holiday high

Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee...... I love Christmas time!  Some day I will have children and will want to do all of these things but I just plain won't have the time or energy!  Maybe at that time in my life I will be able to afford to just take two straight months off of work to do Christmas-y things with my family and nothing else.  Maybe not... but I would love every second of it if I could do that. ;)

Recap of holiday festivities this week....

I made bourbon balls and pistachio cranberry bark for a Christmas cookie exchange.  Delicious!  I overheard a couple people say the bourbon balls were their favorite. :)

I shopped and shopped and shopped.  I am officially done-zo with Christmas shopping.  I still have a little bit of crafting to do but I think it is going to be really easy.  I'm going to decorate some onesies for my future nephew, and I need to make 5 more hot cocoa jars for my coworkers for holiday gifts.  Other than waiting on one more thing to arrive at my house, it is all complete!  That's 3 brothers, 3 sisters-in-law and my parents, and my niece = 9 gift recipients!  I don't mind the effort nor spending the money, because I so rarely get to see my family.  We always go all out for family gatherings, especially Christmas.  We don't send birthday gifts to each other, but Christmas is hands-down everybody's favorite holiday, and reason to be together.  If we lived closer to each other, we'd spend a lot more money on dinners out and other things throughout the year... so instead we just do it all at once in a span of 4-5 days!  The boys get clothes this year, the SILs get jewelry, my niece gets a Barbie car (shhhhh....) and I splurged on a Brahmin wallet for my mom (Justifying it as Christmas + birthday).

I think I have an idea of one toy that Santa is bringing me this year but I'll keep that a secret wish for now, in case Santa finds out and puts me on the naughty list for being too greedy...  (Hint: It might make all this baking a little easier next Christmas! Hehe)

I went to another "tacky" party last night, and unofficially won the best outfit (of course!).  I didn't officially participate in the judging, but everybody knows I took the cake. ;)  It's a shame such little effort goes into these outfits!  I spent a grand total of $12 on the materials for my attire this year, and lots of blood, sweat and tears (literally)... including a broken sewing machine needle and a hot glue gun injury.  Totally worth it.

I also made a tacky cheese ball to bring to the party!  It was actually a yummy cheese ball recipe from an old church cook book which my mom snapped a photo and sent me via email. Cream cheese, dried beef, horseradish, Parmesan cheese and stuffed olives. Classic!

Today I baked flourless cookies from this recipe by Real Simple (I will edit with a link later! I promise!). I have numerous friends/coworkers who are gluten-free, and I hate it when I make things that I can't share with them.  I love this recipe because it's gluten-free without trying to be gluten free.  From what I've heard, gluten-free baking is pretty complicated... after all baking is a bunch of chemical and physical reactions, and if you change one aspect of it, it's just not going to be the same.  I don't dare attempt baking gluten-free, but when a recipe just doesn't have flour or wheat products in it to begin with, then it works!  They are super tasty, and I'm taking them to our department holiday luncheon tomorrow, where everyone can enjoy.

Tonight, I'm rounding out the weekend watching Elf in my Christmas PJs, while addressing Christmas cards.

Merry merry merry!