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.

Advent Calendar, Day 6

Today's activity: Pizza and a Doctor Who Christmas special.

There are plenty to pick from--there has been a Christmas special every year since 2006, when David Tennant first took over from Christopher Eccleston. It was Jason's turn to pick, so he chose "Voyage of the Damned," in between season 3 and season 4. 

It's a good episode, though the ending is bittersweet. Poor Astrid. I would have liked to see her have a few more adventures with the Doctor. 

I went with another Who-themed snowman today: the Cy-brr-man! Or, alternately, the Snowberman.

My package from Think Geek came today. Along with the artificial snowballs, I got us a wreath.

Eight-bit Christmas to all, and to all a good...save state? At any rate, it's geeky and festive. Can't beat that! I also got a string of TARDIS lights, which I plan to string across our balcony as soon as it warms up a bit. If it's going to be twenty-five degrees, I want snow, darnit! Something white and fluffy and clean. Hmmm, that reminds me...better wash the towels this weekend.

Advent Calendar, Day 5

Today's activity: Have a snowball fight.

So our Plan A was to use actual snowballs. Kinda hard when there's no snow. I ordered some fake snowballs from Think Geek, but they haven't arrived yet. Time for Plan C!

Yup, we ran around the apartment and tossed rolled-up socks at each other. Good times.

Today's snowman design is based on one of the most iconic snow-based characters of all time: Frosty the Snowman!

Via IMDB

Here's my version, minus the pipe and broom:

Happy birthday!

And for your viewing pleasure, this hilarious take on a well-known Christmas carol.

Holiday cheer? Make it so!

Advent Calendar, Day 4

Today's activity: My turn to pick a movie! I went with Scrooged.

Jason introduced me to this movie a couple years ago, and it's become a holiday favorite.

In other news, we have been getting rain instead of snow. Captain Angryface is not pleased.

We still have three weeks. That's plenty of time for a white Christmas.

Advent Calendar, Day 3

Today's activity: Buy Christmas candy

Jason works late on Tuesdays, so I was in charge of the shopping. I got a bag of holiday M&Ms to fill my Care Bears candy dispenser:

Jason requested a box of Sweet Tarts candy canes, and I was lucky enough to score the last box. To make sure we have enough candy to last us the whole month, my last purchase was a bag of peanut butter-filled chocolate bells. Mmmm, chocolate and peanut butter.

I've also been changing up our snowman every day. The first day was a standard snowman:

For the second, I decided to try something different:

EX-SNOW-MAN-ATE!

And for Day 3, I had to make a "cool" snowman.

It came with the bow tie already, but I had to fudge the fez a little. It came with a red Santa hat, which I turned inside out. Then I twisted around the top and turned it back the right way. Why? Because fezzes and bow ties are cool.

Advent Calendar, Day 2

Today's activity: Jason's turn to pick a holiday movie!

After debating between two different versions of A Christmas Carol (George C. Scott or Patrick Stewart), Jason decided to go a different route: Santa Claus. No, not the '90s movie with Tim Allen; that's The Santa Clause. This is one of two Christmas movies that were torn apart by the MST3K guys (the other one is Santa Claus Conquers the Martians). As TV's Frank so aptly describes it, "It's a stupid Mexican kids' movie!" Dubbed in English, and featuring a little girl, an inept devil, and the origin of the phrase "nightmare fuel."

Advent Calendar, Day 1

Today's Christmas activity: Put up decorations!

We have a miniature tree, which is nice because we can keep it in the hall closet when it's out-of-season. Our apartment has two bedrooms, but we have so much other stuff we would have real trouble storing a larger tree. I have had the mini tree since I was a kid. It was originally from the American Girl catalog, along with a set of ornaments.

Now a close-up of what's under the tree:

I'll take a TARDIS under the tree this year, please! Amy stands guard over the police box while the Doctor sits in the driver's seat of my Mini-Mates DeLorean, which was signed by Christopher Lloyd at Wizard World in 2011.

Care Bears, Tom Servo, and Davros. And Reptile. Poor Reptile--someone tried to kill him with a forklift.

The Doctor attempts to work the nutcrackers with his sonic screwdriver. He must have forgotten that it doesn't do wood. Speaking of, Jason and I watched this version of The Nutcracker while we were decorating, to help us get in the Christmas spirit.

Our tree topper is a finger puppet! We also have a few other decorations. Without a chimney, we had to hang our stockings next to the closet with care:

I made the stockings a few years ago. They were my first attempt at intarsia colorwork, and I think they came out pretty well. I embroidered the names and details afterward, but the snowman and tree are knit right into the stocking.

My favorite decoration is something I found last year at a toy show for all of five dollars.

The snowman is held together with Velcro, and it came with a bunch of different accessories. The extras are sitting in the red tin on the right, to encourage people to play around with different ideas. I want to have a different snowman every day until Christmas.