Holiday scenes from our house; plus links!

Ahh! It’s finally, officially winter break, and our house is abuzz with excitement and secrets and wrapping paper and good food. Here are a few scenes from the last week (click the slides under the large photo to see more):

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Links below the jump!

I’ve been busy writing and reading lots of holiday-related posts elsewhere, too. Check out this selection of posts from myself and other bloggers:

At my Babble Voices blog, At Home with the Happiest Mom:

• Santa’s Favorite Shortbread with Chocolate Glaze – if you’re hankering for a grown-up cookie that’s rich, buttery, dense, and easy to make, click over posthaste.
• Local and lovely: 5 indie gifts that are making my holiday brighter A little photo slideshow of some awesome local and handmade gifts I gave and received this year.
• Why I let my teens hijack the Christmas cookies It was supposed to be an adorable toddler photo-op; it morphed into a teenage experiment…but that’s OK with me.
• There are a lot of fun holiday posts from the many talented writers at Babble Voices. Check ’em out!

At Citrus Lane:

• Dealing (tactfully!) with unwanted gifts How can you politely and graciously let friends and family know that you’re trying to cut back on ‘stuff” or would rather not fill your house with loud, battery-operated toys?
• Latke Party! Yummy latke recipe for a Hanukkah gathering from Marcella of Citrus Lane.

At 4KidsorMore:

• Christmas Morning! What’s for breakfast? – from Molly at MommyCoddle. Molly shares that she’s the “mean mom” who makes her kids eat breakfast before opening gifts. While I’m the mom who lets my kids attack the gifts and stocking contents first, I do like to have a yummy breakfast cooking while we do gifts, so I loved all the recipe links in this post!
• Do your kids give each other holiday gifts? – My post explaining how we handle sibling gifts in our large family. If you have more than one child, do they give one another gifts?

That’s it for this week – I’m off to celebrate Christmas! I hope you have a very, very happy, peaceful, cozy, magical and family-filled holiday.

Other helpful posts like this:

Scenes from our holiday… Holidays, The Easy Way: your guide to a less stressful December 5 Ways To Organize Your Holiday Gift Lists (Plus A Free Download!) A Holiday Kitchen Hour!