Crazy Holiday's

       I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday! Myself, we had a wonderful time with all our friends and family. I have a love/hate relationship with the holiday season. I love the anticipation of Christmas morning and seeing my kids faces at all the wonderful things that Santa and the family got for them. I love teaching them about the real meaning of Christmas and why we celebrate it. I love the holiday music (even though they start playing it the day after Halloween. That I can do without.), putting up all of our decorations, the sights around town, just everything about the holiday I enjoy. 

       

       The hate part comes along with the enjoyment, as it does with most things. While I love entertaining and making a great tasting meal for my family, I hate the frazzle that comes with it. The worry if the turkey is going to come put just right, if the ham will be juicy enough (I still can't figure out why mine burned a little on top when I set the oven for cooler than called for. Even my in laws and my dad couldn't figure it out. Stumped by the Christmas piggie.), if everyone is going to like what you've made. I don't know if I'm alone in my concerns as most people are not as anal retentive as I am. All i can say is that while Christmas is my favorite holiday, I am never sad to see the tail lights of it either. I remain non committal about New Year's eve. 

       In all my frenzy this year, I of course made desserts for Christmas, holiday treats for my husbands partner at work and cupcakes for my daughters holiday party at school. I sent Oreo Cupcakes to school the day before winter vacay and they were a huge hit (so I must be doing something right, right?). I misremember where I got the recipe, but it was delicious and will stay in my arsenal. Besides, who can go wrong with Oreo's?! That delectable cookie should be a food group. I'm starting a petition. 

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 These tasty little buggers had Oreo chunks at the bottom of the liner. When you pour the batter in, they float to the top. You can also place the whole cookie on the bottom and it floats to the middle. Kind of like a Surprise cupcake. Chocolate and Oreos. You just can't go wrong with the two!

The icing is the standard Wilton Butter Cream icing, except I added ground up Oreo cookies (filling and all) to it at the end. I used my Magic Bullet system to grind up the sinful little things, but if you don't have the Magic Bullet or a likeness and don't feel like lugging out a huge grinder/blender then  you can just put the whole cookie in a gallon sized zip lock bag and crush them that way with a rolling pin. Either way, you're going to get ground up goodness. I should probably apologize to all the parents in my daughters class, since they got a sugar high. I'm not going to, but I least I had the thought to ;^)! 

       As much as I crap and complain about all that I have to do during the holiday's, I wouldn't trade one second of it for the satisfaction I get from seeing someones "bliss" face after I've made something good. Maybe I'm masochistic for enjoying the irritation and desperation of getting everything done on time. That bliss face makes it all worth it. So if that is wrong, I've never been so happy to be wrong! Bring. It. On! 

       The hubs and his partner had to "divorce" as they call it after Christmas this year. His company's way of keeping complacency down I guess. Kinda dumb in my mind. Lazy workers will be complacent with whoever they are with. But that's just me. His company, while being a big energy supplier, isn't really fast on the uptake if you catch my drift. Anyway, I digress. As a farewell to their "marriage" I told the hubs partner that I would make them tons of goodies so that they could part on speaking terms. This pleased all parties involved and the separation commenced. So off I went to fill the divorce order as I call it. I made them my fan favorite Oatmeal-Raisin-Chocolate Chip cookies, the requested Peanut Butter Revel Bars and a new recipe that I wanted to try out-Eggnog Cookies (think sugar cookies but made out of Eggnog and other yummy stuff.) His partner also requested my homemade Peanut Butter Cups. These I made just enough of for him alone. The cookies went to his wifey and their kiddos. She wrote me an email New Years eve and said that he ate them all and she hopes he gets sick! Gotta love that kind of props! She also asked if I could make her daughters birthday cake, so I don't think she was too put out! 

Sorry about the dark photo. Photog I am NOT.

I wanted to show how they glitter like real snow.

The Eggnog cookies come out spectacularly! The hubs is not a fan of eggnog, yet he could NOT stop eating those cookies. This was my first attempt at brush embroidery as well. I don't think i did too bad, but definitely room for improvement. Try, try again until you get it right I always say.The technique is a little time consuming, but so worth it in the end. After the icing was put on, I sprinkled edible glitter before the icing dried to make it look a little more like snow. Hubs partner and his family were super happy with them.

Homemade Peanut Butter Cups

I love making my peanut butter cups. The filling this time was a little more gooey than usual (don't know what happened there) but it worked for the general outcome of the product. Partner gobbled then up faster than you can say "mmmmmm" so I guess they were up to par!

        Much merry making was had this holiday season. Through all the spilled flour, cookies that were less than...well....they were less, all the smiles, my daughters stomach pyrotechnics from eating WAY too much, and the "Thanks. These were great," all the blood sweat and tears....OK well no blood was actually spilled during the making of this holiday, I still had a wonderful month with my family and friends. The good and the bad, I wouldn't have changed a minute of it, even when my daughter got sick. Hey what's a holiday without someone getting sick? I've never had one. There's was this one time, when my sister and I were little.....JUST kidding. she would do bodily harm to me if I went into that and I darn sure you don't want to read that. Let's just say our brother and I had a good laugh at her expense! Next year may be just as crazy, it may not. Crazy? I like crazy. We're real close, Crazy and I. It's the masochist in me. Happy New Year to you all!