Easy Christmas Cookies Recipe

One of our Christmas traditions is to bake cookies for our neighbours and friends. I used to make a complicated ginger biscuit recipe, but now I have an easier recipe that is quicker and uses ingredients that I generally have available in my baking cupboard.

I usually double the quantities to make about 60 star shaped biscuits in a batch. These biscuits are an ideal tea time treat! I package them up either in a big jar with a ribbon round the top, or in smaller quantities in a cellophane package with a ribbon and best wishes label.

Photo by Kari Shea

Recipe for Christmas Cookies (makes about 30)

100g butter
100g castor sugar
1 large egg
5ml vanilla essence
225g plain flour

1. Beat butter until smooth.
2. Add castor sugar and beat it into butter.
3. Add egg and beat mixture.
4. Add vanilla essence and beat mixture again.
5. Finally add sifted flour.
6. Roll out and cut into shapes.
7. Bake in oven at 180 degrees Celsius for approximately 10 - 15 minutes.

What are some of your Christmas traditions? Do let me know if you bake and enjoy these cookies!

Creating a Welcoming Guest Room

If you are expecting guests during the festive season, then it might be a good time to start evaluating your guest room. Is it a lovely space to spend some time or has it become a junk storage area? What will you need to do to make your guest room a welcoming space?

Photo by Annie Spatt

A few things to consider when preparing your guest room:

1. Consider if the room can be multi-functional:
Earlier this year, we set up a lovely craft cabinet in our guest room which I absolutely loved! It was a great space in which to work and housed all my creative materials. However, as soon as we had guests to stay for a few weeks I had to move the cabinet out to fit in an extra bed. It was also not really possible to go in there and work while we had guests staying in the room. So in our case, having a multi-functional guest room just doesn't work.

2. Take out things that are not useful in the space:
When I decided that our guest room was only going to be used for guests to stay there, it was easier to keep just guest room essentials in the room as well as a few stored items. In between visitors it can become a bit of a junk deposit area, but after another few hours of having to clear the space again I have made a firm decision not to just stuff things into the guest room cupboard when I don't have time to deal with them.

3. Keep it guest -ready:
If you are in a position to have a dedicated guest room, I think it is easier to keep it in a state that it is ready for guests rather than rushing around madly at the last minute like I sometimes do! That may mean having guest towels and linen clean and ready to use as well as a dedicated drawer or shelf with extra toiletries in a basket. We also have a hair drier set up and a music player that lives in the guest room. I like to add fresh flowers, a chocolate treat and water bottle at the last minute but everything else can be prepared in advance. If you would like to read my previous post, which has a list of guest room "essentials", click here.

I will also ask our guests what their experience of the guest room is like so that I can make adjustments and improvements in future.

Do you have a dedicated guest room? What are some of the essentials you feel are necessary for a pleasant stay?