I Think We're Ready

The gifts are wrapped.  The house is cleaned. The table is set up and ready for finishing. The turkey is in the brine.  The cranberries are sauced.  The Swedish cardamom bread for Christmas morning is baked.  All of the necessary provisions have been stocked. The cookies are baked.

Saturday we had our annual family cookie baking day - gingerbread and sugar cookies.

We rolled out and cut and baked the gingerbread first. For that we use animal and non- Christmas cookie cutters.

 Then we went to work on the sugar cookies.  Jill is very intense in creating her designs with sprinkles.

 There are lots of sprinkles!

 Tom and Corey get into it too.  But not me.  I have to roll out the dough and monitor the baking.

 After the sugar cookies are done, I make the icing for the gingerbread, and make zip lock baggie decorator bags.  Then I grabbed one for myself and went to work before surrendering my station to another.  These are my creations.

Christmas Eve will be busy.  We are having our big formal dinner in the evening.  There will be family guests from California, along with the usual suspects. 

A huge cache of gifts is secreted in our bedroom, off limits to package pinchers.  They will not appear until after the kids go to bed here at our house and Santa comes.

Christmas Day will be centered around the tree, and the table, with breakfast, leftover snacks, a smorgasbord of sorts, and a casual meal of whatever is still in the refrigerator, with the addition of fresh Dungeness crab.  And cookies, of course.

Wishing you a Christmas that is well sprinkled with all you wish it to be.

MERRY CHRISTMAS!  HAPPY HOLIDAYS!