This and That for the Holidays

Missy, here. Hope everyone is having a wonderful holiday season and having fun getting ready for Christmas! I was excited to see the church decorated and snapped a shot of the doors leading into the chapel. So pretty with the greenery and red bows!

But now, backing up to Thanksgiving at the Posey's (my brother-in-law's family) in south Georgia... I wanted to share my new favorite fruit. Persimmons! These are Japanese persimmons and are about the size of a tomato. I'd never had persimmons at all until two years ago when we spent Thanksgiving there. This year, they had them again. They're very sweet! My brother-in-law's mother grows them and had a large basket of them on the back porch staying cool.

She'd also prepared a bowl to serve at Thanksgiving, and I swear I think I ate most of them! (This is what's left after I got hold of them. I eventually finished them!

When she found out how much I loved them, she sent some home with me. I got to experiment and see what they look like inside.

 I just cut them in half and then peeled them. YUM!

Oh, and this one has more of a seed. If you get a chance to try one of these, be sure you don't miss it!

Now, switching gears back to Christmas... look at these cute fellows…

This is the table at my United Methodist Women's circle Christmas luncheon. The cute table decorations were by my friend Jan David, and she made one for each of us to take home. Now, look at the spread! That's before the chicken fingers and some of the other dishes arrived.

Isn't this a pretty way to do a Jello salad?

One of my favorites, a broccoli salad.

And finally, the chicken fingers arrived! Amazing, southern fried.

Here's the little Christmas owl that came home with me. So cute. Thank you, Jan David!

Look how pretty the center pieces were. Inside was a candle lighting a gold wire tree.

We had a wonderful lunch together. What's your favorite dish to take to a covered-dish dinner (potluck dinner). And! What do you call it?? Covered dish or potluck?

Quickly, before I go, I want to give you a shopping list with the ingredients you'll need for next week when I share my cranberry-raspberry Jello salad with the cream cheese/sour cream topping like I promised.

Large box (or 2 small boxes) raspberry gelatin
1 can whole berry cranberry sauce
1 can crushed pineapple in heavy syrup
chopped pecans
8 oz. package cream cheese
small container sour cream
sugar

And one last thing. I'm going to pull a Jan Drexler and show a couple of gratuitous dog photos. :) In this case, it's my grand-dog

Here I am holding my precious baby while he saws logs (snores). :)

And here he is looking so handsome perched in the back seat of my son's truck. (Yes, one ear stays up and one stays down.) He's such a good traveler, and I'm so excited to get to see him again soon!

And one last one just for Julie Steele. :)

Cameron Crazie dog!