Shannon here: Liz Tolsma shares her family’s fun holiday tradition, a recipe for yummy crepes, & a chance to win a copy of her latest WWII Historical Romance, A Picture of Hope. Comment or answer the question in this post to enter the drawing. Deadline: Dec 11th, 11:59 pm central time. Here’s Liz:
My Favorite Holiday Tradition
When my extended family gets together, there are quite a number of us. I think we’re up to 17 or 18 in total. We’re in that stage of life when none of us has little kids anymore and the next generation is yet to come, so we’re all able to play games.
One of our favorite games is Telephone Pictionary. We gather around the big table, usually with coffee or tea and a piece of pie, and cut up squares of paper. Each person gets one piece of paper per participant. On the first sheet, we each write a sentence we make up, the crazier the better. Something like, The gorilla stole the turkey and took it back to the zoo. You’d think it would be the authors in the family with the best sentences but often it’s not.
You then pass the paper to the left, and the person who gets your sentence must make a drawing of it. I have one sister who’s an artist, and my husband is a pretty good drawer. The rest of us are terrible. Once you have your drawing, you pass to the left again, and that person must write a sentence based only on the drawing. And so on and so forth.
By the time you get your original paper back to you, it is oftentimes unrecognizable. We laugh so hard that we have to hold our sides. Sometimes we even cry we’re laughing so hard. That original sentence might end up something like, The hairy man and the chicken flew in an airplane. It helps that most of us can’t draw stick figures and that most of us are pretty creative people.
Besides the food and the time spent together, I think one of my favorite things about the holidays is playing Telephone Pictionary. For a little while, we get to be crazy and let our imaginations flow. There are no winners or losers, just a bunch of us who have a really good time. We’re family, and we revel in the time we get to spend together. In the end, isn’t that what family memories are all about?
One dessert my daughter always asks for when she’s home for the holidays is crepes. This is a classic French dessert and one that, if food hadn’t been in short supply in France during WWII, my characters very well may have eaten.
Easy Recipe for Crepes:
Make your favorite pancake recipe (you can use pancakes from a baking mix as well) and add extra milk to make it very thin. Heat a 9” non-stick skillet over medium heat on the stove. Take the skillet from the heat, spray it with a thin layer of cooking spray, and add 1/3 cup of your pancake mix. Rotate the skillet until the batter has coated the bottom of the pan and return to the heat. Cook until the crepe is set and the bottom is just starting to brown, about 1-2 minutes. Using a large spatula, flip the crepe and cook the other side, about 1-2 more minutes. Transfer to a dinner plate. Fill the crepe as you like. My family loves them with Nutella, fruit, and whipped cream. Don’t be intimidated by them. It may take a crepe or two to get the hang of it, but they really are very easy to make. Enjoy!
About Liz: Liz Tolsma is the author of several WWII novels, romantic suspense novels, prairie romance novellas, and an Amish romance. She is a popular speaker and an editor and resides next to a Wisconsin farm field with her husband and their youngest daughter. Her son is a U.S. Marine, and her oldest daughter is a college student. Liz enjoys reading, walking, working in her large perennial garden, kayaking, and camping. Learn more & connect:
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Liz’s Christian Historical Fiction Podcast
About the book – A Picture of Hope: Full of intrigue, adventure, and romance, this series celebrates the unsung heroes—the heroines of WWII.
Journalist Nellie Wilkerson has spent the bulk of the war in London, photographing mothers standing in milk lines—and she’s bored. She jumps at the chance to go to France, where the Allied forces recently landed. There she enlists Jean-Paul Breslau of the French underground to take her to the frontlines. On the journey, they stumble upon a great tragedy, leaving a girl with special needs being orphaned. Can Nellie and Jean-Paul see the child to a safe haven while being pursued by the Nazis, who are pressed by the advancing Allies and determined to destroy all they can before they flee?
Can’t wait for the drawing? Worried you won’t win?
Get your copy now!
A Picture of Hope – Amazon A Picture of Hope – BarnesandNoble
A Picture of Hope – ChristianBook
Question for Readers: What game, activity, or tradition does your family enjoy at gatherings now or in the past?
Come back Dec 7th for Amy R. Anguish!
Liz, I just emailed your directions for Telephone Pictionary to my adult children and husband. I think we’ll have a great time playing it when we all get together in a few weeks. We love board games of all kinds, and our new favorite is called Spontuneous. Each player suggests one word, and the other players have to come up with a song with the word in it. It’s fun and loud and sometimes difficult to come up with songs. I enjoyed your post!
We usually have a puzzle ready to put together, as we have several avid puzzlers in our family. We also enjoy Apples to Apples.
Thanks for the post! I haven’t made crepes for a long time, and this reminded me to make some. Telephone Pictionary sounds like a fun game. Our family is like yours–some artistic and some (including me) that can’t draw stick figures!
We play Jeopardy or Uno.
We love to play Dutch Blit as a family, which always gets pretty competitive.
We love to play canasta caliente and dutch blitz. We also like doing puzzles.
We play Ticket to Ride games. Flying to be together from three states, so excited for our Christmas gathering this year!
Thanks for your crepe recipe ~ sounds yummy and will try to flip it at the right moment!
Our family likes to have Monopoly marathons and we enjoy playing apples to apples.
We love to play games as a family at the holidays. We haven’t tried anything new in the last few years. Usually it’s Scrabble, dominos, UNO, or something like that.
Hey Liz, we used to play actual Pictionary with friends. My husband is an artist, I do stick figures. But we think alike, so we always win while whoever we played against would get frustrated because they couldn’t draw for each other. We tease young couples who ask my husband to marry them, that we’ll play Pictionary with them before he’ll do the ceremony and see how well they play and get along.
I have a winner! Kathleen ~ Lane Hill House won the drawing. I appreciate Liz for being my guest and everyone else for stopping by.
Thank you so much! And… that crepe recipe will be a hit for your special treat anytime!! Happy New Year 2022! Kathleen ~ Lane Hill House