a Christmas Morning Miracle

The turkey was moist and golden.

So they tell me.

The pommes dauphines were crispy and light.

So they tell me.

The Alaskan King Crab legs were fresh and decadent.

So they tell me. I wouldn't know. I was up, in bed, knocked out by the stomach flu, missing our yearly Christmas feast with my family.

Luckily, the flu hits hard but disappears just as quickly. By the time Santa made his delivery, I was back up and ready to rejoin the fun.

Nothing short of a Christmas morning miracle. Missing the feast was sad, but just as good the next day, heated up in the microwave. Missing the magic of Christmas morning would have been heartbreaking.

I hope your holidays were bright and merry, filled with family, good food, and fun.

Mine certainly were, snuggled in my new cozy Yahoo blanket, trapped under a crumbling pile of new cookbooks, was my idea of heaven.

Give Meringue Swirl Cookies to Friends and Family this Christmas

On Friday, I shared my Oreo Truffles recipe. Dark, moist, and decadent, these little balls of indulgence will keep you going throughout the holidays. I keep a constant supply in my fridge and pop one in my mouth every time I walk through the kitchen. Didn't you hear that there is no calorie counting during the holidays?

Today I want to share with you a recipe that is the polar opposite of the Oreo balls. Light, airy, and elegant, these Chocolate Swirl Meringues are a like a little kiss of sugar on the tongue. The chocolate center is moist and rich and the outside is light and crispy. A perfect combination. Make a couple of batches and you have the perfect treat to share with friends and neighbors when you hand out your belated holiday cards.

I often think that baking has an element of magic to it, especially when it comes to meringues. Even though I've been making them since I was a kid, watching the egg whites transform into a puffy cloud of white always seems like a miracle. This recipe brings a little heat to the process, making the meringues especially shiny and beautiful.

Chocolate Swirl Meringue Cookies
Makes 2 dozen
Prep Time: 15 Minutes
Cook Time: 40 Minutes
Ingredients:
4 oz bittersweet chocolate (chopped) (about ½ cup)
5 large egg whites
1 1/4 cups of sugar

1. Preheat oven to 275°F. 
2. Line 2 baking sheets with parchment paper or silpats and set aside. 
3. In a medium saucepan, bring 1 inch of water to a simmer. Place chocolate in a heatproof bowl over simmering water. Melt, stirring occasionally. Set aside to cool slightly.
4. In a bowl, combine egg whites and sugar. Place over simmering water and whisk until mixture is hot, 4-5 minutes. 
5. Transfer bowl to mixer; beat on high speed until stiff peaks form and mixture is lukewarm, 4-5 minutes. Don't stop too early. To test for peaks, pull the beaters out and watch for the egg whites to hold their shape.
6. Remove bowl from mixer and drizzle melted chocolate over egg whites, folding in with a rubber spatula until just marbled. Don't overmix or you'll just end up with chocolate meringues. The marbling is what makes these cookies truly special, a mix of chewy chocolate and crisp, airy meringue.
7. With a soup spoon, drop batter in large mounds spaced 1 ½ - 2 inches apart on prepared sheets. 
8. Bake until crunchy outside and still chewy inside, 35-40 minutes. 
9. Transfer pans to wire rack to cool completely before removing cookies from parchment. Store in airtight container.

Why It's Never Too Late for Holiday Cards

Top 10 Reasons To Wait to the Last Minute to Mail Out my Holiday Cards.

1. Image. Nobody likes a show off. 
2. Location, location, location. My card gets front of mantle. The Thanksgiving eager beavers are collecting dust in the back.
3. Exercise. Lugging the box of cards from room to room with the good intention to get started is a great way to tone the arms. 
4. Helpers. As Santa's arrival draws near, the kids are more motivated to be "good" and lick envelopes.
5. Kindness. Gives my friends a sense of superiority and accomplishment for having gotten their cards out before mine.
6. Efficiency. Buys me a little more time to get that perfect picture.
7. Sweet tooth. Need time to bake the cookies that go with the card for local friends.
8. Thrill. Procrastinators have more fun.
9. Suspense. How many of you get calls from people saying they'd been looking forward to getting your card? We do. Every year.
10. Inspiration. Getting my holiday cards out early is always at the top of my New Year's Resolutions.

This post is just another procrastination tactic to keep me from sending out the last 100 cards we're sending out this year, but before my head hits the pillow, they will be done. I swear. I promise. Probably.

