_ Dry apple and orange slices.  String one of each together and tie on a cinnamon stick. Use thin red or green ribbon to attach the ornaments to your tree.  This rustic decoration has the added bonus of a lovely and long lasting fragrance to spice up your Christmas kitchen décor throughout the holidays.
Tiecolorful tea bags in assorted flavors to your kitchen tree.  You can add doll size tea cups and teapots if you want your tree to have an all tea party theme.  This is a favorite for little girls.
Stringing dried cranberries alternating every other one with dried golden raisins makes a colorful and sweet smelling garland.
Purchase tiny baskets and a hot glue gun from your local craft store.  Take your favorite small wrapped candies and glue together in the baskets to make a colorful arrangement.  Use gold or silver string or ribbon to attach the cute candy baskets to your kitchen tree.
When you makeyour family’s favorite Christmas cookies, make a few extras.  Let them sit out overnight to harden.  Use a paring knife to carve a small hole near the top of each one.  Brush the front of the cookies with varnish.  Let dry.  Turn cookies over and brush the other side with varnish.  When completely dry, string with Christmas ribbon and tie to your tree to create a kitchen Christmas tree with a unique family feel.
Buy clear plastic or glass ornament balls.  Fill with your favorite colorful food items such as candies, seeds or trailmix.  Try the local pet supply store to find colorful birdseed for exotic birds.  Attach to your tree with green Christmas tree hooks and enjoy!
Home made or store bought candy canes and lollipops are easy options for your kitchen tree.  Be creative with ribbon to tie the candies to your tree.  Use different ribbons that compliment each different candy.  Small children adore creative candy ornaments.
Choose small tangerines at your neighborhood fresh market to make friendly face ornaments.  Glue other fresh vegetables to your tangerines, such as water chestnuts and raisins for eyes, the pointed end of a carrot for a nose, broccoli florets for hair, whole cashews for ears, licorice for smiles, or come up with your own ideas for your tangerine buddy’s face.  Use an ice pick to puncture two holes near the top of the tangerine and string a thin ribbon through.  Let your children hang them on the kitchen tree and enjoy their giggles.
A quick and easy Christmas tree decoration can be a hiking adventure as well.  Go to a local park, hiking trail or even your backyard – any place with pine trees.  Let your children collect well-shaped pine cones and bring them home.  Decorate with craft paint or glitter.  After the decorated pine cones dry, place them in your tree.  They do not even require ribbons or hooks for hanging since pine cones are at home in all evergreen trees. 
Roll out sugar cookie dough and cut in the shapes of your choice.  Place lots of multi-colored life saver candies in a freezer bag.  Crush the life savers with a rolling pin.  Arrange the crushed candies on the cookie dough.  Discover your inner artist and create colorful mosaics with your candies.  Bake and let cool and harden overnight.  Use a paring knife to make a hole near the top of each ornament.  String with a ribbon and hang on your kitchen tree.  Place the tree near a window to maximize the stained glass effect of your beautiful ornaments.   
Hot glue green life savers in a circle to make a small wreath.  Hot glue red hots to the life savers to make berries.  Hang your candy wreaths on your tree with gold or silver ribbons.  Relax with a cup of steaming hot chocolate and enjoy your candy Christmas tree. 

The most important part of creating your kitchen Christmas tree is the shared family experience of love and laughter – the heart and soul of Christmas!

 
_  Tuka?

Christopher Columbus thought that the land he discovered was connected to India, where peacocks are found in considerable number. He believed turkeys he saw in the New World were a type of peacock, although they are actually in the pheasant family. So Columbus named the newly discovered birds “tuka”, which is "peacock" in the Tamil language of India.  They later came to be known as turkeys.

Turducken

Turducken, which originated in Louisiana, is a turkey stuffed with a duck stuffed with a chicken, and is becoming more popular in Thanksgiving Day dish. A turducken is a de-boned turkey stuffed with a de-boned duck, which itself is stuffed with a small de-boned chicken. The cavity of the chicken and the rest of the gaps are filled with a highly stuffing mixture. 

Cornucopia

The traditional cornucopia was a curved goat's horn filled to brim with fruits and grains. According to Greek legend, Amalthea, a goat, broke one of her horns and offered it to Greek God Zeus as a sign of reverence.  To show his gratitude, Zeus later set the goat's image in the sky also known as constellation Capricorn.  Cornucopia, also known as the “horn of plenty,” is the most common symbol of a harvest festival.  A horn shaped container, it is filled with an abundance of the Earth's harvest.

What are you thankful for this Thanksgiving?

 
_ In the United States, 280 million turkeys are sold each year for Thanksgiving celebrations totaling 690 pounds. The average American eats 16-18 pounds of turkey every year.  Live turkeys can run up to 20 mph – not fast enough! Californians are the largest consumers of turkey in the United States.  The largest turkey ever raised weighed 86 pounds and was about the size of a large dog.  A mature turkey has about 3,500 feathers.  Only the male turkeys gobble.  Female turkeys cluck.  Turkey has more protein than chicken or beef.  Statistics show that 91% of Americans consume turkey on Thanksgiving Day.  Astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin ate the first Thanksgiving meal on the moon in 1969.  Their freeze dried food packets contained roasted turkey. Although Thanksgiving originated as an American holiday, it is celebrated in Canada on the second Monday in October.  The Friday after Thanksgiving, known as Black Friday, is the traditional beginning of the American Christmas shopping season.

