Have Yourself a Blurry Little Christmas

So you may have noticed that I have not updated this blog in a very long time. A very long time. I blame Christmas. (And David. When in doubt, always blame the spouse.)

See, we made plans to spend Christmas in California with my parents this...er, last year. I was so excited. We hadn't been to California for several years (not since before Adelaide was born) and we had never spent Christmas in California since we got married. I was excited to take the kids to San Diego, introduce them to all the delicious food, go sight seeing, and splurge on a trip to Legoland. We haven't taken a proper vacation in a long time and nothing sounded better than Christmas in California.

But two days (or was it three?) before our scheduled flight, I started to feel sick. But I soldiered through thinking it couldn't last more than a few days. But I was wrong. I was so wrong.

I cannot remember a time when I was sicker. I was constantly tired and couldn't eat. I coughed and coughed and coughed and couldn't sleep. I ran a fever. I never run a fever. By the second or third day of our vacation I begged David to take me to urgent care.

Finally a diagnosis: strep throat and bronchitis.

I was given a prescription for antibiotics and sent on my way but it was somewhat comforting to know that I wasn't imagining my illness. I was truly good and sick.

The rest of the trip is a bit of a hazy blur. There was a lot of sleeping and not a lot of eating. (I lost 10 pounds. And I tried! I really tried hard to eat In & Out and Mexican food and all the things I had been craving but I mostly just drank a lot of Jamba Juice.) We did not go to Legoland or the zoo or visit the ocean or all the things I had wanted to do with the kids. My mom did take pity on them and take them to the Wild Animal Park (which I refuse to call Safari Park) and spoiled them as grandmothers are meant to do. I did get to have two lovely visits with my dear friend Tessa and several trips to my grandmother's house. I may have fallen asleep on the couch talking to her, but I still love visiting my grandma.

I hated that I ruined Christmas for everyone. But apparently I'm the only one who felt that way. David assures me that after two years of almost non-stop work, the trip was incredibly relaxing and peaceful simply because he did nothing. The kids got to watch lots of TV and eat junk food and get spoiled by their grandparents who also have cats. Nothing could have been better. Zara still asks when we can go back.

And as David pointed out, this was probably the absolute best time and place to get completely knocked sideways and out for the count because he was there the whole time to take care of me and the kids and my mom was there to make sure we were all fed and looked after. Moms never get sick days but this was about as good as it gets. I only had to be sick and that was wonderful. So even though I still feel a little bummed that our vacation was marred by such a hard and prolonged illness, it was actually a bit nice to just sleep through most of it.

The other sad outcome was that I took hardly any photos and most of the ones that were taken were blurry. So here's what I got from our Christmas but it's not much.

Playing with my parents' cats Bradbury and Lewis

Christmas money from the grandparents

New Christmas pajamas

Love these kids

It still took awhile to recover from my illness and I didn't feel 100% back to normal until a week or two after we returned to Georgia. But I hope I'll get another chance soon to take the kids to California and really show off the state.

Holiday Baking

It's time for my annual holiday baking report. In years past, I've gone a tad overboard with the cookie-making and have baked anywhere from 5 to 7 different holiday treats to pass out to friends. This year I decided to simplify my life just a tad and only pick four different cookies.

One had to be sugar cookies. I remember making them with my mom every year to leave out for Santa and I just don't feel that it's Christmas without them. To be quite honest, I love a lot of other cookies more than I love sugar cookies and they are rather time consuming, but I still do them every year. I thought these ones turned out particularly good this year.

Another must cookie are my pumpkin cookies with brown butter maple frosting. They might just be my very favorite holiday cookie ever. Pumpkin and maple are amazing together and are flavors you don't often see in a typical holiday cookie plate.

So I had my sugar cookies (no chocolate) and my pumpkin maple cookies (again no chocolate), so I decided to do a standard chocolate chip cookie. Except these are not your standard chocolate chip cookie, these are Jacques Torres' ("The King of Chocolate") famous chocolate chip cookies which are oh so delicious. David doesn't agree with me, but I think these are the best chocolate chip cookies in the world. (But be warned, they take a while to prepare.)

For my last cookie, I decided to try a brand-new recipe. I knew I wanted something very chocolatey and when I stumbled upon these chocolate cookies with mint chips, I knew I had a winner. Plus I liked that it added another flavor (mint) to the overall composition of the plate. Strangely, this recipe does not call for any eggs, which I liked, but it did leave the cookies a tad crumbly, so you have to be careful about that. I decided to use mint M&Ms to give my chocolate cookies a noticeable punch of green and red color. Above are all my cookies prepped and ready to be packaged.
In the past, I've piled cookies on plates or in metal tins. I prefer using tins but they are a tad pricey, especially to give to each friend (and we are kinda poor right now). Plastic/styrofoam plates just don't hold many cookies and they shift around a lot in transit. Plus, I've never found an adequate way to cover them and still have them look pretty. This year I remedied the situation by picking up these cookie boxes. I found them at Big Lots for $2 for a pack of two. (I saw them other places as well.) They held far more cookies than a plate and kept them secure and snug during transport. Plus, they provided a little window to display the goodness inside. All around a great idea, and one that I'll be using again in the future.

How was your holiday baking this year? Any good new recipes? I've included my recipes for sugar cookies and pumpkin cookies with maple frosting below. :)


Tessa's Sugar Cookies

3 1/4 c. flour
1 tsp. soda
1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 c. margarine
1 c. sugar
1 egg
1 1/2 tsp vanilla
1/2 sour cream

Sift together dry ingredients, set aside. Combine margarine, sugar egg, and vanilla. Add 1/2 flour mixture and sour cream until well blended; add remaining flour. Roll out to 1/4" thickness (or if you're me, even thicker :) and cut out cookies using cookie cutters. Bake at 400 for 8-10 minutes.

Frosting:
1/2 c, unsalted butter, softened
1/4 c. milk, room temperature
1/8 tsp. salt
1 tsp. vanilla
1 lb. powdered sugar

Pumpkin Cookies

1 cup pumpkin
3/4 cup sugar
1/2 cup canola oil
1 egg, lightly beaten
2 cups flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon milk
1 cup chocolate chips (optional)
1 teaspoon vanilla

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees

Dissolve baking soda in milk and set aside. In large bowl whisk together pumpkin, sugar, oil, vanilla, and egg.
In a small bowl, stir together the flour, baking powder, cinnamon, and salt. Add the dry ingredients to the pumpkin mixture and then. Stir in the baking soda mixture and then chocolate chips. Spoon onto cookie sheet. Bake 12 to 15 minutes or until done.

Brown Butter Maple Frosting

3 cups sifted confectioners sugar
1/2 cup butter
1/4 cup milk
2 tsp maple flavoring

Sift sugar and set aside. Melt butter over medium heat until golden brown. Watch closely so it does not burn. Add butter to sugar, scraping all the butter into the bowl. Add milk and maple flavoring. Stir until smooth.