In all seriousness though, I love our cards so much this year that I actually got teary when they came out the box. That said, it doesn't take much to make me misty eyed. I've been known to reach for a Kleenex while watching iCarly. 

We ordered our cards through Tiny Prints for the second year in a row, and thanks to my amazing sister who runs their social media department, our cards were free. But having benefited from their impressive customer service (my designer called me on my cell at 9PM last Saturday night to see if I liked my proofs!) and having seen how gorgeous the cards came out, I could never go back to a regular photo card. These cards are worth every penny, and will transition from front of mantle to front of fridge door after the tree comes down.

Your family will look so good, distant strangers will be eager to show off your card. College friends will pick up the phone to catch up, and ex-boyfriends will kick themselves for not having treated you better.

It's not too late to get your own holiday cards made. You still have a few days to put in an order at Tiny Prints and still get your cards before Santa comes sleighing in. They've also got some amazing deals going on every day. Yesterday it was 25 free cards. Today it's an extra 20% off. 

Stop making excuses. Get your hands on a few Tiny Prints Christmas cards today. Even if it's just a few for local friends and your mother-in-law. 

Then you can actually say that you out-procrastinated me, and steal my front of the mantle placement.

Here's a sneak peak at our family's card. It's a tri-fold design. You know, to take up more room on that mantle.

What you'll see on the mantle

What you'll see when you open the card

Foie Gras, our Once a Year Indulgence

It's been so hectic that I haven't had a minute to blog about Christmas eve, our biggest, most outlandish, most extravagant meal of the year. Christmas in our family has always meant marathon feasts. As a child in France, we alternated Christmas dinner between our house and my aunt's house. Every year, the host family would try to outdo last year's meal, an undisguised rivalry that yielded great dividends for all attending. My mother would tend to focus on top-notch sides and appetizers while my aunt and her husband usually raised the bar with exotic main courses like suckling pig and whole venison. After one gruesome vision of a discarded antler on the kitchen counter one night, I learned to stay put at the table and focus on the dinner in front of me.

Now that my sisters and I live in the States, we still go all out for Christmas eve, cooking all the dishes we enjoyed as kids during the Reveillon de Noel and many American ones that we've added to the roster.

There are many items that make the menu every year. We always begin with a few appetizer courses like freshly shucked oysters and smoked salmon toasts before moving on to turkey, stuffing, cranberry sauce, and carrot souffle. And we always conclude with a chocolatey Buche de Noel (yule tide log) for dessert.  But if you were to ask any of my sisters which is the one item that represents Christmas dinner for them, I know without the shadow of a doubt that they would all answer: Foie Gras.

We each begin our feast with one generous slice of rich, savory Foie Gras terrine. Many Americans don't understand the appeal of foie gras. When I mention how much I crave this expensive treat, they ask, "What's the big deal? Is it pate? Why is it so good? Why is it so expensive?" I certainly don't want to go into the disturbing process of how Foie Gras is made in this post. It's one of those things I've chosen not to dwell too much on. You can call me shallow, you can call me cruel, but I won't give up my Foie Gras, even if they have outlawed it in Chicago.

In years past, we've ordered our foie gras terrine from D'Artagnan, and waited breathlessly for the next day air delivery of the terrine packed in dry ice. But for the last couple of years, we've been disappointed with their foie gras, finding it lacking in seasoning and salt. So this year, I bought a raw lobe at the North Market Poulty and and Game stand, and made my own terrine.

Even with my mother at my side, I was pretty terrified to fool around with such expensive ingredients. Our raw foie gras cost over a hundred dollars, and I didn't want to be the one to ruin the cornerstone of our meal. But thanks to my mother's experience, and the clear instructions of the French recipe site 750 Grammes, our foie gras was as wonderful as we'd hoped, and it was surprisingly easy to make.


