While visions of sugar-plums danced in their heads......

I wasn't sure if I wanted to bake any cookies for Christmas this year. In the past I have gone nuts baking this and that but for some reason I just couldn't get into it this year. Until now.......

I was actually intending to just make some peanut butter cookies with Hershey kisses plunked on top of them (peanut butter blossoms is what my friend Susan calls them so I'll go with that, love the name!) and some sugar cookies. Tal bought a package of the refrigerated sugar cookie dough so I'll bake those on up.

I've put it off because I've had several other things I've been trying to get done. Tiger is coming home with us after Christmas as well as my oldest nephew, Boogie, who is 11. Just trying to get the house presentable for them. I straightened up the living room last night and have been working trying to get the kitchen clean, which will probably not last once I start baking! I've also been wanting to get out in the garage and straighten up out there because we've got some things to move out there and I need to make room for them. That will have to wait until after Christmas - maybe I can enlist Tal, Tiger, and Boogie's help for this! (hint-hint) We've got company coming mid-January and I want the house in tip-top shape for their visit! :-) It's going to be here sooner than we think - right, Susan and Nettie?!?!?!

But for now, we've got our staff Christmas thingy coming up on Friday. Technically, it's not a party - just all of us bringing in goodies to munch on all day. For that, I decided to make a big chocolate chip cookie and decorate it with buttercream, and also a batch of red velvet cupcakes with cream cheese filling and frosting using the cupcake kit (shameless Wilton plug) I got in July at our Wilton meeting.

Then I came across a recipe for Holiday Wreaths, basically a spritz cookie, and thought they looked cute and easy enough. And I also remembered I have a quart of sesame seeds in the cupboard that I got last year. I need to use those, so I am going to make up a batch of benne seed cookies. I like Paula's recipe, I made it last year and the year before and they turned out really good. Can't disappoint my cousin, Cokie Jo - she loves them and I keep telling her I'm going to send her the recipe but never get around to it! OK....I just got around to it. It should be in her hot little hands as we speak.

So, to recap the cookie list:

sugar cookies for Tal
Peanut Butter Blossoms
Giant Chocolate Chip Christmas Cookie (we'll call it the GC4)
Red Velvet Cupcakes with Fluffy Cream Cheese Frosting
Holiday Wreaths
Benne Seed Cookies

OK....I confess.....for the GC4, I *did* buy some canned chocolate frosting. Canned frosting is usually a taboo item in my house, I make my own which tastes better than the canned stuff - BUT the chocolate usually tastes better because I just can't seem to get the chocolate frosting chocolate enough for my tastes. Until I can perfect the chocolate frosting recipe, I'll humbly turn to Betty, Duncan, or the Dough Boy for help!

I forgot to mention that I baked and decorated a baby shower this past Sunday. Technically, it's not holiday baking but it's still baking nonetheless!

Yum, all this talk about cookies is making me hungry. YAY, it's lunchtime! I'm going to go eat my leftover salad from Zaxby's and think more about my baking blitz I plan to do tonight!

Until later,
Seraphim