The snacky foods for our Christmas tree decorating gathering . . .

. . . all from what we had on hand.

It's a family tradition for us all to spend one evening together in December to put up our Christmas tree and other holiday decor in the house, and have a snacky sort of dinner, together. I don't make special purchases at the store, but instead I use whatever I find in our pantry, fridge and freezer. Even though I don't buy a lot of snack foods, routinely, it's always surprising how much of a meal I can throw together with what I have already.

This year, we had tomato and cheese cube kabobs (leftovers given to us after working at a fundraiser), smoked salmon spread (salmon from the freezer, a gift over a year ago), candy canes (bought last year at Dollar Tree), tortilla chips and salsa, smoked almonds, some cheese and onion pastries (son's girlfriend brought those), dried cranberries, veggies and dip, nut bar cookies and brownie cookies (leftovers given to us after working at the fundraiser), and orange segments. We had cola, which I was a "Friday freebie" a while ago at Fred Meyer, and hidden in the pantry until now.

The dinner was affordable, fun, festive and very easy on the cook! My kind of holiday cooking.

Hand-drawn gift tags, by my daughter

You can buy a package of gift tags at the store, or . . .

and

My daughter drew these for two gifts, that she was giving to a couple of young girls who helped their mother, at the fundraiser luncheon, where we worked on Saturday.

I thought these were beautiful in their simplicity, and wanted to share, in case you needed gift tags this week, but wanted something more decorative than a plain piece of paper, without rushing out to the store. The snowflake, line and color design is simple enough to follow, or improvise your own snowflake. Black ink pen, colored pencils or pens, and heavy-weight paper, like card stock or drawing/watercolor paper.

Have a great day! Be back tomorrow.