All Wrapped Up!

So today I went to the dentist to have the permanent crown put on my tooth.  (It HURT!  However, I lived, and so let's move on ...)  When I was there earlier in the month, he had proudly proclaimed that over the Thanksgiving weekend, he'd fnished 99 percent of his Christmas shopping.  Being a person who generally shopped on the 24th, he was pretty excited, and said that by the time I came back for the final crown, he was sure he'd be finished.

Today he informed me (quite proudly) that he had only one gift left to buy - something "princess-y" for his 4-year-old niece.  He said the plan was to go out tomorrow after breakfast and "pick something up" so he'd have the rest of the day for "wrapping everything and relaxing."

Now, I am not a parent, nor do I play one on TV, but even I know that going out tomorrow morning to find something princess-y for a 4-year-old will not be quick or relaxing.  However, in the true spirit of the holidays, I wished him good luck and kept my mouth shut on the topic ...

Of course, it's easy to feel superior when you spent the previous evening wrapping the last of the gifts ... I knew that The Tim would be home tonight, and since they were for him, it seemed sensible to do it while he had no chance of getting a peek at any packages.  Jetsam and I worked very hard to get it done and looking nice.  One advantage of having your family live out of town is that you tend to do everything you can to get packages out to them sooner rather than later, meaning you have most stuff taken care of already by the time Christmas Eve comes.  (After Jetsam's Million-Dollar-Curling-Ribbon-Eating-Episode, all curling ribbon has been banned from our house.  Which is somewhat disappointing, but worth it in the end!)

Tonight, we are planning to bake some spritz cookies - you know, the little butter cookies that you press out into shapes?  We always make a plain batch, a red, and a green batch, and decorate them.  Both The Tim and I enjoy making them, so we always wait until a time when both of us are here.  Some of the other cookies we make are either his specialties (pizzelles), or mine (this year, marbled icebox cookies), so working on baking those on our own is not an issue with the other one.

And speaking of my marbled icebox cookies (and I was, just above) this is the first year I've tried them, and I must say that they are a huge success!   I'm not usually successful with recipes where you make the dough, refrigerate it, and then roll it out or cut certain-sized slices to bake.  But this year, the planets must have been aligned, because it all went smoothly, they look nice, and they are delicious!  I'm so proud of myself ...

See?

A nice cup of tea, some Christmas carols playing, looking at the decorations and the tree, and I am once more convinced that in spite of so many things that might have been, or currently are, awful, that there is nothing better than Christmastime.

Especially when you don't have to spend any single second of your Christmas Eve looking for something princess-y ...