Believe Me, I Know What Puts the "Christ!" in Christmas Cookies...

To All My Wonderful, Gorgeous, Kind and Intelligent Gather Friends (BTW, that should include ALL of you...),

I will be "missing in action" over the next couple of days because I will be otherwise occupied making Christmas cookies day and night... But, in my absence I'm leaving you an essay that I wrote last year about this same time which should explain EXACTLY "how it is" for me right now... ENJOY!

I KNOW WHAT PUTS THE "CHRIST!" IN CHRISTMAS COOKIES...

Well... I've been baking Christmas cookies again this year... Tons and tons and TONS of friggin' Christmas cookies! A hundred and sixty-five dollars' worth of just the Christmas-cookie ingredients Christmas cookies! A solid two weeks searching for good-sounding recipes and another solid week and a half of chopping nuts, dried fruits, chocolate chips, etc. Christmas cookies (and those "etceteras" are tricky to chop, believe me)!

This year, I've baked fruitcake cookies, apple cookies, eggnog cookies, German chocolate cake cookies and one cookie that was more like a cheesecake -- baked in one big piece and then cut up into "bars" -- that I came up with myself because I couldn't find the recipes that I used last year that were so good Christmas cookies.

No pun intended (well... maybe...) but, I'm burnt out on baking Christmas cookies and I've still got a good three or four more people (at least) left to bake for on my list of "Christmas Cookie Recipients".

I would've had almost all of them done already if it weren't for the fact that my husband gets up in the middle of the night and "sleepeats" about every hour or so. He found my stash of baked Christmas cookies and ate half of them before first light the next morning. Pretty good for a guy in his sleep, isn't it? If he could get as much stuff done during daylight hours, I'd have a greenhouse, a garage and a guestroom by now...

But, even so, I'm not as burned out on baking Christmas cookies as I was at this time last year. Last year I packed the Christmas cookies in cartons -- this year, they all fit on paper plates covered with SaranWrap®.  (I'm not stupid, really -- just a little "slow"...)

This year (except for the cheesycaky ones), I also tried to pick out recipes for cookies that sounded like they'd be delicious but that I wouldn't care for too much. (I told you, I'm not REALLY stupid.) Evidently, however, it appears that ALL cookies hold some modicum of appeal for "The Nocturnal Sleepeater".

In my own defense, though, last year we were living in a spacious country house with a HUGE kitchen and PLENTY of counter space upon which to rest the cookies while they awaited distribution. This year, we're living in a cramped, country single-wide with NO space, period. Which meant that I had to improvise a stack of bakery racks on top of the dryer -- crude but somewhat effective...

That is until "The Sleepeater" ran amuck. It's more like "staggered amuck", really. He doesn't even "run" in full consciousness, much less in the middle of the night and, when he does run, he looks like a Tyrannosaurus Rex to me; holding up its shriveled forepaws at chest height. It's hard to explain, so I think I'll stop trying to -- for now, anyhow... Anyway, you see, he has to pass right in front of the dryer on his way to "The Sleepeater's" favorite after-hours hang-out: The kitchen. So, I suppose a goodly portion of the Christmas cookies were doomed from the beginning. **sigh**

So, I guess I'll be getting back to my Christmas-cookie-ly duties in the kitchen, now -- the T-Rex will be home soon and the Christmas cookies will have to be cooled before he commences his midnight sorties.

Although, I'm beginning to get the sneaking suspicion that I accidentally stepped through a "portal" which transported me into some alternate universe's holiday remake of "Ground Hog Day" -- a nightmarish world where dinosaur-like "Sleepeaters" lumber through people's mobile homes, nocturnally preying upon fresh, unwary, innocent Christmas cookies.

Yeah... Welcome to MY world... It's not for the faint of heart, that's for sure.

See ya in a couple of days!

luv,

jean