Scientific studies (and, perhaps, common sense) have demonstrated the importance of the family meal, and yet lots of Americans still find it difficult to summon the time, energy, and skills necessary to get a home-cooked dinner on the table. According to the USDA, the total percentage of calories consumed by Americans at home dropped from 82.3 percent in 1977-78 to 68.5% in the years 2005-08. Sure, dining out is the easier option, but nothing compares to the warmth and comfort of gathering your family to eat in your own home. If you want to practice the art of a home-cooked family dinner but find yourself strapped for time (or ideas!), check out the following tips for less-harried home cooking.

1. Have a back-up plan. Keep some simple recipe ideas in your back pocket, whether that means making omelets because the pantry is bare or grilled cheese because the chicken burned.  By learning how to make a few things really well, you’ll take the pressure off of yourself if you run out of time for a more elaborate meal.
2. Dust off the slow-cooker. If you dread the thought of having to cook after a busy day at work, you have a friend in this appliance. There are a myriad of easy, delicious recipes all over the internet, some involving as few as only three ingredients. Simply cut up a few things the night before, dump the ingredients in the slow cooker before work, and then come home to a stress-free dinner.
3. Make a meal plan for a whole week. Sit down on a lazy Saturday morning or Sunday afternoon and write out what you plan to make for dinner during the next week. You’ll save money at the grocery store by avoiding purchases that you won’t end up using, and you’ll have more time to look up new recipes to incorporate into your repertoire.
4. Combine homemade and convenience foods. Who says that you have to eat a meal that is 100 percent home cooked? In order to keep your sanity, you might have to shred up a store-bought rotisserie chicken for your Tuesday-night tacos or throw some frozen pot stickers in to bulk up your stir-fry. Spend some time reading the nutrition labels of convenience foods at your grocery store, and then stock upon the items that will aid your dinner efforts without negatively impacting your health.
5. Cook when you have the time. Every year, my mother-in-law makes homemade ravioli for Thanksgiving and Christmas. How does she do it? She makes it all (with some helpers) a few weeks ahead of time and then freezes it. You can incorporate this practice into your own home, making several freezable meals at the beginning of the month (or whenever you have time) and enjoying results of your hard work later, on busy nights.

If you want to gather your family and friends around the table but find yourself overwhelmed by food prep, give these ideas a try. After all, it’s best to sit down to dinner with the calm demeanor necessary to truly enjoy the company—and the food.

Now that the holiday season is over and the kiddos are back in school, you may be tempted to think that fun won’t return until springtime. However, Waukee Parks and Recreation has an answer to the winter blues: Waukee FamilyFest, an event where kids can play while their parents mingle with other young families. Local businesses from the Waukee community will also be there to spread the word about their wares and services. The event will be held on Saturday January 17 from 9:00am-12:00pm at Point of Grace Church in Waukee.

At the third annual Waukee FamilyFest, inflatable playgrounds, games, and prizes sponsored by local businesses will be the order of the day for kids, while parents will be able to enjoy getting to know others in the Waukee area. Danae Edwards, of Waukee’s Parks and Recreation, says that the idea for the event was prompted by a desire for the growing Waukee community to come together in the midst of cold weather: “The Park Board and Parks & Rec Staff wanted to create an event for kids and families to get out of the house during the winter. Let everyone burn off a little energy and congregate with their friends.” According to Edwards, the Parks and Recreation department created this event in order to help create a stronger community in Waukee: “We are trying to help promote our Waukee businesses to all of the new families that move to town while giving our residents a chance to get to know other families.”

Edwards also acknowledges that the event serves as a gathering opportunity for Waukee’s many new residents, saying, “Waukee is full of new, young families that would like the chance to get to know one another so this is a great opportunity to meet other families and to get to know some of the smaller mom-pop businesses in town.”

Edwards points out another perk of the event: “It’s great for businesses and families alike because it is free! Businesses can participate at the event free of charge while promoting their business and hopefully drawing in clients/customers.”

So, there you have it: a fun, free, kid-friendly event where everyone may gather indoors during Iowa’s bitterly cold January. Whether you’re new to the area and want to meet other families while checking out the Waukee business scene or you’re a longtime resident hoping to free your cooped-up kids from your house on a Saturday morning, look no further than the Waukee FamilyFest to meet your needs.

View the event’s webpage to find additional information, including the event’s contact person and the address for Point of Grace Church.

Perhaps you’re celebrating the lack of snow, or maybe you’re dreading the thought of a grassy holiday landscape.

If you’re dreaming of a white Christmas and wondering if it will come in 2016, you can always make a cheery holiday by baking up some aptly named Snowball Clippers (and maybe popping in White Christmas wouldn’t hurt, either).

These little coconut cookies have flavors reminiscent of a Mounds bar—and they’re chock-full of mini chocolate chips. They’re easy to put together and genuinely fun to make, especially when dipping the bottoms of the baked cookies into melted chocolate and then pressing them onto a wax-paper-lined cookie sheet. And whether you’re making larger, golf-ball sized cookies like the ones I baked, or you’re following the original recipe (which calls for cookies to be just ¾ inch in diameter—a truly mini holiday treat!), you’ll find that these snowball clippers are tasty and pretty. They don’t spread very much in the oven, meaning that if you’re cramped for space (and time) this holiday season, you’ll probably have just enough room to squeeze a few extra cookies onto the sheet before sliding them into the oven. They’re also easily stacked on top of one another (they really do look like a pile of mini snowballs), making for an elegant addition to the dessert table at your family’s holiday celebration.

