse Tree has its root in scripture and was a project suggested by the Pastor of the church I attend. This is a tree, or a large banner with a symbolic tree, that is decorated each week, usually by the children, with ornaments or objects that represent Old Testament events from Creation to the Birth of Jesus. This looks like something that really holds to the reason for the season as well as being something fun to do.

Christmas for Kids at Santaland.com

This site has some links to some Christmas activities, Advent calendars, games, etc. I like this site because it is child oriented and the variety is nice.

KD Craft Exchange - Christmas Crafts

This is on kidsdomain.com so you know the children will find something here. Most of the crafts on this site are geared toward decorating. There are also links to other Christmas sites.

Michael's Projects

This basically deals with holiday projects, so it may contain some projects that aren't Christmas specific. Just go down to the Seasonal section and find hundreds of holiday projects!

More Fun Christmas Links:

This section is simply a number of links to pages I thought were worthy of visiting. The links I have included here have something that appeals to me and, as a result, inspired me to pass them along to those who may be interested. This list is by no means all-inclusive as there are many wonderful sites on the Internet (which means I will be updating this list from time to time). So, if you have a favorite site you would like for me to include, please let me know!

Christmas On The Net - Santaland.com

This is a place where you can revisit the old fashioned Christmas traditions. This is suumed up fairly well in a line from their page, "Although those days are gone for the most part, Santaland will bring a small piece of that era back to life."

Christmas Trivia Quiz

OK, so you like trivia. And you say you know a little something about Christmas. Well then have these folks got something for you! I know I enjoyed humbling myself taking these quizzes!

Christmas With Reader's Digest

Of course you will find some nice Christmas stories on this page. (Would you expect anything less from Reader's Digest?) But this page also offers links to those other things you find on most Christmas pages such as crafts, recipes, music, etc.

CVC Christmas Page

This site is presented by the Central Valley Christian School and has material concerning the history of Christmas, Advent information, traditions of other countries, etc. It also has links to individual Christmas pages made by CVC students.

Santa's Christmas Page

This site is mainly a series of links to such things as "Christmas For Kids" and "Christmas For Big Kids" along with the expected recipes and goodies type of links. I found it a nice resource for Christmas related fun.

Santa's Secret Village @ Northpole.com

"Believers Click Here" is the opening for this -- referring to those who believe in Santa Clause! This is a fun kind of site with a little Santa's Village image map that leads you to places like "Mrs Claus' Kitchen" and the "Elf Clubhouse".

Christmas In Cyberspace - A Christian Perspective

"No Santas here! Just the Good News!" This site offers, as their quote implies, a Christian perspective on Christmas. This is a somewhat extensive page of links with this theme in mind.

Christmas Cheer

There is a nice look and feel to this site. There are a lot of wonderful animations on this page that, I think, really radiates Christmas joy!