Jeanne, beautiful display on your cabinet. Love your fancy deer with your birch tree. I knew it was you when I seen it. A basket with pinecones, lovely candle and lantern, under that neat picture. I remember your pheasants you painted for DH. That little chubby santa cracks me up. I thought he had his mouth open when I first looked. Apache Tears huh? U had me on that one! Love the old bottle caps in the jug and your pinecone wreath. I have a foot warmer messager under my feet right now but it's not as cute as your snowie. MR & Mrs and your ceramic Christmas tree is a must to see every year!Yeah Your canvas painted snowman on the door is so neat. I've never seen them that I remember any how. Let's not go there.haha Birds have come to enjoy your vine tree now!sigh Gorgeous scene behind your sweet little angel and votives. Oh, love your real female Cardinal picture. They are so Lucky to live at your home and so r we so you can share w/us. Your home must be exploding w/decor!woot,woot It's been so fun coming here and seeing all the decor this year. I tried to post on this post last night and it wouldn't let me type. Had a tough time at first tonight too but I hung in there and showed it who's BOSS!haha Punk

Well...I am over that age and don't worry about people's diets for a party....however I cook healthy foods and never use canned soups in stuff nor "flavor packets" etc. But I don't worry about natural cheeses, I try to stay away from cured meats. As for the diabetics, just besure to have some veggies and some meat that isn't mixed with lots of bottled sauce and if you are serving a pasta casserole. I cook meals at church for funeral lunches and I will tell you the average attendee is well over mid 50's. I have made things like egg and broccoli fritatta, chicken tetrazinni ( not using canned soup but home made baehcmel) Pasta and vegetable salad with a vinaigrette dressing, mixed green salad with my own honey mustard dressing, chicken salad both in sandwiches and aas a main dish. Meatloaf, oven roasted potatoes. For appetizers you could make meatballs and serve with a home made tomato sauce, or serve a side of poached salmon with a lower fat mayonaise lemon caper sauce. Or crudites with a dipping sauce made of low fat mayo with curry and lime juice. Here's a recipe that is generally well liked from sheshebob on these forums Spinach Brownies -- sheshebop 1 pkg. (10 oz) frozen chopped spinach, thawed 16 oz. cheddar cheese, shredded 1/2 cup chopped onion 1/2 tsp. salt 1 tsp. baking powder 1 cup flour 2 eggs, beaten 4 T. butter, melted 1 cup milk I also added 1/8 tsp nutmeg Preheat oven to 350. Spray 8 x 12 baking pan with cooking spray. Drain spinach in colander and squeeze out excess moisture. Combine cheese, spinach, and onion in large bowl. Mix. Stir salt and baking powder into flour and mix with the spinach. Mix eggs, butter, milk and stir into other ingredients. Pour into pan. Bake for 30 minutes Often the best things to serve for a picky crowd are the simpelest...cold shrimp with a couple of dipping sauces, a platter of cheeses. cocktail sized chicken salad sandwiches, whole grain crackers, poached salmon and a tray of sliced copld meats with mini rolls and whole grain breads and some dark grainy mustard. Those on a low salt diet could eat the simple sliced meats ( I am thinking roast beef, turkey breast, sliced pork) those on a low fat diet could eat the veggies and the dips and the lean meats the diabetics could eat the cheeses, meats and veggies but cut eat only the whole grain breads and crackers... I think you will find that most people on special diets will limit their intake of certain foods and fill up on the others. Linda C

I think all of the food suggestions are good ones. But if you were looking for non-food options, making your own soaps or candles is a good option. They sell kits that are easy enough to follow if you haven't done it before and a little bit of cinnamon or peppermint will make things smell seasonal without being religious. Your 5 year old could help cut snowflake shapes (or use a decorative hole punch) in fancy paper. Wrap a dark blue paper with a snowflake hole around votive holders and add a tea light for a festive candle. Punch snowflakes into lunch bags or small gift bags - send guests home with a small bag of sand or stones and some tea lights for luminaires (sp?)for their walkways at home. Wrap dark blue paper with a white cut snowflake glued in the center around a nice bar of (handmade or store bought) soap. Punch snowflake shapes (or any fun shape - I seem to be fixated) into contact paper. Carefully peel off the backing, wrap around a cheapo glass and use glass etching cream (that part is not for 5 year olds) to make winter glasses. Getting away from my snowflake hole punch obsession, there are lots of internet recipes for bath salts and fizzies, lotions and lip balms. All a little feminine, but could be fun for your helper (bath salts = epsom salts, a little baking soda, a little peppermint oil and a few drops of food coloring in a freezer bag shaken up by an energetic kid) If you have a polaroid camera, you guys could make picture frame magnets out of those foam sheets at the craft store and send guests home with a picture from the party. Real Simple (I think) had a great suggestion for politely letting guests know that the party was ending by bringing out a tray of hot cocoa for the road. (not entirely subtle, but sometimes you have to go there) You could adapt the idea with little packets of cocoa decoratively packaged in seasonal coffee mugs or cute bags with a note thanking guests for the sweet memories of the evening - actually you could do this with any of the food suggestions. Okay, that's all I can think of for the moment. I've been posting a running list of holiday gift crafts on my blog - I'll probably be adding some of the above in the near future. We'll see if I can come up with anything else. Here is a link that might be useful: craftfetish blog

