christmas chaos

Is it because most of the horizontal suraces in my kitchen look like this? Or is it because I was slightly still asleep this morning after being up until 2am baking? Either way, the day started off with an avalanche of flour container, cookie cutters, baking soda and coffee pot all crashing to the floor. No coffee today. No coffee tomorrow. This cheapskate will only fork out the dough for 2-day shipping on a replacement carafe a week before christmas.

Ordered the sucker online because there is no way I am heading out there unless I absolutely, positively have to. It is getting really insane out there folks. Every single car out there seems to be scrambling around - clogging up the streets and cutting me off. Oh? Didn't see my signal blinking there didja? Yeah, I was going to merge before you dashed over into that lane at the very last minute with no signal and no regard for the rest of us out here. That's alright, I didn't really want to take the most direct way home anyway. I really like going the backway after you made me miss my turn. I really hope I don't have to back out there.

The Giant Ginger Cookie recipe is a good one. I love gingerbread that has all those strong spices in them. And the technique of sprinkling a good layer of suger on top before baking creates such a nice white crackling effect. I picked up these snowflake cookie cutters at Target last week. They work pretty good, although a lot of the detail gets lost once the cookie bakes up. Oh well - that's what the icing is for, right? And, as I suspected, the packaged sugar cookie mix doesn't quite hold it's shape as well as making sugar cookies from scratch. These photos are all of cookies cut from a dough made from scratch. But I'll continue cutting cookies from the packaged stuff. They taste great and I suspect I'm the only one who is critical of imperfect lines.

Next up . . . ice box cookies. Think I'll mix up several batches of dough this morning, throw it in the fridge and then work on organizing this kitchen before slicing and baking this afternoon. After this morning's coffee pot disaster I am acutely aware of the baking clutter chaos I've managed to create in 2 days of baking. Sending my husband off to work with a shopping bag filled with these cookie bowls feels like a major accomplishment. One phase down, two to go. I have a feeling that the cookies I'll be mailing out will be New Year's cookies because I'm quickly running out of shipping days. And, as I mentioned above, I'm a cheapskate when it comes to postage.

Can't believe christmas is less than a week away! Most of my packages are wrapped but need ribbon. Thinking of clearing off the top of our china cabinet for stacking all the wrapped packages. Pretty wrapped presents + 3 year old = unwrapped presents & a very frustrated mommy.

(Which reminds me - in a not so subtle transition - I just started reading Little Children by Tom Perrotta. The title of the first chapter, "Bad Mommy," alone makes me think this could be a book I never put down if I didn't have a million other things to do this week. My husband breezed through it in a couple days and was laughing out loud on several occasions. I love the idea of a book about the desperation of new parents like myself. Makes me not feel so guilty for not being perfect, calm, understanding mommy 100% of the time.)

Felt trees, christmas cards to finish folding & mail, more cookies, ribbons on packages, clutter clean-up and brainstorming a special handmade gift for my little munchkin. Another busy day!