During the 12 days until Christmas break, the King Street Chronicle again presents staff favorites from the holiday season. This eleventh edition will not include eleven pipers piping, but beloved Christmas songs, memories, recipes, movies, and crafts.
Song: “Hard Candy Christmas” performed by Ms. Dolly Parton.
Recipe: Poinsettia Pinwheel Cookies
Total Time: Four hours and 30 minutes
Quantity: 18 cookies
Ingredients:
Steps:
- Beat the cream cheese, butter and granulated sugar in a large bowl with an electric mixer on medium-high speed until light and fluffy (about two minutes), scraping down the bowl with a rubber spatula as needed.
- Reduce the mixer speed to low and beat in the flour and salt until combined. Divide the dough between two large pieces of plastic wrap. Flatten each into a one-half inch-thick disk and wrap. Refrigerate until firm (at least one hour and up to overnight).
- Preheat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Line two baking sheets with parchment.
- Roll out one disk of dough on a lightly floured surface until about one-eighth inch thick, dusting with more flour as needed.
- Cut out three inch squares using a sharp paring knife or a three inch square cutter. Lift the cutouts using an offset spatula and arrange two inches apart on one of the prepared baking sheets. Re-wrap and refrigerate the dough scraps while shaping the pinwheels.
- Cut a one and one-half inch slit in all four corners of each dough square to form eight points. Fold over every other point and press into the center of the square. Refrigerate to make the leaves.
- Cut enough leaves out of the scraps using a sharp paring knife or a leaf-shaped cutter, making two leaves for each pinwheel. Arrange the leaves on the other prepared baking sheet. Lightly brush with water and sprinkle with green sanding sugar. Set aside in the refrigerator.
- Lightly brush the pinwheels with water and sprinkle half with red sanding sugar and half with white sanding sugar. Brush the end of two leaves and tuck underneath a pinwheel on opposite sides.
- Bake, rotating the baking sheet halfway through, until the cookies are puffy and the edges are golden (about 20 to 25 minutes). Immediately press a chocolate candy in the center of each warm cookie. Let cool five minutes, then transfer the cookies to a wire rack to cool completely.
- Repeat with the remaining disk of dough, and any remaining scraps, to make more cookies.
Movie: Surviving Christmas
“A lonely, obnoxious young millionaire pays a family to spend Christmas with him,” courtesy of imdb.com
Activity: Homemade crackers
Supplies:
- Leftover thick wrapping paper
- Empty toilet rolls
- Scissors
- Glue stick
- Cracker snapper strip
- Sticky tape
- String or ribbon
- Small gifts or sweets (to fill)
Instructions:
- Cut out a 30 x 20 centimeters rectangle of wrapping paper. Flip the paper over. Place a toilet roll, vertically, midway down one end. Mark the paper at either end of the toilet roll, then set the toilet roll aside and fold the paper in at the marks. Snip into the folds using scissors.
- Unfold the paper and stick the toilet roll in its original position with glue. Fold in the ends to just beneath snipped parts. Put a cracker snapper strip through the toilet roll and trim. Attach each end to the paper using sticky tape.
- Roll the paper around the toilet roll and stick it in place with glue. Scrunch the paper around one end of the roll, careful not to tear the cuts, then secure with string or ribbon.
- Add in the sweets, or other treats, through the open end of the cracker, then secure that end with more string or ribbon.
Memory: Catherine Ononye ’27
“Each year my family and I go to see a Christmas production, such as A Christmas Story. When we lived in England, we would visit the West End, but now we live in the United States, we visit Broadway.”
Featured Image by Gianna Rodrigues ’27
