Christmas Traditions

During the Christmas season there are many traditions that happen every single year for many families that I know of. My family has so many traditions I thought I would document them on the blog. 

1) Christmas cookies with all of the neighbors: Every year since my family moved to Michigan, our next door neighbors, the Connor's have all of the neighborhood children over to decorate cookies. It is a pretty big group of people and the ages range from as young as two years old to parent aged people that all come together to decorate cookies together. So fun!

  

Photo Credit: Personal Photo 

2) Cutting down a christmas tree:  The Heise tree farm was a Christmas tree farm in Ann Arbor owned by my family; the Heise's. Unfortunately when my grandfather passed away, they had to shut it down and sell the land and it is no longer a tree farm. But since that happened, we have gotten a tree elsewhere. Every year my family brings our grandma along with us to pick out a tree for our house and then we bring it home and decorate it together and put lights and ornaments on it. 

Photo Credit: Personal Photo

3) Christmas Eve Baking and Movie Marathon:   Every Christmas eve all of the girls in my family wakes up early and begins baking hundreds of baked goods. Regularly we make chocolate chip tea cakes, peppermint bark, sugar cookies, and chocolate buttons plus any random things we think of making as well. After everything is made, we put a mixture of the treats on different plates and wrap them with plastic wrap with a bow on top and deliver them to our family and friends.

After Church, all of the kids of the family (even the babies)  and some adults if they're up for it, the cousins all have a movie marathon we normally watch an average of five or six movies. 

4) Christmas Day:  Have you ever watched the show on abc called "Modern Family" about a huge crazy family? Well that show might as well be about the Heise family. My family is huge and crazy, there are 9 cousins, 3 sets of uncle and aunts plus four grandparents. It's madness. They all live in ann arbor area or willis michigan and because my immediate family s the only ones who live in okemos, we have to drive all the way there, but it's well worth it to see my family.

5) Massive Sleepover at Grandma's house and Costco:  Just for fun all of the cousins sleepover at my grandma's house every single christmas and have a massive sleepover. The next morning we eat breakfast then soon after the uncles pile us into the cars and we go to Costco. Kinda weird right? Apparently there's good deals on food or something. The girls seem to get lost in the store every year.

6) Neighborhood kick the can tournament:  After the actual Christmas celebrations and everyone's back home from their holiday celebrations with their family, we play kick the can with the neighborhood kids, this tradition started three years ago and I assume it will continue this year as well. 

I hope everyone has a wonderful holiday break, what are some of your family's holiday traditions? 

French Macaroons Recipe + Tips

They are colorful, small, and pretty to look at...  french macaroons.
Over the summer I got a little (or really) bored and decided to attempt to master the art of making macaroons and it turns out it is seriously difficult, way harder than I ever had expected.
So if you ever want to attempt to make macarons, here is how to make them and helpful tips along the way.

Credit: Creative Commons

Ingredients:

2 1/2 tbsp sugar
1 cup powdered sugar
      -sift powder sugar and regular sugar to remove chunks and cause less "bubbles" in mixture 
3/4 cup almond flour
      -to easily and cost efficiently make almond flour, don't buy a bag of almond flower. Simply buy a bag of almonds and blend them in a food processor and sift them through a sifter to remove any large almond chunks that could damage your batter  
2 large egg whites
     -room temperature 


Directions:

Sift confectioners' sugar and almond flour until fully combined.
       - don't let there be any "bubbles" in the mixture 
Whisk whites with a mixer on low speed until foamy. Add sugar while adding speed to medium and mix until soft peaks form.
       - now you can add a few drops of food coloring to the mixture if you please
 Increase speed to high, and whisk until stiff peaks form.
       - if you shake the whisk the mixture should not move or fall off the mixer
 Slowly add the egg whites into the flour and powdered sugar mixture and fold until it's all together.          -add one fourth of the mixture at a time to the almond flour and powdered sugar mixture and fold them together with a rubber spatula for best results. 
       - be sure to not under mix it and not over mix it about fifty to sixty strokes is just about perfect.
       - it should be lava like; not too liquid like  

Put the batter into a pastry bag fitted with a 1/2-inch  tip
     -you can use a large ziploc bag instead and cut the corner out of it 
Pipe 3/4-inch rounds 1 inch apart on a cookie sheet.
     -YOU MUST LINE THE COOKIE SHEET WITH WAX PAPER 
     - drag the tip to the edge to ensure your forming round macaroons 
     -tap the bottom of the cookie sheet to let all air out of mixture
Preheat oven to 300 degrees F. 
     -let the cookies rest until a "shell" forms over it so when you touch the cookie the batter does not go onto your finger that is for about 20 mins 

Credit: Creative Commons

Bake 1 sheet at a time and rotate halfway through for 15 minutes

Sandwich 2 macarons with  filling
     -you can put anything in the middle that you choose 
Store in the fridge or serve immediately.
     -you can also freeze them and they will keep for up to three months

The Nutcracker

What are you doing Thanksgiving Weekend after you stuff your face with food and spend time with your family? Need an idea of something you can do that is really fun, different, local, professionally done and beautiful?

