My December dilemmas!

December is difficult. Have to admit. Not that I want to eat gingerbread cookies, or bake them for that matter. Neither am I very keen on all those kilometer long aisles of chocolate. I walk by, stop to see if any of the boxes have more than 70% chocolate and then continue walking. They never do. Have enough chocolate, I mean. I laugh for myself when I think of my chocolate frenzy two years ago as I was getting more and more anxious of having my second child! A box of chocolate was just never enough then... Heh, now one piece of 70% can be more than enough. How my body (or maybe mind) has changed!!!

So what is the difficult part? Well all these expectations. My own and those that (I expect) others to have (particularly the children). For example I want to celebrate a nice traditional Christmas, because I love the spirit! But traditions for me means gingerbread cookies, rice porridge with plum soup, glögg (sweet nordic warm drink) and then; the chocolate. All kind of foods that I do not enjoy eating anymore, either because I do not like the taste of it, or because it makes me feel bad afterwards. But of course, although I do not enjoy these, doesn't mean that the rest of the family should be denied the treats...there we go, the problem of what others expect...So far I have tried inventing new recipes, borrowing some from the low carbers to be able to "eat the cake and still have it". Its time consuming, time that I do not really have before Christmas is almost over. December is, difficult.

Christmas for me, also means a lot of lights, electric and candle, and above all planning and shopping gifts. This for me is maybe the greatest challenge of all, because when I left the sugar I also stopped and thought about the meaning of shopping more useless stuff in our overcroaded home. Remember, the story of stuff (http://www.storyofstuff.org/)? So if I don't want anymore stuff, why would I like to punish others with more stuff? Or wait, maybe others do still enjoy the spirit of giving and receiving. Or wait, maybe I also enjoy it, just as long as it is stuff that both the giver and the receiver truly enjoy! But to figure that out, I need to put down a lot of efforts to the Christmas shopping. Especially to the children, since I am completely aware of that its me (and hubby) who will be trying to organize the toy mess every evening before bedtime, also after Santa's visit. Once again, December is difficult. And I am just bearly hanging in there.

Anyway, if anyone out there that think they want to buy me a gift for Christmas because they ENJOY buying a gift for me (please not, I do not expect a gift from anyone, I am just as happy without!), then I'll give some hints on what I would truly ENJOY:

1. Theater tickets to Kristina från Dufvemåla accompanied with a babysitter
2. Lekue steam case, so that I can stop buying those plastic bags for oven baked fish!
3. The followup book to the Danish healthy family living: Kärnfrisk mat

 There, that said. Now I can only concentrate on all those other things.

Regarding the food, this is how far I have come....

Today I made chocolate based on coconut oil, cacao powder, coco nut flour and some agave  (might as well use it while its there) and spiced with peppermint. Quite decent taste. Kids liked them.

I also made gingerbread muffins based on almonds (2.5 dl), coconut flour (1 dl), 2.5 bananas, 1 apple, baking powder, agave and gingerbread spices (I do not know the name of them all in English, too lazy to look them up right now). They were quite tasty, have to say. Maybe good substitute to the cookies, at least in house. When we go out the rest of the family can still enjoy the cookies of others.

Thinking I might fulfill my daughters cookie baking expectations by buying gluten free ready made dough....It was sold out in the green big grocery store yesterday. I wonder why...  Gluten free is not best choice, best choice would be to do the cookies that Anna Hallen recommended on her facebook page, both low carb and wise choice... but I do not know if I have enough energy to make it from scratch... always a balance between wise choice and easy choice...if wise choice turns out too complicated then I might as well be human and go with easy choice. The whole point of this excercise is to live a simple life. Better remember that this month more than ever!