 

What are your family’s unique Thanksgiving traditions?

 
_  Benjamin Franklin actually wanted the Turkey to be the national bird of the United States of America, but his idea never caught on.  Sara J. Hale, an American magazine editor and author of the children’s nursery rhyme, “Mary Had a Little Lamb,” persuaded President Abraham Lincoln to make Thanksgiving a national holiday.  President Lincoln went on to issue a Thanksgiving Proclamation on October 3, 1863 that set aside the last Thursday of November as a National Day of Thanksgiving.  In 1939 President Franklin Roosevelt moved Thanksgiving from November 30 to November 23 in an effort to spur economic growth and extend the Christmas shopping season.  Congress finally passed a law on December 26, 1941 making Thanksgiving a national holiday to be celebrated the fourth Thursday of November each year.  Since 1947, the National Turkey Federation has presented a live Turkey and two dressed turkeys to the President of the United States.  The President does not eat the live turkey but “pardons” it, and the turkey lives out the rest of its days on an historical farm.

 

What is your most treasured Thanksgiving memory?

 
_ The Wampanoag Indians were the tribe that taught the Pilgrims how to cultivate the land in the new world.  The Pilgrims’ leader, Governor William Bradford, organized the first Thanksgiving feast in 1621 and invited the neighboring Wampanoag Indians to join in the festivities.  That first Thanksgiving lasted three days! The Pilgrims did not have forks.  They used spoons, knives and their fingers.  Historians researching the first Thanksgiving feast found that the menu included:  Lobster, rabbit, chicken, fish, squashes, beans, chestnuts, hickory nuts, onions, leeks, dried fruits, radishes, carrots, cabbage, eggs, goat cheese, maple syrup and honey.  At the first Thanksgiving there were NO mashed potatoes, pumpkin pie, corn on the cob, cranberries or popcorn.

 

What are your favorite Thanksgiving Day foods?

 
  Broccoli…

*Contains twice the Vitamin C of an orange
*Has almost as much calcium as whole milk and the calcium is better absorbed
*Contains selenium, a mineral that has been found to have anti-cancer and anti-viral properties
*Is a source of Vitamin A and alpha-tocopherol Vitamin E
*Has incredible antioxidant properties and boosts the immune system
*Good for pregnancy as it is filled with folic acid

Try these Mouth-Watering Broccoli Muffins:

Ingredients –

1 ¾ cup flour
1 cup oatmeal
¼ cup sugar
2 tsp baking powder
¼ tsp salt
1 cup 2% milk
1/3 cup canola oil
1 lightly beaten egg
1 cup fresh chopped broccoli
½ cup shredded cheddar cheese

Preheat oven to 400
Line 12 muffin tins with decorative papers
Spray with non-stick cooking spray

Directions –

Mix together: flour, oatmeal, sugar, baking powder and salt
In a separate bowl mix milk, oil and egg
Add to dry ingredients.  Stir just to moisten.
Fold in broccoli and cheese
Spoon into lined muffin tins
Bake 18-20 minutes or until top springs back when lightly touched

Makes 1 dozen delicious muffins

Eat, enjoy and be healthy!



 
Dried cranberries add a unique flavor to Mookies and other sweet recipes because of their tart flavor.  Sprinkle them with sugar before adding to your recipe if you wish to cut back on their tartness.  They work especially well with oatmeal, pecans and walnuts.  Dried cranberries are very low in saturated fat, cholesterol and sodium, but loaded with natural sugar.  In recipes where raisins are typically used, replace them with dried cranberries for a new twist.  Dried cranberries can be stored up to three months in an airtight container.  Try them in salads with raw broccoli for a Christmassy look and in trail mix for an energy boost.

Cranberries have a fascinating history.  Early European settlers in America named this plant and fruit the “craneberry” because the flower, stem and petals resembled the neck, head and bill of a crane.  Cranberries are considered a “superfruit” because of their high nutrient content and antioxidant qualities.

Native Americans were the first to use cranberries as food as well as for dye and wound medicine.  They called the versatile fruit “Sassamanash”.  There are written accounts of Native Americans meeting Pilgrims on the shores of Massachusetts bearing bark cups filled with fresh cranberries. 

Settlers in the 1600s referred to the fruit as bearberries because bears seemed to enjoy eating them.  Early Americans used the juice from the fruit to dye clothing and sent barrels of cranberries back to England as gifts.  By the time the Founding Fathers were formulating our Constitution, cranberries had become a dinner staple served most often to compliment turkey.  Whether eaten dried in Mookies, salads and snacks or fresh in pies and juices, cranberries are simultaneously sweet and tart and filled with healthy goodness!