Homemade Christmas Goodies

I am writing this post in honor of my fabulous, crafty friends.

I have these three friends, and we call ourselves the PREPs.

Here we are in September 2009, with the first PREP baby {the second baby has since arrived, and the third will be here soon…!!}.

The name “PREP” goes back to the first year I worked at Camp Nawakwa, and the first summer we all worked together and became friends. We were young and definitely preppier than anyone else who worked there, and so we bought four matching A&F shirts emblazoned with the word PREP. And we wore those shirts once a week, on a designated day. Yup. We…were probably pretty silly. But regardless, we became the PREP girls.

Things certainly have changed since that first summer almost 10 years ago (i.e. we can’t fit into those shirts anymore. Also, wow. 10 years.), but we remain the PREP girls. And every year around Christmas, we get together for an annual dinner. We all bring a different part of the meal and we have a little gift exchange. The past few years, as babies, families, and lives have taken over, we haven’t done a gift exchange, and we kind of agreed to the same this year.

However. I got some amazing, lovely, gorgeous homemade goodies this year. Meredith and her husband Paul did an impressive amount of canning for some beautiful and delicious treats:

Blueberry syrup? I can’t wait to have this on pancakes, oatmeal, and ice cream. Also, she reused (sanitized) beer bottles, and apparently you can just pop on new bottle caps!

Apple butter, preserved lemons, and hot sauce. How adorable (and yummy) – I love those little canning jars.

Roasted Red Pepper spread – we sampled this at the PREP Christmas dinner, and it was delicious!

Oranges Confit…not sure how to eat these, but I’m intrigued. They’re also just so pretty!

It didn’t end there… Kelly P. made this amazing looking lavender sea salt scrub – perfect for dry winter skin! I can’t wait to try it out!

And of course, there is arguably the most homemade of homemade gifts – Kelly M.’s brand new baby, Charlie. Unfortunately I don’t have any photos of him, but he’s so precious. All in all, it was a great Christmas.