"C" is for Christmas and Camping

Well, my parents headed out yesterday and the girls are sad to see them go. They had a walloping good time at the coach making smores and bringing a little chaos to their grandparent's lives.

Twas the day before Christmas

Thankfully, the freaky warm weather around here has finally subsided and we are back in our wool coats. My parents arrived on Friday in their flashy coach (also known as an RV, camper or giant roving single wide trailer to the rest of us).
I believe the term "coach" is used so that the public may know that their camper is a fancy thing, with Corian counter tops and a queen size bed. Simply put, "It ain't your grandpa's Winnebago."

The coach provides them the opportunity to come visit without having to cram themselves into our itty bitty house. The other bonus is that they have been taking Sizzles (oh did I mention this is going to be Lilly's new code name on this blog? Can you tell that Brian picked it out?) in the evenings so she can camp with them. They have decided to give Sticky-butt (Claire's new blog code name - also chosen by my husband) a couple more days to get used to them before they venture into camping with two children under the age of three. They are stocking up on the Merlot to prepare for the whirlwind. (I highly recommend self-medicating when living with two little girls in a 300 square foot automobile).

As usual, Brian has waited until the handful of days before Christmas to choose and purchase his gifts. This is an improvement. Typically he waits until the night before Christmas to do his shopping. Mind you, this is the same man who rants about the proletariat and having to hob nob with the masses. THIS man chooses to shop on Christmas Eve. Truly, it blows my mind.

I on the other hand, have been rummaging around the house trying to find all the gifts that I have stashed in our limited closet space from my early bird shopping at the end of November. Perhaps both of us could find a better way to work this whole shopping thing out. My plan for next year is to take the handmade challenge and to usurp the consumerism of the holidays by making everyone's gifts.

Stop laughing. I am going to do it. I swear. Okay, maybe swearing is a bad idea. I am going to try really, really hard to get my act together and attempt a 100% authentic Christmas spirit Christmas.

Perhaps the praying should commence NOW.

In the meantime, here is a recipe for our Christmas Eve breakfast - homemade Irish oatmeal. MmTasty!

Christmas Bundles

Okay, I am feeling guilty that I haven't blogged since Saturday. What is this blogging-addiction thing creeping in? I am not even completely sure if anyone even reads this thing. But then, what if there is someone out there in cyberspace, that was trying to find some kind of whacko porn site, and typed in MmTasty, and then read my blog by mistake, and then became totally impressed by what a great mom (or faker mom) that I appear to be, and then told everyone they knew to read my blog? And then no one ever wanted to watch porn again? What if by blogging I could crush one of the largest industries in this country?

Mothers everywhere are depending on me!

Hmm. This is why they say not to post your blog entry immediately after you write it. This is why they suggest that you wait a day to see if you really want your thoughts out there for the world to see.

Just in case your inner voice is a freak show. OKAY, enough of crazy girl.
Onto baking and advent and the celebration of all things wholesome and bright!

So, I have been trolling the blog world and running into a lot of people preaching about taking the handmade pledge or embracing the simplicity of life or hissing the consumerism in our culture and let me tell you this stuff has seeped into my skull.

As a result, I decided to make cookies for half of my office (about 25 people) AND stuff them into little cellophane bags AND tie them with some pretty holiday ribbon AND make the gift tags AND hand-punch the little circle for the tags to be thread onto the said ribbon AND hand write every person's name on each little package.

Clearly, I had not thought out what it means to take a handmade pledge. Apparently making a handmade pledge, means pledging to make something by hand. As those of you who know me can guess, I did not think through the magnitude of this project.

I can at least say that I was wise enough to put the kids to bed BEFORE I got hot and heavy into this hand making business. I can also say that I saw the writing on the wall two hours into the project and recruited Brian to assist with the ribbon tying and the gift tag threading. :)

In the end, they looked really cute and it seemed that most people were glad to get their cookie bundle. Perhaps next year, I will take the hand made pledge prior to seven days before Christmas.



Perhaps.

The Christmas Humbling

Occasionally I get cocky. Specifically, I have been known to tell people flat out that I am a great cook. To be fair, sometimes I truly am a great cook. But then every ten entrees or so I will fall flat on my face and serve up a totally crap meal. When it comes to baking (as long as you discount my constant muffin making) I tend to wipe out much more frequently than when I cook. Let's just say I have been kissing the hardwood floor this week.

I decided in all my Christmas shimmer that I was ready to try making gingerbread. Even better, I would go whole hog and make the COVER of the Martha Stewart cookie magazine I have been hitting like a stay at home mom hits the Merlot by 4pm on a Tuesday.

So, anyway, I thought I could hang with Martha.
Need I say more? (Yes, Yes, or this wouldn't be a very interesting blog would it?)

So I whipped up the gingerbread dough right before I had to go pick up Lilly from school. I was moving fast (I huge no, no in the baking world) and somehow managed to fly right by the molasses. As a testament to how uppity I had gotten in my Christmas cookie ways, I had gone to the supermarket JUST to get molasses two hours before this dough-making fiasco!

What is even more pathetic (and a reminder that I must humble myself before God and Martha Stewart) is that I didn't even figure this omission out until after I had split the dough, wrapped the dough, put it in my tinsle colored fridge and noticed the unopened bottle of molasses while grabbing my keys.

I won't repeat what came out of my mouth. It was very un-Christian like. It definitely wasn't in the Christmas spirit and I can only thank God (while apologizing profusely) that a certain three year old wasn't within earshot.

Sad. So very sad.

The good news is apparently you can totally take a kick in the pants while making this particular dough and still manage to throw down some spicy, chewy, gingerbread. So despite my fall down, I can still say I am great baker. Well, at least today. :)