Foie Gras Terrine
Ingredients
1 pound of raw foie gras (duck or goose)
5 oz of salt
2 teaspoons of pepper
1/2 teaspoon of sugar
6 teaspoons of a sweet wine such as Sauternes

1. Submerge the lobes in room temperature water for an hour.
2. Remove the lobes, dry them, and place them on a cutting board. Separate them. Make three slits in each lobe and delicately remove the dark nerves. These will be very obvious as the bulk of the liver will be yellow, and the nerve will be dark and bloody. Remove as many of the veins as possible. Don't worry too much about cutting up the liver as it will melt back together while baking.
3. Place the cleaned livers in a terrine. Press down on them with the palm of your hand and cover with the salt, pepper, sugar, and wine. Put the terrine in the fridge to macerate for 12 hours.
4. Preheat oven to 300 degrees Fahrenheit.
5. Boil some water and pour water in a large shallow oven-safe dish.
6. Place the terrine in the simmering water (in a bain Marie), this will ensure even cooking. Place the terrine in the water dish in the oven and cook for 30 minutes. The foie will have shrunk down by 1/2 inch by then.
7. Remove from the water bath and let the foie cool at room temperature for 3 hours.
8. Weigh down the foie with a cardboard covered with foil topped with some cans to really push it down. Place it in the fridge for 24 hours to finish the process.
9. Your foie gras is now ready to eat with some toasted brioche or challah bread.
   

Christmas Day: the Joys of Jamma All Day

It's here. It's finally here.

Christmas Day. The finish line.

After all the running around, the list making, the shopping, the teacher gifting, the card writing, the cooking, the cleaning up, and the wrapping (til a bleary eyed 2:30AM), the sun rose on Christmas morning.

Well, to be truthful, the kids were up well before the sun rose, there's no need to get technical.

And as the kids danced around the beautiful tree, in a slow and glorious arc, like a giant tree falling in the forest, I plopped myself down on the couch. And I remained there for the rest of the day.

My work was done, and a long lazy pajama-all-day holiday was definitely in order.

I curled up on the couch with a pile of new books and a big box of See's Caramels and let go of all of that December stress in one long, blissful exhale.

Whether you celebrated Christmas today or just enjoyed a quiet day at home, I hope that you too had a chance to take that big long cleansing breath. And if you haven't yet, grab that spot on the couch. You deserve it.

The Gang's All Here

Tonight the fun really began. My family has been arriving in waves since last Thursday, culminating in my mother's arrival tonight after a long flight from France to Cincinnati. When families are splintered from divorce, it's impossible to ever say that the entire family is all together, but tonight felt that way. Tonight we felt complete because it was the first night in two years that my mother was under the same roof as her three daughters and all her grandchildren.

Just being able to wrap my arms around my sisters and my mom filled me with warmth. No phones. No Skyping. No email. No texting. No oceans or time zones separating us. It was a good feeling.

The kids were happy too. Our tradition is to wait until everyone has arrived to decorate our tree. It often sits for close to two weeks, a tall green unadorned tease. Finally tonight they let loose, running to my mom to hear her stories of the ornaments their mothers used to play with as children and then reverently placing them on the tree.

The gang is finally all here. Let the festivities begin.

More on that Naughty Elf

I didn't dare to believe in the power of the elf that other moms raved about.

Our elf has been busy since we first welcomed him into our home. After his nightly visits to the North Pole to report back to Santa on the kids' behavior, he's settled back in every corner of the house. The kids race around the house first thing every morning to see where he's chosen to hide out for the day. I wake up to peels of delight when they finally discover him. And as Steve and I are usually half-asleep when we move him, even I am somewhat surprised by where he turns up.

For the most part, he's been pretty mellow on the mischief category, but he has had his moments. The other morning I was shampooing my head when I spotted him high in the corner of my shower, the little peeping elf. I guess even an old mom like me is more action than he's seen up in the North Pole. The other night, he barricaded Bella in her room with a mountain of pillows. And then tonight, he took down all the candy canes the kids had hung up on the Christmas tree and made himself a little bouquet.

But to me, the most amazing piece of magic he's worked has been seeing all the jaded toughness melt away from Bella's face every time she recounts one of his exploits. For a few minutes she looks like an eight-year old should, bright eyed and full of wonder over the magic of Christmas.

Only three more nights for this little guy to shine... I have a feeling he's going to be kicking it up into high gear.

Tonight's Sunday Scribblings prompt is DARE. My little elf helper inspired me. See how others used the prompt.

Mexican Chocolate Yule Tide Log

I'm a butter lover. Look deep inside my fridge and you'll find nearly half a shelf devoted to butter in all shapes and sizes. There's European style butter, unsalted butter, and salted butter. There's store brand butter, local butter, and French fleur de sel butter. Each of these has a purpose, a place in my life, whether it's perfecting a piece of toast, creaming with sugar for chocolate chip cookies, or melting atop a sirloin steak. No doubt about it, I'm a butter girl, and proud of it.

