Joyeux Noel!

I cannot believe that Christmas has come and gone. I really tried to focus on the special traditions and spending time with others this holiday. And...I think I was pretty successful. There was a lot of Christmas movie-watching, gift wrapping, and the like. Sunday we drove up to Corey's parents' and thankfully made it despite the trecherous conditions. Yet another reason why my little car and his non-functional truck may not make it through the winter. Meanwhile, the presents we had intended to pack were sitting at home. We attended Christmas Eve mass and did the traditional opening of presents (for us, not from us, of course). Christmas Day we spent at my parents', along with 18 other members of my family. We crowded around the dinner table, but as my mom says, it shouldn't be any other way. It's so different to be the adult now watching the eyes of other children at Christmas. It's pretty magical. That's what you don't want to lose sight of. Here's a few shots I took on Sunday on our journey into the woods:

Cookie extravaganza

Jen and Dory came over tonight and we baked a bounty of cookies. We prefaced our calorie gorge with a good morning workout that included a one-mile run--which, as distant memories of the half marathon fade, seems like hundreds of miles--and some weights. We started a tad bit late but thankfully by 11:45 pm we had wrapped things up. When you can have this much fun--making cookies while listening to HCJr., drinking wine and chatting all the while--one should never bake alone.

the incident with the vaccuum

Corey came back from Vegas on Monday and I took the afternoon off to pick up the weary travelers at the airport, and also so we could go pick out our Christmas tree, decorate, and spend the rest of the day together. I had pulled out the decorations the day before and left a trail of holiday poo poo everywhere. The tree looks great, though! There are few things better than the smell of a fresh Christmas tree. Now that we have a dining room table, however, space in our house is a bit more cozy. If/when we have game night, there is going to be a major shortage of space. We decorated the tree and I crawled under it to vaccuum up the needles before we put down the tree skirt. I couldn't reach the attachment hose all the way to the wall, so I crawled under the tree. We recently got a new vaccuum and the onboard attachments are nifty and quite effective. Within about 1 min I clocked myself in the head with the attachment and it proceeded to suck up my hair. I screamed to Corey to shut off the vaccuum. Now I have a major lump behind my ear, but thank goodness I still have all of my hair. I was telling this story to my friend, and she thought I had cut my hair because of said incident, but I informed her that it was just a coincidence. I have always had fears of my hair getting sucked up in a hottub or something, but never with vaccuum onboard attachments.

The mother of all cookie lists

Whoa, nelly. My sister sent me this list yesterday. Pretty much any cookie recipe you would ever want is included. You will never have to hunt again.


My book club is doing our 2nd annual cookie swap this weekend! My very favorite Christmas cookies are as follows:

1. spritz
2. cutouts
3. chocolate covered pretzels

I know my mom has most of her recipes from my grandma Helen, and I recently bought a special recipe book where I want to document and treasure all of them. I know some of her specialities were rosettes and doughnuts. What's your favorite Christmas cookie?

Mothers, daughters & irish coffees

The Saturday before Christmas, my mom and I were invited to our neighbor's house to bake cookies and to spend time with some lovely women I have known all of my life. Gina was home from San Fransisco, so it was a great excuse to get together, eat great food and catch up. There was some serious cookie production going on, but there was also several hours there that just included laughing and reminiscing about the good ol' days in our neighborhood (oh yes, and drinking wine, too). We'll have to make an annual tradition of this event. There's a great saying I was thinking of as we were taking pictures: Here's to great women--may we know them, may we be them, may we raise them.

snowed in

This past weekend was a blast--we need to get snowed in more often. I was really bummed because I had to miss Krista's 30th birthday celebration, which included much-needed female bonding, but we managed to entertain ourselves. Friday before the snow hit, CB & her friend Deb & I went to see American Gangster. Great movie @ 2:48 min. Makes you consider commercialism just a tich differently. Saturday afternoon CB & Rusty the dog came over & we scrapbooked all day. There was paper doo-doo everywhere. We had intended on going out to Thai, but instead mangaged to find a Chinese place that would actually deliver. Best money I've ever spent on food delivery.

the incident with the snowglobe

This morning I was sitting at my desk, minding my own business. I had just pulled out my two office Christmas decorations, one being a new wreath purchased on Black Friday, and the other being a very cute miniature snowglobe. As I was reaching for the snowglobe, I dropped it and it shattered, sending water, glass, and synthetic snowflakes ALL over my desk and within a 400-mi radius of where I was sitting. Plus, I had to run to the bathroom to grab towels and it looked like I had wet my pants. A big accident, mind you. Worse than the time I spilled my glass of water in my lap during our flight to Chicago. One guy even chuckled as he passed me in the hall. Not amused, buddy. To top it all off, I had glass in my hand. And who wants to break a snowglobe? I think it ranks up there with the cardinal sin of cutting tags off of mattresses--it just isn't supposed to happen.