"Specific instructions about how NOT to do it" likely don't exist as it is impossible to prove a negative. That's why we can only advise against rather than disprove the methods some insist on using, the "I've never been sick yet" camp of home canners. Further common sense and common scientific fact underlie most of the guidelines. One should not have to prove to others that cold foods won't reach 240 degrees temperature in the same amount of time that hot foods will reach 240 degrees. That it will take longer amount of time. That is something we should learn in elementary school or at least by high school chemistry. :-) Rather these folks on the other forum are making the assumption that by the time the cold water they start with comes to a boil and the canner begins to vent the cold foods inside the jars - ALL the food inside the jars - will have also reached the boiling temp. They are disregarding the effects of density on the penetration of heat. They are disregarding the differences between heat penetrating liquids vs. solids. So while their jar of plain liquid broth might (although they can't prove it) have reached boiling, their jar of vegetables or meat will not have. They will still have what are called "cold pockets" of food in the jars where bacteria can still survive. As the temperature climbs to 240 those cold pockets will continue to lag behind UNLESS sufficient time is added to the calculated processing to also bring them up to 240 for the required amount of time. So, NCHFP Publication: Heat Processing of Home-canned Foods states: The time and temperature combinations at which C. botulinum, its spores and other bacteria are killed are established under certain conditions. However, the substrate (food) in which these bacteria are found is an important variable factor in the rate of destruction. The food factors that will influence the amount of heating needed to kill bacteria include: the consistency of the food; the pH (acidity); and, the presence of nutrients that are “protective” for bacteria (e.g., high protein and sugar levels). Other influences on the amount of heat delivered to the food in the jar are: the shape and size of the jar; the size, shape and texture of food pieces; the solid to liquid ratio; the temperature of the food at the beginning of the process; and, the temperature inside the canner. For example, heat penetration through a mass of liquid (faster) will be very different from heat penetration through puréed or mashed food (slower). This is apparent during stove-top cooking too, where different foods heat up differently based on their composition and consistency. If the food is thick, puréed, or mashed; if there are large pieces of food in the jar; or, if the food is packed in too tightly, heat penetration can be slower than in more liquid or loosely packed foods. If a specific heat process is not calculated for each food and style of pack, the heating may not be adequate, and the food will be underprocessed. (The bold marking above is mine.) It then goes on to explain how, with the use of thermocouples and extensive testing, the correct processing times are determined. So unless these folks are duplicating that thermocouple testing in their home kitchens, their cold food into cold water is being underprocessed. They will ask, if that is true then why then do some foods have the same processing times for both hot and raw packed foods. The answer is that during testing it was determined that in many cases they actually aren't the same. Hot processing requires a few minutes less but the hot processing time was rounded up to the same times for user convenience once it was determined that quality was not affected much. Why are hot and raw pack processing times sometimes the same? Hot pack and raw pack variations, if they are offered in USDA recommendations, have each been researched separately. This includes collecting heat penetration data and calculating an independent process time for each. So the process time is determined by the actual heating characteristics of the pack. Depending on preparation procedures and the type of process, the final result may be the same. Other times, it might be different. The temperature of the process (boiling water or pressure) and the length of the process needed can influence the differences between hot and rack pack rates of heating. Another consideration is that USDA home-canning processes are rounded off to the next higher 5-minute interval. If the hot and raw pack process times vary by less than 5 minutes, but in the same interval, the recommended process time will be the same. For example, if the hot pack is calculated as 11 minutes and the raw pack requires 14 minutes, they will both get rounded off to, and published as, a 15-minute process time. Of course you and I and most well-informed canners recognize that all this debate wouldn't even be necessary if not for the fact that some flat out insist on finding personal shortcuts or doing what is convenient for them rather than simply following the tested and approved guidelines. But sadly you likely aren't going to change their minds. Hope this helps. Dave