So when the Challenge Dairy butter PR agency contacted me to complement me on my noodle kugel recipe and invite me to participate in holiday recipe contest using their butter, I was happy to sign on. They assigned me to the dessert category. A few weeks later, I received a nice refrigerated shipment of Challenge Dairy butter (European Style and regular unsalted), jars of Spice Islands Vanilla Extract, Cinnamon, and Nutmeg, and a few cooking utensils. And then I began brainstorming on the perfect holiday dessert recipe.

Challenge Dairy Butter is only available in the West right now, but they do have an amazing sweepstakes going on through December 31to win a trip for a family of four for 7 days and 6 nights at the Mountain Sky Guest Ranch just North of Yellowstone National State Park. Right about now a seven day vacation sounds pretty great, especially such a luxurious one worth $17,000!

In addition to being a butter lover, I'm also a master procrastinator. And so it wasn't until today, with just 10 days left to go until Christmas eve, that I got to work on my recipe. Every year, for our big Christmas eve feast, my sisters and I prepare some yule tide logs. But I didn't want to showcase just any old recipe for this challenge. I wanted something new, something a little different, something a little exotic. So I varied our traditional dessert a bit, and created this Mexican chocolate Yule Tide Log.

This is definitely an adult dessert, a symphony of dark chocolate and lightly sweetened mascarpone. The cake is a very light jelly roll (gateau roule), made light and fluffy by beaten egg whites and egg yolks. And the chocolate is a traditional ganache jazzed up with some cinnamon, vanilla and nutmeg. I added a little butter to increase its shine. To keep the chocolate from being too overpowering, I paired it with a layer of mascarpone. The cake looks elegant, and even though it is intensely chocolaty, it is also light, the perfect conclusion to a big meal.

Mexican Chocolate Yule Tide Log
Ingredients: For the Jelly Roll Cake
1/4 cups of sugar
5/8 cups of flour
1 1/2 TBSPs of butter
3 egg whites
4 egg yolks
1 extra TBSP of sugar
For the Fillings:
8 oz of semisweet chocolate
1 cup of heavy cream
1 TBSP of cinnamon
1 pinch of nutmeg
2 teaspoons of vanilla extract
one package of 8 3/4 oz of mascarpone
1/2 cups of sugar
To make jelly roll cake:

1. Preheat oven to 450 degrees Fahrenheit.
2. Melt the butter in microwave.
3. Beat the egg yolks and the sugar together at medium speed until creamy and pale yellow. At least 5 minutes. Stop the beaters and incorporate the flour with a spatula, mixing until just barely incorporated.
4. Beat the egg whites until stiff. About halfway through, throw in the extra tablespoon of sugar to help the egg whites hold their stiffness.
5. Simultaneously pour the egg whites and the butter on the egg yolk mixture. Mix it all together very delicately, to preserve as much of the air as possible while still incorporating everything.
6. Spread the batter in a large rectangle on a silpat or a sheet of wax paper atop a cookie sheet. You don't need your dough to be more than 1/2 inch thick.
7. Cook for 7 minutes, making sure you don't burn the cake.
8. Remove from oven and let cool to room temperature.

To make ganache and mascarpone fillings:

1. Chop up your chocolate into little chunks.
2. Bring the heavy cream to a boil in a medium saucepan.
   
3. Turn the heat off and pour in the chocolate, stirring until completely melted and gorgeous. Add in the butter, vanilla, cinnamon and nutmeg.
4. Divide the ganache in half. Place half in the fridge for 5 minutes to cool and stiffen. Keep the other half in the saucepan.
   
5. Pour the mascarpone and sugar into a bowl, beat for 2-3 minutes on medium speed.
6. Remove the chilled half from the fridge. Beat for 3 to 5 minutes to thicken.
   

To assemble yule tide log:

1. Carefully detach the jelly roll from the silpat or wax paper.
   
2. Spread the whipped chilled ganache over the entire surface.
3. Cover the ganache with the sweetened mascarpone.
4. Carefully roll the cake up and transfer to a serving platter.
5. Pour the ganache still in the saucepan on top as a shiny chocolate glaze.
6. Cake can be served immediately, or kept chilled overnight. The ganache will set over time, especially if kept in the fridge.
   

