It was Christmas baking day!  It was a mad flurry of flour and sugar, creamery butter and sprinkles. 

We had sent 63+ e-mails back and forth over the past two weeks (this may or may not be an exaggeration) in anticipation of Baking Day.  This is why I now know that approximately half of our concoctions are actually not baked at all.  It is amazing how many of the things we like are dipped in melted chocolate or blended and rolled into balls or cooked on a stove top before adding a certain snap, crackle and pop ingredient to a non-bake cookie.

Better-than-Girl-Scout “Thin-mints”/chocolate-dipped pretzels/peanut-butter balls/caramel cookies (can you possibly go wrong with a cookie that encases a Rolo and is topped with bits of Heath Bar??)/caramel popcorn balls/cookies-on-sticks/butter cookies/raspberry ribbons/decorated sugar cookies/peanut brittle (we always and ever have to throw the first unsuccessful batch out-what is up with that??)/Strawberries (which actually aren’t at all – not even in flavor)/royal icing/butter-cream icing/peanut blossoms-with-kisses-instead/almond bark/chocolate chips of every persuasion/peppermint/vanilla/almond/mini-cheesecakes/brownie assortments – all these and more threaten to throw us all into sugar shock.

Sadly, it was a balmy 108-degrees outside Saturday (another possible exaggeration), so we were shedding layers and had the doors and windows opened wide, drinking ice water like the dog days of summer.

In the end, even though my grandfather was a baker extraordinaire and owned a bakery for many years, and even though my other grandpa’s last name was “Baker,”  I don’t think I am one and I believe only 1 1/2 of my girls actually are bakers.  Maybe next year, we’ll let the 1 1/2 of them have a pre-baking day to really bake and we’ll have a non-baking Baking Day to eat their stuff and roll our tidbits in chocolate and that will be better.

Ended the day with the guys and kiddos joining us for the biggest pot of chicken and dumplings I have ever made in my life, because you know, we needed more flour and eggs. ;>[

Cup of coffee and some cookies, anyone?…Jeanie

NOTE TO SELF:  Get more Rubbermaid-pronto!

PICTURED (all thumbnails, click to enlarge): Top row ~ raspberry ribbons and other cookies; second row ~ some of the cookies in front of the homemade ornanament “memory” tree, the kids and Grandpa decorating cookies; third row ~ Gemma, Averi and Hunter with the biggest Santa in my collection; fourth row ~ Gav with Santa, niece, Elise with Averi and Stormie konks out after a long day of baking and fun.