Christmas Baking

This was an incredibly busy season this past year. You would think that with all the kids in school I would have time to get things done around here. It just isn't so. Yes, all 4 of them are in school at the same time - for a sum total of 2.5 hours. It's not enough time to get the normal things done around here - like laundry, cleaning, cooking, shopping...then we throw in things like decorating, Christmas shopping, gift wrapping, holiday cooking...ugh!


I started getting sick one week before Christmas. But this time I caught it early. I immediately started with the Zicam, and I cut everything out of my schedule that wasn't absolutely essential. The result - I didn't get my annual sinus infection! I also only baked 3 kinds of cookies (I was planning at least six. I normally make about a dozen). This year I made Gingerbread Men (DS's favorite). They got made because DS volunteered to bring cookies to his cast party. I made a new egg-free recipe. (They got made because I volunteered to bring cookies to middle DD's class party, and someone in her class is allergic to eggs.) And Peanutbutter Kisses got made (basically because I bought FG approved chocolate pieces at WalGreens and I didn't want the chocolate to go to waste).

This is a close-up of the egg-free cookies. Wait, you say, there's two different kinds of cookies here. Not really, I just used different cookies cutters. (Conserving my energy as much as possible). After I cut out 40 snowmen (allowing 2 cookies per child for DD's class), I cut out circles for jam cookies. The jam cookies got filled with Papaya jam and sprinkled with powdered sugar. The snowmen got iced with a vanilla and chocolate glaze (I have never iced cookies before, and I never want to again. That was a LOT of work! And yes, I know, they're really pretty). I opened the container in DD's classroom and a little girl looked at them, then at me "You made THOSE for US?" She gave me a really big hug. The little boy with the allergy was thrilled to have a fancy cookie he could eat. In retrospect I probably should have sent the rest of the cookies home with him, but I didn't think of it at the time. Oh well.

I also baked 4 dozen "cupcakes" for my church's birthday party for Baby Jesus. Reynolds makes a new cupcake paper shaped like hearts and stars. I got two packages of the stars at the dollar store, baked chocolate cupcakes in them, iced them with yellow (turmeric) frosting, and sprinkled India Tree Natural Sprinkles on top. There were enough left-overs to have a birthday party for Jesus at Grandma's house later that afternoon. My cousin's 2yo was enchanted.