Baking for the Holidays

I’ve spent the last few days in a baking marathon, getting ready to gift treats to friends and families for the holidays.

Said marathon was accompanied by eight inches of snow and two enthusiastic preschool helpers, who had a great time playing with all sorts of cookies.

When I’m able, I like to make one new cookie each year, followed by an assortment of old favorites. This year, so far, I’ve made my comfort chocolate chip cookies with a mix of butterscotch and chocolate chips, stir-and-drop sugar cookies with a green glaze, lemon-sugar cookies with a lemon frosting, fudge, and assorted chocolate-covered pretzels.

I still need to make, per tradition, chocolate-covered peanut butter balls and gingerbread cookies.

I’ve been posting pictures of the treats as I make them on Facebook, just to tease my friends and family. It’s been fun. And I dropped off my first treat box today, to my department’s treat day. It’s the week before finals in the Department of Mass Media, and for a change, I’m not a part of the general wash of frantic activity.

I have, however, been busy.

I mentioned several weeks ago that I had serious writing goals for November.

I presented at a conference, and I managed to write more than 25,000 words on my original fiction. I also made it through literature review and preliminary research for the main paper I’m working on as part of my sabbatical, so I’m feeling pretty accomplished.

I’m also thinking about a draft abstract for LauraPalooza, the deadline for which is Wednesday of this week, so I’d better move on it if I plan to.

But as snow fell this weekend, my focus was entirely on my family, and my young taste-testers, who love to smell every ingredient before I put them in the mixing bowls.

Lemon was a “thumbs up” from my younger, but a “thumbs down” from my older little girl. Fudge was “thumbs up” for my older little girl, but a “thumbs down” from my youngest, despite her trying it twice. They have widely different tastes in some areas!

But both love getting to help. With supervision, they made a bunch of white-chocolate-covered pretzels, decorated with green M&Ms, and placed Rolo candies on other pretzels for the Rudolph treat.

I look forward to helping them learn to make the other treats as they grow.