Cookie Baking!

It wouldn't be Yule without lots of baking.  We give a lot of cookie plates to friends, coworkers and people like our mechanic who adores cookies!  Today Lissa could not come to church as I was working in KC's classroom.  She got to help bake cookies though so she is very happy.  She and K made peanut butter cookies.  Previously Kirsty had put cookie dough together for chocolate chip, reverse chocolate chip, and flash frozen sugar cookies into shapes.  So the baking went quickly as a lot of the dough could be plucked from the freezer and plopped on the cookie sheets. 

The decorating was more time consuming.  This is the first year that Kirsty has had the inclination and the energy to go all out on her sugar cookie decorations in about 13 years.  It was the first of December 13 years ago that we found out that her mom had terminal cancer and that loss--way too young and way unexpected caused this holiday to be very hard on Kirsty for many years.  I, who adore all celebrations shouldered a lot of the holiday load but am not nearly as creative with cookie decorating.  Then the younger kids came along and K was sleep deprived and there were baby bottles that meant she didn't have so many hours for decorating even if she wanted to. This year, she spent hours making these cute little creations which I know will be appreciated by the hungry hordes who will look at them admiringly for one nano second before they plunk them into their mouth!  LOL