Making anything festive is easy. With home ingredients such as sleigh bells and cinnamon anything can be turned into a Christmas something. Take for example a chest of doors: simply tie red bows on the handles and it becomes a "Christmas Chest." (Note that when an object becomes a Christmas (Blank) it must be instantly transformed into a Proper Noun.)
Remember to keep things simple and stick with Red and Green. They are Christmas Colors for some reason.
For Food: Pumpkin or Cinnamon are the most common ingredients for anything dessert-like. Consider coffee--normally the coffee with sugar and cream is a non-seasonal delight, but froth up the milk a little bit and throw some cinnamon on top (pumpkin spice powder for extra points) and wala! It's Christmas Coffee.
IMPORTANT NOTE: Nutmeg, Pumpkin Spice, pine nuts, nuts, berries, (ginger only in gingerbread cookies), brown sugar, molasses, cloves, vanilla, all function as Christmas ingredients.
CAUTION: Do not add ingredients to ANY foods in the name of Christmas. Ingredients must be strategically placed.
For Music: Add sleigh bells to any song, and it will become a Christmas Carol. Start with Lady Gaga's "Bad Romance." If you have sleigh bells, chime them to the music and you'll be surprised how this sinful melody becomes an instant Christmas classic.
Also, adding boy choirs to the ensemble is an extra bonus.
IMPORTANT NOTE: Nutmeg, Pumpkin Spice, pine nuts, nuts, berries, (ginger only in gingerbread cookies), brown sugar, molasses, cloves, vanilla, all function as Christmas ingredients.
CAUTION: Do not add ingredients to ANY foods in the name of Christmas. Ingredients must be strategically placed.
For Music: Add sleigh bells to any song, and it will become a Christmas Carol. Start with Lady Gaga's "Bad Romance." If you have sleigh bells, chime them to the music and you'll be surprised how this sinful melody becomes an instant Christmas classic.
Also, adding boy choirs to the ensemble is an extra bonus.
The funny thing about berries. For some reason berries signify Christmas. I'm sure I could do tons of research to try and understand why berries mean Christmas or why mistletoe means Christmas, but I choose to remain ignorant on this subject for the sake of my blog. If you're super curious, some links: here and here. But for whatever reason a table with a red tablecloth infested with images of poinsettas looks even more festive with a centerpiece of berries of some sort. You never eat the berries of course, they're usually fake. But they are Christmassy for some reason. I recently decorated an entire glass case full of fake berries and Christmas lights at the Tea Shop I work at. All of the tea pots and cups were perfectly ordinary--that is they were very nice on their own and had no seasonal signifiers until the berries brought out their inner bowl full of jelly.
Hispanic Foods: Tamales, red chile, posole. Red chile is used because by this time it was seasonally ripe. Back in the day, they didn't have freezers to keep green chile nice and fresh, so the tradition of red has kept. It's appropriate that the colors of Chile match the colors of Christmas.
Other American Foods: Turkey. that's all. Turkey is perfect for Thanksgiving and Christmas for some reason. It's seasonal because________.
