Christmas Cookies 2012

Every year, we make cut-out Christmas cookies with Adam's family. We make a good team because Adam's mom likes baking the cookies and I like frosting them. So, this year, she and Adam's dad baked almost 150 cookies, I made a triple-batch of frosting, and we spent Sunday afternoon decorating cookies with Andy and Kim, who had also come to celebrate Grandpa's birthday.

Our usual goal is to frost all the cookies with a "base color" which we even let the guys help out with (even though they do feel a little bad when they get demoted to doing circles and bells instead of trees or stars). Then, the ladies do the piping of outlines and decorations.  The base layer is never smooth because we like the butter/Crisco soft frosting instead of the "pour and harden" frosting, but as Adam's dad said, "Decorating covers a multitude of sins."

Ryan insisted, "I am great a frosting!" so we let him have a few of his own cookies and his own little knife. We soon discovered that is was also necessary to give him his own bowl and only put a little frosting in it at a time as we discovered him licking off his knife between every application.  He started out GREAT...

But after getting a little sugar into his system...

 ...we quickly descended into this:

And yes, that is frosting between his eyes.

He also decided a few of them needed some sugar sprinkles, but thankfully we got that under control before it completely got out of hand.

Once we really got down to business, we colorfully completed all the cookies.

These cookies freeze fairly well, but we'll see how long they last. I'm guessing it will take some major self-discipline for them to make it until Christmas!

It looks like another generation is learning to enjoy this family tradition!