A Better Bag of Groceries

Tea and Cookies for Santa

Wednesday, December 23, 2009 at 07:20 AM

It’s Confession time.  We bloggers at NuVal (Tina and myself) are just a wee bit addicted to Celestial Seasonings’ collection of Holiday Teas.  We’re sipping this stuff day and night.  Tina’s a huge fan of Sugar Cookie Sleigh Ride with a smidge of Agave nectar or honey.  I can’t get enough of Candy Cane Lane, straight up, thank you very much.  Tina’s been having a hard time tracking it down at her city grocery stores, but my hometown Stop & Shop is well-stocked, so I find myself texting her from my Blackberry in while in the tea aisle, taking her order.

Bagged tea is interesting in that it does not have a NuVal score.  There are some categories of foods that NuVal is not scoring, including cooking sprays, teas, coffees, vinegar, salt, baking soda, water, tonic water, seltzer, club soda, lemon juice, lime juice, yeast and spices and rubs that have less than fifteen calories.  The reason?   I checked in with Annette Maggi,  MS, RD, LD, FADA, Sr. Director of Nutrition for NuVal LLC.  She explained that if a product has no calories nor nutrients, the product is not scored.  This doesn’t mean these foods don’t have a place in eating habits.  Water, for example, does not receive a NuVal score, but is very important to overall health.

So, is my Candy Cane Lane tea a nutritious choice?  To me, it is because I drink it instead of something like hot chocolate.  It keeps me warm, hydrated and feeling satisfied.  There have been some very long days and nights this holiday season, and herbal tea has been my constant companion through all of them. 

As we get ready for Christmas Eve, my kids are making cookies for Santa.

We will put carrots out for the reindeer and a few cookies for Santa.

Sprinkle our Reindeer Dust out on our snowy front lawn.

And make a nice cup of herbal tea for Santa, along with a glass of skim milk too (NuVal score of 91).

We always make sure to make it look like Santa and his reindeer had a great feast!

My husband cut this comic strip out of the newspaper a couple of years ago.  We fold it up and put it in the box with the Christmas decorations in January and take it out every year at the beginning of the Christmas season and put it on our refrigerator.  It captures, with humor, how we both feel about the holidays. 

I can’t wait for that moment Christmas Eve when the kids are tucked in bed, we have everything under the tree, and we can actually sit down together and enjoy a cup of Candy Cane Lane.  Or maybe a glass of wine!  Happy Holidays to all and to all a good night!

One more thing….

Congratulations to Commenter #74, Melonie of www.blogged-down.com!  Just in time for Christmas, you’ve won my Peanut Butter GiveAway!  Thanks to everyone for all the great Trade-Up Tuesday comments yesterday.

Posted by: Melissa 12 comments

Posted in: tea