Holidays – Page 5 – Pollywog's Place Blog

Special Holiday Meals: January Edition

Published on December 27, 2025January 16, 2026 by Susie @ Pollywog's Place Blog4 Comments

This time of year seems to be a little busier for us, so I thought it might be helpful if I just got all my special meals and recipes gathered for the month. I checked the menu plan and have made a list of the holidays that we want to celebrate.

If you haven’t seen our Perpetual Meal Plans yet, then you really need to check them out, as they have all kinds of special and unique holidays listed. Now is the time to start making your bucket list for Fall things, if you haven’t already.

Special Winter Meals with Recipe Links

You can also check out our Holidays tab and the January Holidays post for even more ideas!

Don’t forget to add upcoming birthdays onto your Meal Plan!

Here are a couple of links that you might find helpful:

Grocery List

Blank Meal Planner

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St. Nicholas Day 2025

Published on December 10, 2025December 20, 2025 by Susie @ Pollywog's Place Blog3 Comments

Whew! This year is flying by at warp speed! I completely forgot to update you all about our St. Nicholas Day this year, but I did post a video on YouTube that I will post below.

We let the kids make their own Santa Pancakes with fresh fruit and whipped cream… yummy! We also had a few things in their stockings, as well as a few little candies. We read the book, ‘Saint Nicholas: The Real Story of the Christmas Legend.’ I will link it below.

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Christmas Breads with Baking Timeline

Published on December 10, 2025December 10, 2025 by Susie @ Pollywog's Place Blog5 Comments

This has been one of our favorite Holiday Recipes for the past couple of years, and everyone looks forward to getting these as gifts. The cover photo is from last year, when we used Rosella Jam for the filling!

The recipe and instructions are very long and a little time-consuming, but you could also buy the premade crescent dough and use that in place of the sourdough. You would just use the filling of your choice, a glaze or icing, and then bake about 15-20 minutes or until golden brown.

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Easy Rosella Sauce

Published on December 10, 2025December 10, 2025 by Susie @ Pollywog's Place Blog3 Comments

We love Rosella here… it is known as the Florida Cranberry, and I love Cranberries, so this was a must for our garden. Rosella is a very pretty plant, and we use the leaves in some recipes, like Butternut Squash Medley, as well. We have been trying to use as many plants as we can from the garden, and this one gets used in so many ways. Mr. Awesome also wants to try some in our favorite cream cheese cookie recipe. I’m also going to try this in our Christmas Bread this year!

Last year, we made a bunch of Rosella Jam, and we still have plenty left, so this year we did something a little different. We have frozen several gallon bags of Rosella, dehydrated some of it for teas, and made some Rosella Sauce… it is so good! We served this at Thanksgiving, in place of the traditional cranberry sauce. I do want to try boiling some of our lemon grass to make a tea to try in place of the plain water for this recipe, but I keep forgetting.

This would probably also freeze really well and make a great gift! It can be used as a jelly or jam as well as an alternative to cranberry sauce.

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