I first heard about these cookies while preparing for my family’s Christmas festivities up in Minnesota. My parents’ next-door neighbor had won the Minneapolis Star Tribune’s annual holiday cookie contest, and this cookie recipe—Snowball Clippers—was one of the other finalists. My family marveled over the front page of the Tribune’s Taste section, which featured a story about our neighbor and a photo of her cookies in the center of the page. We never did get around to making her recipe, but we did discover these coconut beauties, and they quickly became a favorite on our holiday table. Often, when we make them, they’re the first type of cookie to disappear from the cookie plate.

So, from the land of ice and snow (you know, that state to the north of Iowa) comes a cookie recipe worthy of appearing on your holiday dinner table. Or perhaps you’ll place some Snowball Clippers on Santa’s cookie plate, to remind him of the wintery North Pole if Iowa’s Christmas Eve proves to be on the un-snowy side.

Santa and his Real Reindeer stopped by Peoples Bank in Waukee last weekend on December 13th. With attendance over 400, the event was a huge success.

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I grew up watching A Charlie Brown Christmas, the December television special that delighted my parents when they were children in the same way that it now brings joy to my little nieces and nephews. The special first aired 49 years ago, on December 9, 1965, and it is still considered a holiday-season staple today. It is currently featured on Hulu and will be airing on ABC on Tuesday, December 16^th at 7:00pm. This short holiday special has continued to captivate viewers year after year, and it’s worth pausing a moment to consider why it is so popular.

A Charlie Brown Christmas is a story of a Christmas play put on by neighborhood kids who dance to jazz piano music and realize that, like many things, our modern concept of Christmas often misses the whole point. Over the course of the thirty-minute special, Charlie Brown tries to grasp the real meaning behind the over-commercialized version of Christmas that he sees in the world around him. He knows he should feel happy, but he doesn’t. His friend Lucy solemnly tells him that, even with all the toys, she never gets what she really wants for Christmas, which is “real estate.” His own dog, Snoopy, enters a Christmas lights and display contest in hopes of winning a cash prize.

Charlie is invited to direct the Christmas play, which threatens to become permanently derailed due to lack of focus by the actors until Charlie’s friend Linus walks to the center of the stage and, under a lone spotlight, recites Jesus’ birth story from the gospel of Luke. Then Charlie’s friends, who had made fun of him for choosing a real (albeit strikingly humble) Christmas tree, follow him outside and remake the sad little tree into a festive Christmas display.

It’s a story that appeals to many because of its sincerity and simplicity—we tap our toes along with the Vince Guaraldi jazz music, we root for Charlie as he picks the saddest-looking tree in the lot, and we smile as the kids show Charlie the newly-decorated tree and shout, “Merry Christmas, Charlie Brown!”

Though the special has enjoyed success with television audiences for nearly five decades, some will be surprised to know that, during its premiere, the executives behind the project feared that it would be a flop. Charles Shulz, the creator of the Peanuts characters, butted heads with the producers of the show over some of the most important elements of the special. He insisted that the characters be voiced by children rather than adults, he refused to take out the reading from the Gospel of Luke, and he rejected the use of a laugh track. Because of this, the producers predicted that they had a disaster on their hands. However, due to time constraints and previous television promotion of the special, it aired, and producers were shocked at its immense popularity with both critics and viewers. It won an Emmy award and has been playing on televisions across America each December since 1965.

Certainly, the special doesn’t appeal to everyone—my husband, for example. But for those of us who can’t resist Snoopy’s dance moves or Linus’ solemn recitation of the Nativity story or that droopy little tree with the single red bulb, A Charlie Brown Christmas will remain a perennial favorite.

It’s December already (it’s December already?!) and the time has come to eat cookies daily and sing Christmas songs to your heart’s content. Holiday-themed events are springing up all over the Des Moines metro area, from the Jolly Holiday Lights display in Water Works Park to the annual Jingle in the Junction nights at West Des Moines’ Valley Junction. Waukee is adding to the cheer with two events right in its own community. Waukee Library’s Festival of Trees and Wreaths is happening this evening, December 4^th, and tomorrow night, on December 5^th , Waukee will hold its annual WinterFest.

At the Festival of Trees and Wreaths, held at 6:30 tonight at the Waukee Public Library, visitors will get a chance to see trees and wreaths decorated by individuals, families, and businesses of the community. The library will become aglow with warmth during the lighting ceremony at 6:30, after which little ones will be able to enjoy story time amid the sparkling trees. The event features live music and refreshments, and all proceeds will benefit the Waukee Public Library Foundation. The Teen Advisory Board, which helps to provide activities for Waukee teens, will also be holding a silent auction during the evening.

From December 5^th to the 19^th, members of the community are able to vote for their favorite wreath or tree. Each vote costs $1, which supports the library’s ability to keep its shelves full of books, audio books, and movies. The winning trees and wreaths will be announced on December 19^th.

Kristine Larson, director of the Waukee library, says, “This is a very important event for the Waukee community. It promotes community engagement and encourages citizens to come together to celebrate the holiday season.”

Larson emphasizes that community events like the library’s Festival help people to slow down together during this particular month: “Especially when things are hectic this time of year, it’s important to connect with your fellow community members to celebrate and enjoy the season and the great community of Waukee.”

At Waukee’s Winterfest at 6:00pm on Friday night in Triangle Park, the fun starts when the jolly old man himself lights the WinterFest holiday tree. The event will continue inside Waukee’s community center, where the kiddos can visit with Santa and everyone can enjoy hot chocolate and refreshments. Those who wish to linger in the park will be rewarded with a ride on an old-fashioned trolley to see some of Waukee’s beautifully decorated homes. WinterFest also features a toy drive to benefit those dealing with financial difficulties this holiday season. 

So, if you’ve been in need of a December pick-me-up, look no further than these two wonderful and local holiday events. As you gather your loved ones around you and set out to meet new friends in your own community, you’ll be filled with the joy and gratitude of this beautiful season.