Santa Claus is Coming to Town

We got the Christmas tree up early in December. The kids helped unpack some of our Christmas decorations while Jay put the tree together. (Yes, our Boy Scout troop works a tree lot as a fundraiser and we have an artificial tree.) Once it was confirmed that the lights were more or less working, there was a whirlwind of activity and suddenly all the ornaments were clumped here and there on the tree. After decorating the tree, we enjoyed hot chocolate and cookies.

The trip to El Paso was fun, but it really took a huge chunk out what was already a short pre-Christmas period. By the time we got home, we had one week to do our baking and shopping. Subtract out the time Jay and I had to be at work, and there was very little left to work with. We drove to Bass Pro to get a picture with Santa on Thursday the 18th. The kids had fun exploring the store.

Nana gave us a gingerbread house kit while we were in El Paso. I made a gingerbread house for Kit to decorate when he was around three, and I made a smaller version for each of the kids last year. Due to time constraints and patience issues, I was not going to attempt any gingerbread houses this year. The kids were very excited to have a gingerbread house and I was very grateful that the pieces and the icing were pre-made and the candy was provided. This was December 21st - three days before Christmas Eve.

While the children were busy decorating the gingerbread house, I began mixing the sugar cookie dough. I was almost done when the mixer burned out. This used to be a common Christmas occurrence. I should have expected it since I got a break last year. If it weren't that it was late on a Sunday evening, I would have gone to Wal-Mart right then. The peanut butter kiss cookies and the rugalach had to wait until Monday. (And no shopping done yet, either. Can you see "panic attack" between the lines?) Finally, on Tuesday (December 23rd), we were able to start cutting out sugar cookies. Jay had to, um, work late that night. Luckily he had better success "working" than I did earlier that day. After the kids were in bed, I also finished the peanut butter cookies and the rugelach.

Can it be Christmas Eve already?? I left all the kids home to decorate cookies while I went to pick up the presents from the Bradleys (my boss and his wife) at work (and a few other things as well). Trying to keep the mess at a minimum, I gave each one 5 cookies to start with and then set aside 5 more each if they still had frosting left over. By the time I got home, they had pretty much finished the first five and then given up.

I was going to make a glaze for the remaining mountain of cookies, but I never got around to it. I did manage to finish the fudge and the lemon squares. Note to self: For future reference, if baking is NOT STARTED until the week of Christmas, then DON'T INSIST ON BAKING EVERYTHING ON THE LIST and ONLY BAKE HALF THE RECIPE!!! We had more treats than we knew what to do with. Luckily, although the three younger kids do have a sweet tooth, they also generally have out-of-sight-out-of-mind personalities when it comes to food. They never wandered into the kitchen hoping to sneak a cookie. Unfortunately, that just left more for me.

After some time spent cleaning up the house, a pizza dinner (Another note to self: DON'T wait until all the pizza places are CLOSED for Christmas Eve before deciding it was time to go get some pizza.), showers and new jammies (another gift from the Bradleys) we played a game of Rudolph Monopoly.

Time for our Christmas Eve picture, the last few days of our advent calendars (we were still catching up from our trip to El Paso) and then off to bed.