The Pink Cricut

One of my favorite things about Christmas time, is all of the baking

I love it, and I have since I was a little girl.  There are a variety of cookies that we have made over the years, with my parents--oatmeal rasin, Noel nutballs, Buckeyes, Date cookies, fudge-- but everyone's favorite Christmas cookie remains to be the, "Sugar Cookie."  Cut into Christmas shapes, and decorated around the kitchen table with every family member.  (They all didn't stay the entire time, but they all decorated....and ate...at least 1 cookie)

For years, after I left my parents house-- I still went back with  my kids to decorate Christmas cookies.  My kids needed to learn at an early age, how crazy and fun decorating cookies could be!  And, I can remember years where it got very crazy-- but there was always laughter, and frosting covered hands.  We have invited many friends and family over to share with us in this fun tradition-- so if they would share a story of our "Christmas Decorating" days in the comment section--I would love to read it. 

This year, like every other year, I have been baking up a storm.  Kyle cannot seem to keep flour and sugar in the house.  The 2009 Blizzard that snowed us in for 2 days didn't help much either--I though I was going to go crazy wtih only 1/2 bag of powdered sugar left!!!

To date, in December I have made Snickerdoodles, Peanut Butter Kiss cookies, Pretzel Kiss Treats, Sugar Cookies, Gingerbread Men, Molasses Cookies, and Peanut Butter Fudge.  My sister came to stay for a week also--so, has been a big help with decorating the Sugar Cookies and she also made Revel Bars and Chocolate Fudge.  So, as you can tell, my mixer has not had much of a break!   I still have a list of cookies I plan to make before Christmas Day is upon us....

The only thing I do differently, than my mom...is I don't hide the cookies until the week of Christmas--we eat them as we go.  I just can't see myself explaing to Jaxen that he needed to wait to eat these yummy goodies for 2-3 weeks...it's not happening.  :)

I may post more pictures of my Christmas baking...but,  for now here are some photos of the treats Alexis, Jaxen and Kyle are enjoying :)  Feel free to ask for the recipes I used. 

Oh, and this year I thought it would be fun to do "miniature" cookies-- So, I have lots and lots of mini shaped sugar cookies, and lots of mini gingerbread men.  They are bite-size and perfect this way, imo... But, we will see what everyone else thinks!  I also decided to use Royal Frosting, with Meringue Powder so that it would get hard and shiny, instead of our typical Powdered Sugar Frosting.