It's beginning to look like Christmas & making a Cola Cake

We haven’t had much snow yet this year, so it took me awhile to realize that Christmas is coming soon. No, I haven’t done all my gift shopping or baked my holiday cookies, but at least we have the outdoor lights up and the Christmas tree decorated. Baby steps…

When I was growing up, we had the colour-coded artificial tree. You had to match the colour on the stem of the “branch” to the colour on the “trunk” of the tree. Trouble is, the colours wore off. After that, nobody in my house was eager to put up the Christmas tree. Maybe that’s why nowadays I prefer the real Christmas tree to the fake, although I am sure that will change when the kids get older. We alternate between cutting one down at a local farm and buying a fresh tree at the store. You might notice that the angel's head is touching the ceiling. Our last house had a very high ceiling in the family room. I can't quite get past that, so we get as large a tree as possible.

My favourite ornaments are the pewter picture frames my mom gave the kids. 



Jolene likes to cozy up on a chair in front of the Christmas tree. She is a rescue dog, with unknown origins. We originally thought she was street-wise and tough, but it turns out she doesn’t like to go outside when it's cold (she actually pees on the deck when there's snow) and she prefers to sleep on a soft blanket.

Jolene gradually seems to grow tired of my picture-taking.

We also celebrated my husband’s birthday this week, with a quiet family dinner. I decided to make a cake I’ve never made before - a cola cake. I settled on this recipe for chocolate cola cake that I spotted on Pinterest. It is more decadent than my usual recipe, but nobody seemed to mind. It turned out to be quite delicious, nice and firm with lots of chocolate icing. Adding cola to your cake might not seem like the healthiest of ideas, but then, it's cake!

Here's the fam, just waiting to dig in.



 How are your holiday preparations coming along?