Oh Christmas Tree...

We had a vision about how things would go down. We would walk all in a row amidst the rows of towering pine trees, our feet softly crunching in the snow. Our breath would hang around our faces in soft white puffs. As we searched for the perfect tree, we would sing, our voices reaching towards the sky in unison. "Oh, Christmas tree, Oh Christmas tree..."

It was going to be a day we remembered forever, the beginning of a new family tradition: our trip to the cut your own Christmas tree farm.

Except it didn't exactly work out that way.

For starters, there was no snow on the ground, just a hard, frozen soil. The absence of the white stuff would have been fine, if it hadn't also been freezing, bone wrenching cold that makes me shiver all over again as I write from the warmth of my couch.

Then there was the bickering over the sleds. Who would pull them, who would be first, whose turn it was, who was the most annoying brother in the world, who was the meanest big sister, poop, butt, meanie, MOMMY! Kind of put a damper on the Christmas spirit.

Once the war of the sleds was settled, we marched off to cut down our tree. And we marched, and we marched, and we marched. But the majestic evergreen we had envisioned was nowhere to be found. Instead we only found many cousins of Charlie Brown's shriveled tree, sad little pines that inspired pity.


And so, after much searching, we piled back into the car, tree-less, with an unfulfilled vision. We found our perfect tree the next day at a nearby nursery. It required no sawing, no marching, and needed no sleds to be ferried back to the car.

But by the time we hefted it inside the house, wrestled it into its stand, and positioned it in the living room, exactly how we got it became irrelevant. The tree was there, filling our home with its delicious aroma of pine and presents.

Now I really need to get going on my shopping.

When It's Over... It's Over

I know it's a cliche, something I apparently have an unfortunate attraction to, but it all went by in such a blur!

One minute, it was THE BIG DAY:










And just a few days later, we were left only with this:


And now we're staring down the bleakness of January and February with only Valentine's Day to look forward to.

Happy Wordless Wednesday and Wordful Wednesday!

Christmas Eve 2008 - A Spectacular Flop

Chefdruck's Tasty Tuesday on Friday!

Every year, we start planning for Christmas dinner earlier. We used to start talking about it before Thanksgiving, but this year, we started after the back to school craze was over. It's our cooking Super Bowl, our foodie olympics, our glutton's masterpiece. Steve and I spend many nights discussing the sides and many emails go back and forth with my sisters as we finally settle on the menu. We squeeze in so many delicacies that inevitably at least one person throws up every year from the sheer richness of it all.

This year, we had it all planned out. We were going to space out the meal over the course of the evening to pace ourselves and keep everyone regurgitation-free. Here are the courses and our planned timing:

6:30 - Smoked Salmon Canapes and Oysters while the kids have their own banquet (kids' banquet: chicken nuggets and smiley face potatoes)
7:30 - 8:30 - Put kids to bed
8:45 - Foie Gras on toasted brioche
9:00 - Turducken, carrot pudding, roasted potatoes
9:30 - Cheese plate
10:00 - Two different types of chocolate Buches de Noel (Yule Tide Log)

The Buches de Noel are a big French tradition. They're cakes made out of chocolate or chestnut in the shape of a log. My sisters and I started making our Buches when we were teenagers and our mother was still making the bulk of our Christmas feast. This year was the most ambitious ever. We had three different types of buches: a kids' buche frosted with pink Pillsbury funfetti frosting, a fancy Concorde buche made out of meringue and chocolate mousse, and a traditional chocolate creme au beurre buche. This was the first year that Bella joined our crew of Buche baking.

We made Turducken last year and were excited to do a repeat performance. Turducken is a deboned chicken covered in stuffing then stuffed in a deboned duck which is also covered in stuffing and then stuffed in a deboned turkey. You slice the final product without needing to worry about bones and each slice has a little of each bird with some flavorful stuffing. The directions told us to plan for 2 hours of cooking so we put it in the oven at 6PM to give us a little breathing room.

We were actually more organized than in years past and even had a few minutes to relax before sitting down with the kids for their meal. I cooked the potatoes and as this is our night of extreme excess, butter is not decadent enough: duck or goose fat is the grease of choice. Once the potatoes were going strong, we had our oysters, our salmon, and tucked in to our foie gras. Then we pulled the Turducken out of the oven. We plunged the thermometer in for good measure - it didn't even register a temperature.

