My husband and I have the rest of the week off of work, to relax a bit, but mostly to finish up our Christmas shopping and what not before next week (NEXT WEEK people…NEXT WEEK IS CHRISTMAS!!! Who authorized that?!) We don’t really have any formal plans for our time away from the office, except for today and Friday. Today my cousins Emily (21) and Alyssa (19) came over to make cookies for Christmas Eve (more on that event later); Friday is our designated shopping day, followed by a hockey game that evening.
To start the morning off, I decided I’d take a break from cleaning up the kitchen and play with my new camera. Have I mentioned how wonderful my husband is??? I never really give him a list for Christmas – we always buy each other things throughout the year, so there isn’t much left for Christmas…and it doesn’t help that my birthday is a week after Christmas! As always, he finds some way to surprise me every year, and this year was no different. He got me a new camera for Christmas!! How do I know, you ask? It came in the mail yesterday…and we don’t do a very good job of keeping secrets around here! Anyway, I played with it at bit this morning…by the way, the Penguin ornament is the only ornament on our tree this year…I like to say I’m going for a minimalistic approach, but really I’m just being lazy. 
Shiny star atop our scarcely decorated tree.
Pittsburgh Penguin ornament my parents gave my husband.
As soon as they arrived and we did the usual visiting and chit-chatting, we got started on the cookies. As ambitious as we felt, we didn’t really make it too far! We started with the peanut butter kiss cookies (peanut butter cookies with a Hershey Kiss in the center). Those went together super fast, and we were pretty chuffed about the progress we were making.
Hershey Hugs
Peanut Butter Kiss Cookies
We thought we were pretty clever by using the white chocolate Hershey Hugs It doesn’t take much for us to feel clever.
Emily wanted to make some sort of Andes Mint cookies…she wasn’t sure what the recipe was, so we kind of made one up using what we had on hand. Let me tell you, these things are AMAZING. Even my husband likes them, and he’s not a huge fan of sweets. They taste like a Thin Mint, only…better. Yeah, I said it…wanna fight about it? I wish I would have captured video of Emily trying to roll the cookie dough into little balls using her spoons…it was quite entertaining. But, you’ll have to settle for tantalizing pictures of the cookies instead
Melting the Andes Mints...
Minty Melty Goodness
At this point, the ideas were flowing; we were certain that we could keep up our momentum and have several dozen cookies to show for our efforts. We took a break for lunch and decided while we were out to stop at the store to get more supplies (I failed to take a picture of what we had when we started…everything is still displayed on the counter, so maybe tomorrow I’ll get one…this will show you just how overboard we went then you can laugh at our thinking we needed more supplies!)
After a nice lunch at the South Side Soda Shop (it was feature on Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives, you know) and a trip dodging the Amish at the store, we returned home…much more lethargic and sleepy than before. In fact, on the drive to and from the diner, I noticed my two cookie elves dozing off in the back of the car! We contemplated starting another batch of cookies, or working on the chocolate covered pretzels, but my elves were increasingly weary. Their eyes drooped, and their spirits snoozed. After packing them up with some cookies to share with their men-elves, I sent them on their way before it got too dark.
I decided to make another batch of the chocolate mint cookies…so tasty – uh, I mean – so easy…yeah, that’s it. Easy. And Tasty. Mmm….minty….melty….mmmm….*drools*
My day is coming to a close as the Chicago Blackhawks start the 3rd period leading St. Louis 3-0. Yes, I like the Blackhawks…my husband likes the Pens…we are a house divided. I think his Penguin needs a friend on that tree, don’t you?
