Behind The Scenes: Making the December 2012 Issue

Making every issue of Every Day with Rachael Ray magazine is hard work but also a lot of fun! Have a look behind the scenes to see how everyone from the magazine's editors, designers, photographers and more put together the pages inside the December 2012 issue.

Since we start working on each issue in advance, the holidays tend to come early in the office! Lauren Smith, Online Editorial Assistant, and Lauren Katz, Online Intern, don't seem to mind though! Here they are eagerly tearing into some early presents...er, samples!

Ah! These large crabs were actually alive! Junior Designer, Kelly McGuire proceeded with caution on our Word of Mouth shoot.

Associate Photo Editor, Mackenzie Craig, strolled around the Word of Mouth set with our tiny shopping card prop.

Lights, camera, action! Kelly, Mackenzie and the team got down to business to shoot the props for our Word of Mouth piece on Money-Saving Shopping Secrets.

Fast idea! Our prop stylist spray-painted jar lids as an easy way to dress up holiday jars. Stay tuned for the details in our December issue "Yum: Fast Ideas" section!

We snapped a photo of Senior Food Editor, Nina Elder, cutting the cheese (hah!) for the "Apps in a Snap" video series Party Cheese Balls video starring Food Editor, Stacy Adimando.

Stay tuned for the video here!

We went celebrity style with these show-stopping roasts in our December 2012 issue. Here is our Food Stylist putting the finishing touches on our star at the shoot.

Assistant Lifestyle Editor, Allyson Dickman, was literally boxed in with all of the gift guide shipments! Help!

Allyson presenting gift guide products to Executive Editor, Dana Bowen, Executive Lifestyle Editor, Sonal Dutt, and Editor-in-Chief, Lauren Purcell. Find out what made the cut in our December 2012 issue, then enter for a chance to win some of our favorite products!

It was a tough job, but we found the best bubbles under $15 for our December issue taste test.

For every Taste Test, we taste all of the products blindly so we can be as unbiased as possible. Some people, like Senior Test Kitchen Associate, Katie Barreira, and Senior Food Editor, Nina Elder, take everything very seriously (bottom, left). While other people, like Editor-in-Chief, Lauren Purcell, and Executive Editor, Dana Bowen, like to have a bit more fun (bottom, right).

One of the biggest perks of our Office Taste Test is getting to have take-home treats afterwards!

Our prop stylists were good sports as we asked them to move the Christmas tree back and forth at our "Have a Holly, Jolly Breakfast" story shoot shot at Editor-in-Chief, Lauren Purcell's sister's apartment in New York, NY.

It's Christmas in September on the set of our "Have a Holly, Jolly Breakfast" story. We bet the kids, Lauren Purcell's niece and nephew, didn't mind opening presents early this year!

We wanted to make our "Yule love this cake!" story more fun and created our lumberjack gnome. However, since he's not the star of the story, we wanted to give him his moment in the spotlight here -- beer belly and all! "Gnome-body knows the trouble I've seen!"

On set, we can often put together a sneak peek of how the art and text will come together on the final page. This isn't how the page actually turned out in our December issue, so check out page 68 and see if you can spot the differences!

Train, the first ever house band on the Rachael Ray Show, came by for an exclusive tasting of their wines and chocolates. We were so excited to have Pat Monahan (left), Scott Underwood (middle) and Jimmy Stafford (right) in the office. You can see Assistant to the Editor-in-Chief, Judith Pena, in the background live-tweeting Train's visit.

Scott Underwood was our bartender for the afternoon and shared Train's award winning  Calling All Angels Chardonnay and Drops of Jupiter California Red Wine. We also got to taste a preview of their newest wine, California 37 Cabernet Sauvignon.

Forget the glasses, Pat Monahan went straight for the bottle! Just kidding, he was only joking around with us!

In addition to their wines, Train has teamed up with Save me, San Francisco Chocolate & Ghirardelli to offer three new chocolates: Sea Salt Almond (our staff favorite), 72% Cacao Dark and Dark Cabernet. 

The proceeds from the sales are proudly donated to support Family House Inc., a non-profit organization providing temporary housing to families of seriously ill children receiving treatment at the University of California San Francisco Benioff Children's Hospital.

Although he didn't have it on that day, Scott Underwood and Editor-in-Chief, Lauren Purcell, bonded over owning the same bracelet.

Sonal Dutt, Executive Lifestyle Editor, and Editor-in-Chief, Lauren Purcell, posed with the band at our staff tasting.

After the wine and chocolate tasting, Pat Monahan joked that he should take the extra chocolate bars since we probably wouldn't eat them. Not so fast, buddy! Chocolate never goes uneaten in our office! The chocolate bars must stay!

Assistant Lifestyle Editor, Allyson Dickman, on set at our new video series shoot. Here she is about to bring the magazine's centerpieces to life!

Check out all of our videos here!