So we put it back in for another twenty minutes and poured ourselves a little wine. Then a little more wine... then we broke out the cards and we waited... and waited.... and waited. At 11:15, tired of waiting we finally tucked in to the sides and ate the edges of the Turducken. At that point we were so drunk that although we were starving, we were almost too uncoordinated to cut the meat.

We never made it to the cheese or the buches.

Last night, we finally had the damn Turducken. And it wasn't even that good. The stuffing was bland, there was too little turkey, and it was definitely not worth the wait. But the rest of the meal was even better the second time around: more potatoes with more duck fat, more carrot pudding, cheese, and lots and lots of chocolate buches de noel!

The planning for next year has now begun. One thing is for certain, there will be no Turducken on the menu.

Santa Overdose

I don't know how long the kids can keep up their feverish excitement. You would think that Christmas day is tomorrow instead of a week away. The stockings and the tree are up, although it has no decorations yet. Even our gingerbread houses are done. Although I'm nowhere ready from a shopping or a holiday card standpoint, I can't wait to put all of these Santa encounters behind us. We're on Santa overload and Bella is beginning to get a little suspicious about the whole thing, especially when there are multiple Santas on a corner. How do you handle all the mall Santas and the Salvation Army Santas?

This Santa at the tree lot was a big hit though.

Happy Wordful Wednesday! Also check out Way Back Wednesday for some creative Wednesday photo posts.

Ghosts of Christmas Past

It's Wednesday in the blogosphere which means that it's Wordless Wednesday, but I've recently discovered that it's also Way Back Wednesday, and also... Wordful Wednesday. So, here goes!

I've been musing about college lately, but as I'm too lazy to figure out how to get my scanner working, I'll have to save that until next week. Instead I'm limited to the archives at Shutterfly which coincidentally begin when Bella was born.

Contrary to popular belief, seven years do not feel like yesterday. So much has happened since that first Christmas as parents in our little New York apartment. First we filled our living space to maximum capacity with every toy imaginable, then we moved out to New Jersey, and gave Bella her siblings. Surprisingly, or maybe not so surprisingly, we managed to fill out New Jersey house to maximum capacity with even more toys. And now she's beginning to outgrow toys! Pretty soon her list will be full of Uggs and Abercrombie.

Santa Gets Crafty

A few years ago, Bella's Santa list was short. Extremely short. All she wanted was the Princess and the Pauper Erica Barbie. Simple you say, just pop down to Toys R Us, dish out $20 and check that item off the list. But have you ever noticed how quickly Mattel cycles through those Barbie themes? Princess and the Pauper was sooooo last year - I couldn't find that Barbie anywhere.

I searched high and low for that Barbie. First I went to all the Toys R Us stores in the area, then I branched out to Kmart, Target, and even KB Toys. Not an Erica in sight. So I turned to Ebay and discovered an interesting phenomenon. Erica was actually part of a set - she was the pauper while Annaliese, a blond Barbie, was the princess. In a strange once in a lifetime Murphy's law kind of way, it turned out that the blond Barbie was less coveted than the brunette Erica. Dozens of Annaliese's were on auction and were going for $20. The Erica's were few and far between, and bids were over $120.

I tested the depths of Bella's desire by floating some comments about Santa making new different Barbies, but Bella could not be swayed. She wanted beautiful singing Erica who had hair just like her. But I couldn't justify spending over $100 on a Barbie. If she gave really good stock picks instead of just singing I could have swallowed the price tag, but the sexy hedge fund manager Barbie was not what Bella coveted.

In order to live with myself on Christmas morning, but not crush Bella's faith in Santa, I came up with a compromise. I bought a "gently-used" Erica doll for $30 on Ebay. Her hair was still glorious and shiny and she even had both shoes. I made a beautiful pink box filled with pink and silver tissue paper and placed her under the tree. I included a personal note from Santa explaining that he had looked long and hard to find the last Erica doll in the North Pole which is why she had a very special box. The whole subterfuge went down without a hitch. Bella's eyes lit up when she read the note and she was thrilled to finally have her Erica doll. I beamed with pride when she bragged to her little friends a few days later about the special box and note from Santa.

Parent Bloggers Network is having another blog blast - with a crazy Christmas in July prize to be won - courtesy of Hasbro for their Hasbro Toy Event.