Merry Christmas!

Happy holidays to all those out in cyberland. Usually, Chris and I travel to his and my parents’ houses during the holidays. This year we were unable to do this because he had to work through the holiday with Speedskating. He was lucky to get Christmas day off. Anyway, I tried to arrange it so that his family could come out to Colorado for the holiday, but was unsuccessful. My parents, on the other hand, thought it a great idea to get away for the holiday. So, my sister stayed with us, and my parents stayed at the Hall’s house.


Christmas morning was nice and relaxed; Chris, Kacie, and I got up and started the breakfast frittata and cinnamon rolls that we had picked out the night before. My parents arrived shortly after starting breakfast. After finishing breakfast and cleaning up we started present opening. Everyone got lots of wonderful gifts this year, which proves that lists really do help. Check out everyone’s shwag in the pictures at the bottom. The rest of the afternoon was spent watching movies and hanging out. Around 5 pm we had a dinner to go to at the Hall’s house. We all enjoyed dinner and the football games.

It’s been nice having my family around, especially my sister. For the first time, Kacie and I have gotten along and enjoyed our time together. We discussed her coming out for Thanksgiving next year, which I think would be fun. We’ll have to see if it actually happens though.

Christmas Cookie Exchange 2005

The cookie exchange is always a bit of a stressful event, but this year it was even more so because Mrs. Hall put me in charge of most of it. So we changed the rules a bit to try and get better quality cookies and to make it mean more than just exchanging cookies. All the participants were required to bake their own cookies from scratch (no roll or pre-prepared cookies) and have a story to go along with the recipe or its creation to share. I also decided to take pictures of everyone with their cookies to include in the recipe book. Thankfully, we had an amazing turn out. It was really great to mingle with everyone while we waited for the last couple people to show up. Once they arrived we gathered in the living room to share our little stories of cookie goodness. After the stories were shared, everyone hurried into the dining room to get the cookie swapping underway. Everyone lined up around the tables with their container preparing to take one or two of each kind. Once everyone had gone through, we went around again to trade off the last few. I spent WAYYY too much time on my cookies (probably 24 hours at least), but everyone loved them. I chose a cookie wand recipe then hand dipped each wand in various flavors of chocolate, and toppings.

In the end, each person received five cookies in a little baggie from me:

1. Milk Chocolate dipped w/ Toffee topping
2. Cappuccino dipped w/ Hazelnuts & Milk Chocolate drizzles
3. Dark Chocolate dipped w/ Coconut topping
4. White Chocolate dipped w/ Candy Cane topping
5. Caramel dipped w/ White & Dark Chocolate drizzles

This year was much better than previous years, and I hope get the recipe book completed sometime soon. I can’t wait to see what turns up next year! Happy Holidays!