Christmas in the Kitchen Blog Tour

Welcome to my Christmas Kitchen!

Actually, this post is about the Christmas Kitchen of my dreams :) Today I'm joining a group of Bloggers for a Christmas in the Kitchen tour (good morning, Kelly, Tessa and Jill!). The only slight problem is that my kitchen is made of studs and subfloor right now, so I'm sharing my favorite dreamy, warm and cozy Christmas Kitchens in the form of inspiration photos, and a couple from our old house at the end, for old times sake.

I have been able to live vicariously though all of you with all of the Christmas decorating and Holiday baking goodies in my store, but I'm still dreaming of being in my own cozy Christmas kitchen this morning, so compiling these photos has helped me pretend a little - I hope you enjoy it, too. Welcome new visitors and old friends!

Isn't this door great? I am picking out the millwork around our front door today, and this is the photo I'm sending our contractor. We don't have the ceiling height for the transom above, but everything else we can manage. We are painting the house a creamy, tone on tone off-white (Navajo White) and will also have a black door and brass hardware. Feels good to find exactly what I'm looking for in the form of an inspiration photo!

The good news is that the house is moving right along - it has been a big week. We got our windows - and a roof! Oh how I've been waiting for this day! I'm really in love with the back of the house... which just started as a sketch on my computer, so I'm glad it went together even better than I had hoped. We went with Andersen Windows and I couldn't be more pleased.

Here is the front - much like it was before, but with a two car garage added onto the side. There is also a huge mudroom that runs along the back of the garage that I've been dreaming about. If you're just a visitor, you can read more about the plans for our addition, here. We still have 3+ months to go, but now we're in the middle of picking out fun finishes and fixtures - much more fun than mud and concrete.

Ok, here we go. Please come right through my mudroom into my kitchen. Tessa (Nine & Sixteen) this reminds me of your garland decked door in your kitchen. Love it as a spot for the Christmas cards.

There are many things I love about this kitchen - mostly its clean, classic and simple style. The addition of the antique table and chairs is right up my alley, as well as the paperwhites on the window sill - a must in my Christmas Kitchen.

While our kitchen will be drastically different than this, I just love it. It is casual, farmy and clean and modern. I hope to at least incorporate some of this feel in our kitchen. And, of course I love the brass fixtures, and the potted amaryllis. Isn't that island amazing?

I'm such a fool for warm and cozy, especially at Christmas. When I dream about a kitchen at Christmas, I always dream about a snuggly Christmas brunch. At our house when we were young, that was the main event. It was always the fanciest meal we had at home all year - Christmas china, linens, the works, all enjoyed in our PJs. The menu was almost the same every year, but the star of the show was Monkey Bread, recipe later in the post.

Aren't the touches of red so festive, but definitely livable for all year.

Remember the mudroom I was talking about? Would love a dutch door like this at the transition. With a wreath, of course.

Garland and potted paper whites get me every time. We don't have a staircase in our kitchen, but I would have one in my dream kitchen. Maybe next time you stop by, I'll be taking you on a tour of our upstairs... maybe an Easter home tour!

Now for a flashback to our house last year :

Ahhh, it feels good to be home again!

Here is our Christmas brunch table from last year.

Monkey Bread has been a Christmas brunch tradition of ours since, well... my entire life. On Christmas Eve, we would come home from Granny's house and make the Monkey Bread for the next morning (as you'll see from the instructions, it only takes minutes to make). Waking up on Christmas morning to the smell of yeast bread rising is such a good memory. Even now as 30-year-old+ adults, Monkey Bread is still a Christmas tradition.

My Mom made Monkey Bread from frozen Rhodes Dinner Rolls. She rolled them in butter, cinnamon and sugar, put them in a bundt pan and let them thaw and rise over night. When we woke up in the morning it went into the oven for 30 minutes. The gooey, warm rolls were too much to resist... we were licking cinnamon and sugar off of our fingers before we were done opening presents! They are our annual Pre-Christmas morning Brunch snack... an appetizer.

I carry the Disposable Bundt Pans in my store (6 for $12 today!) that make a great treat for friends and neighbors as a gift.

Monkey Bread
a christmas morning tradition

1 package of frozen uncooked yeast rolls (Rhodes brand)
1 stick of butter, melted
1 cup of brown sugar
2 tablespoons of cinnamon

Spray a bundt pan (you can buy my disposable kraft paper bundt pans, here) with non-stick spray. Melt the butter in the microwave. In a separate bowl, combine the brown sugar and cinnamon. Roll the frozen rolls in the butter, then in the sugar mixture. Place all of the coated rolls in the bundt pan. Place a piece of plastic sprayed with non-stick over the pan of rolls and place it in a warm spot over night to rise.

Rolls should have doubled in size in the morning. Bake them at 350 degrees for 25-30 minutes until golden brown.

Hey there, Chippy!

And, our tiny kitchen. I'm so glad I'm in my Mother-in-Laws beautiful big kitchen this morning... I really don't miss this tiny kitchen, but I do miss those paperwhites!

That little tiny kitchen produced a lot of goodies - a tiny, but efficient space. Here it is decked out with my favorite baking tools from my store - wooden baking baskets, copper cookie cutters, cookie boxes, festive tags and ribbons.