Christmas Books

K. recommended these books and they sound delightful (and of course I totally forgot about using the original Charles Dickens! Note the free Kindle for that one):

"The Jesse Tree" by Geraldine McCaughrean




"The Thirteen Days of Christmas" by Jenny Overton




"A Christmas Carol" by Charles Dickens






"Star of Wonder" by Pat Alexander




"The Christmas Angel" by Pirkko Vainio




What's Cookin'?

Cherry Pie:  This is a total "cheat" recipe but it's at least from scratch without any frankenfood ingredients.  It was a winner with the family.  I use a very simple dough recipe and used this recipe for the filling:
http://www.food.com/recipe/cherry-pie-4861