I figured out which cookie recipe I’m going to make this weekend for the AWC Christmas Cookie Exchange. Even though I have no time to bake cookies, I can’t, in all good conscience, make Rice Krispie Holly Bars AGAIN. I really wanted to make a fantabulous almond and sugar cookie recipe that one of my Ericsson colleagues gave me, which was melt-in-your-mouth amazing, but after checking the recipe this afternoon, I realized that it was a sandwich-style cookie and since I need a total of 72 cookies, that would have meant making a GROSS!
I am ashamed to admit that just now I leaned my lazy math-impaired self over and opened the left-hand desk drawer and pulled out a calculator to figure out what 72 twice was. But I am thrilled that it was a gross! Because, really, how often do you get to use the word gross in a manner not related to icky, disgusting things?
So, instead I’m making Mini Chip Snowballs and will save the Dreamy Almond Sandwich Cookies for our own holiday baking extravaganza.
However, I’m at a bit of a loss to figure out exactly WHEN I will manage to fit cookie baking into the rest of this week’s schedule, which goes something like this:
- Wednesday: Work all day, arrive home to greet in-laws who have picked up the children and been home washing my windows and ironing and hanging my clean curtains all day, eat dinner, drive half an hour to Malmö for choir practice, drive home again
- Thursday: Work all day, pick up kids, eat dinner, drive 40 minutes to Debbie’s house to drop off kids, AWC Christmas wreathmaking course (note to self: don’t forget the camera!), pick up kids again, drive home
- Friday: Work all day, pick up kids, feed kids, pack Martin’s stuff and drop him off for overnight Scout camp, panic about not having enough stuffing on hand for Saturday, clean house, rejoice at safe arrival of Anders late at night
- Saturday: Finish cleaning, bring down Advent lights and set them up, peel 42 million potatoes while Anders cooks 3 turkeys and then makes mashed potatoes, set table, pick up Martin from camp, drive half an hour to Malmö, sing in 2 concerts, drive home again, welcome 13 adult and 9 child dinner guests for Thanksgiving dinner, party hearty, stay up way too late
- Sunday: Clean up the aftermath, wash 42 million dishes, drive half an hour to Malmö, sing in 3 choir concerts, drive home again, BAKE COOKIES??!, print AWC calendar, finish AWC activity web pages, collapse muddy and exhausted
Somewhere in the midst of all this madness, I need to plan and book Martin’s birthday party, get to the mall and buy snowsuits, snowpants, snowboots and Christmas outfits for both children, write our Christmas newsletter, write and address Christmas cards to the States, clean the fish tank, and finish Christmas shopping (not that much left, but still). Then there is still all the rest of the holiday prep that I don’t dare think about yet for fear of my head exploding.
There’s a science fiction story I read years ago, which I suspect was by Heinlein although a quick flip through my library didn’t turn it up, featuring a machine that one could use to enter an alternate universe that had a different rate of time than ours. People went through and had a long, relaxing vacation or recuperation period and then returned moments after they had left, to find that NO TIME HAD PASSED here on Earth in their absence. You might think that J.K. Rowling made it up when she had Professor McGonagall give something similar to Hermione in one of the first Harry Potter books, but you would be wrong. Or at least, if she DID make up the idea, she wasn’t the first to do so.
What I Want For Christmas: One o’ them machines