Christmas cookies

Every year when I was growing up, my grandma baked something like 15 different kinds of Christmas cookies that we would end up eating till Valentines day and beyond. Now you know where my baking and holiday obsession comes from. This means that I'm biologically programmed to get my bake on even more than normal at this time of year.  How can I fight it? However.  A few things have led me to voluntarily scale back this year: 1)We're moving in 2 weeks 2) I don't have co-workers to help me take care of the bounty 3) Of the 3 of us cookie eaters, one has baby weight to get rid of, one is crazy enough without the extra sugar, and one. . . can pretty much eat whatever he wants. Grr. 4) Oh yeah, 2 small kids that leave a person with neither time nor energy to bake.

Despite these things, I thought that making a gingerbread house and decorating sugar cookies would be great, toddler-entertaining, interactive activities. Hmm. Sometimes those ideas of cherished holiday moments are better in theory than in practice, and it's possible that 2 years old is still a little too young. But, I've waited two whole Christmases as a mom to do these things with my daughter, so we did it anyway.

Maybe this wasn't the best year to make my first gingerbread house ever, and maybe following a recipe in a foreign language wasn't the best idea either, but oh well.  Elsa is proud of her gummi bear art, even though it's not exactly prize-winning schmuck.

As for cookies, Elsa needed a bit of coaching to move the sprinkles beyond the first cookie, but she caught on. 



Lucky for us, this was the day before the putzfrau came. 

Clara provided moral support and an occasional squeak of approval.



Good times accomplished.