Advent Calendar, Day 17

Today's activity: Make paper snowflakes.

I loved making paper snowflakes when I was a kid, but was always disappointed because no matter how hard I tried, my snowflakes only had four points. It was only last year I discovered this tutorial on making six-pointed paper snowflakes. Yesterday I went looking for some nerdy designs, and found a set of (free!) Star Wars templates here from Anthony Herrera. I got the Vader you see above as well as Emperor Palpatine.

We also did some freehand designs. Jason made this one:

And here is one of mine:

Now we just need to find a place to hang them up. I think they should go in the window we can see them from the outside.

Jason works late on Tuesdays, so we like to do breakfast for dinner when he gets home. I was feeling festive last night, so I added some red and green sprinkles to the waffle batter.

Funfetti waffles! They added some nice color, plus a bit of extra sweetness.

Advent Calendar, Day 15

Today's activity: Movie night.

It was Jason's turn to pick. He chose the Doctor Who Christmas special from 2011: The Doctor, the Widow and the Wardrobe.

We also did our usual pizza-and-Who on Friday after our shopping. We watched The Runaway Bride, with David Tennant as the Doctor. It's one of my favorites because it's Donna's first appearance. She and Tennant are just marvelous together.

Yesterday I went to a Christmas party at church. We do a grab bag every year, so I brought a snowman plate with two dozen of the cookies I made last week. My mom ended up with the cookie plate, and I got a gift bag with some hand towels and a box of peanut brittle.

Only ten days until Christmas! I'm quite excited.

Advent Calendar, Day 7

Today's activity: Bake Christmas cookies!

I have been baking since I was pretty young. My mom is an excellent baker (and cook), and I started out licking the spoon when she was done and progressed to helping her mix things together. I still love licking the batter off of the mixing spoon, though. Mom and I spent many happy hours mixing, scooping, and baking cookies every year. She always used to wear the same apron, which she passed on to me as part of an ongoing cleaning project. I wore it today, paired with an appropriately-themed shirt.

I still love to bake, though these days I don't have much time. So I set aside a whole day for cookie baking! I made four different kinds of cookies...probably twelve dozen in all. Some is for a grab bag gift, some is for a package I'm mailing to my aunt and uncle in Arizona, and the rest will get eaten up by us!

I started with sugar cookies. I decided to use pre-made dough, since I wanted to focus on the decorating. I baked them first so they would be completely cooled by the time I was ready to decorate.

One pan, fifteen minutes, done. My next recipe was Peanut Blossoms, which have been my favorite for a long time. They can be made from a mix or even the pre-made peanut butter cookie dough, but I had to make these from scratch. It's the original Pillsbury recipe, winner of the Bake-Off contest more than 50 years ago, and you can find it here.

My next recipe was a variation on another old favorite. We have a recipe for chocolate-chocolate chip cookies, which Mom found many years ago on the back of some package. I replaced the chocolate chips with peppermint chips for a minty twist.

The final cookie variety was Jason's request: spritz cookies. The dough needs to be worked through a cookie press and it comes out in different shapes, depending on the disc you use.

 I saved the recipe for last in order to give the butter and cream cheese time to soften. Mom likes to forward me recipes, and she sent me a new one that looked promising. The dough was very easy to put together, just six ingredients. You can find the recipe here. I dyed half of the dough green to make Christmas trees and left the other half uncolored to make snowflakes.

Once everything was baked, the last project was to decorate the sugar cookies. I looked up some techniques, and while they came out all right, I think I need more practice.

I cut bell-shaped jelly candies in half with kitchen shears to make the ornament toppers.

Jason did the snowman design today, a dapper little fella.

He's ready to have a jolly good time. Perhaps even a holly, jolly Christmas.