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.

Christmas Crafting

At the Ott house, we have been Christmas crafting every night. Lilly is really into creating a Christmas Wish Box and cutting out snowflakes from my leftover bleached (that I stopped using) coffee filters. She has come a long way on the snowflake project. She began cutting things that looked more like Elizabethan collars. Then she saw one of my snowflakes and wanted a lesson on how to make my kind of snowflake. (Probably so she could smack down her show-off Mommy. Which I proudly announce, she did.)

Thanks to her montessori education (all 4 months of it), she is willing to sit down and have me demonstrate how to do a project, and then attempt it on her own. It is possible of course that she was in medical school in a former life and innately practices the technique, 'see it, do it, teach it.'
Anyhow, the point is, she is rocking-out in the snowflake category. Now, nearly all of our windows facing the street have paper snowflakes drifting down the pane.

I am hoping to have the energy to give a go at Christmas cookies tomorrow. In my evening prayers I will attempt a channeling of Martha Stewart so we can have a dazzling snowflake festival . I am petitioning God for the post-prison Martha who seems a little more low key than the previously hard-core, ass-kicker Martha. THAT Martha freaked me out a little when I saw a cooking with children recipe she wrote that required 45 minutes of prep time BEFORE the kid got involved. Obviously this is a woman who only reproduced once and then had the sense to surround herself with mulitple servants. Clearly, I do not have Martha's smarts.

I will add some pictures of Lilly's bitchin' snowflakes in the morning. Stay tuned! I know you are beside yourself with anticipation.

For now, I have to deal with Lilly's hallway hissy fit because we have told her she needs to go to bed early. She is blissed out with exhaustion.