GO SEE THE NUTCRACKER!

                                                                                    Photo Credit: CBT  

The Children's Ballet Theatre of Michigan presents the Nutcracker at the Wharton Center every year, during Thanksgiving weekend. This year the show begins Friday and Saturday, November 27 and 28, at 7:30 pm, November 29 at 2:00 pm and November 30th at 10:30 am. Tickets are going fast and one show is already sold out! Thousands people see the performance every year, it's a hit!

                                                                                       

 Photo Credit: Dave Machette 

The company is comprised of dancers ages eight through eighteen; selected through audition to ensure our productions are top notch. Though is is a performance done by adolescents, it is the most well done and professional show in the area. I am performing in it for the third time, this year. I can tell you from experience that this is not your average youth ballet performance.

      Photo Credit: David Grist 

The Nutcracker Ballet is a story of a young girl named Clara, who gets a nutcracker from her uncle. The doll comes to life and entertains the guests at her family's Christmas party. After the party Clara falls into a deep sleep and awakens to find herself in the middle of a battle between the Rat King and the Nutcracker. The soldiers and the rats battle each other while the Nutcracker and the Rat King do the same. The Nutcrackers army of soldiers kills the rat king. Then Clara and her Guardian Angel travel to the Kingdom of Snow and to the Land of Sweets where she is welcomed by many different countries through dancing. Once she arrives at home again, she tells her family of her adventure, but it was just a dream-- or was it?

                                                                                   Photo Credit: David Grist                                                

My roles this year are: towns person, soldier, snow princess, waltz, and Spanish. So to prepare for the performance us dancers put in A LOT of work. Roles are divided up between deserving dancers and we rehearse about 14 hours per weekend and practice around 7 hours during the school week. Next week we begin tech week, in preparation for our show. During tech week,  we are at the Wharton every day from 4pm to 10pm and that adds about another 20+ hours of rehearsals before the show begins. CRAZY!!

It is the coolest experience to be able to perform in the Wharton Center!!! Broadway shows and famous people perform there all the time so it is amazing to think that our show is worthy of performing there also. While at the Wharton, each dancer gets a dressing room to share with one to twenty other people depending on their placement in the company. The dressing rooms we use are also used by our idols and it is inspiring to know that. This year, the show performing the day before us is “So You Think You Can Dance Tour”. The stage is huge and the facility is beautiful. It is such a honor to be able to perform there.

For a sneak peek of the show, please visit this link:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iWY4JZnfMu8

Vermont

This summer, my family and I traveled to Middlebury, Vermont. Our reason for going was to visit our friends, the Merrill's. Mr. Merrill, is the language school director for Middlebury College so they live there in the summer. When we visited, the language programs summer study was going on and when the students arrive for the program, they take an oath to not speak english. Because the students could not speak english, neither could people while they were on campus because it tempts the students to speak in english as well. So when we would leave the house we were not allowed to speak when there was anyone in sight, was a student (and the students were everywhere.

When they live there they stay in a dorm house, just their family; it's pretty cool. When we visited them we stayed in the dorm house also. It's not your typical vacation housing but it was a neat experience. Middlebury College's campus is extremely beautiful and has so much different culture and natural beauty. The dorm was nestled in the adirondack mountains. Though Middlebury is beautiful there wasn't much to do for fun so we had to travel on day trips to fun spots around the state.

The first place we traveled was to Waterbury, Vermont and took a tour of the first ever Ben and Jerry's ice cream factory and store and then traveled 20 mins through and up the mountains to Bristol, Vermont. Bristol is a small town in the mountains and it is home to one of Vermont's many swimming holes and waterfalls. It was my favorite stop we made by far because you can jump off the side of the mountain into the swimming hole and swim and dive and rest on the ledge of the mountain. The water was probably -100 degrees but we had so much fun anyways.

Not only am I posting about my trip to Vermont because of how much fun and what a great experience it was, but to inform everyone who reads this on how important it is to follow directions on your GPS or Map. On our way to Vermont, when we were in New York, the most boring state to drive through, we merged onto the wrong highway and the GPS ended up taking us a really odd way that had us driving through the mountains, where there are no houses, gas stations, cell reception, bathrooms or humans (kind of felt like we were the last people on earth) and added a good three hours onto the trip. Has anyone else had a similar experience where they have gotten lost and had to find their way?