Christmas Cookie Frenzy

Well, the baking of delicious, chewy, and otherwise fattening things has begun...and come to an end, too! When you are living abroad in a foreign land far south of the equator and therefore have opposite seasons, you quickly learn to take advantage of the good weather that the Lord gives you. You see, Friday was a blazing scorching 90 something degrees in the shade kind of day. The sort of day that, when you don't have central air conditioning {I think I have heard of that, can you please explain what it is?}, you do your best to move as little as possible and stay in front of a fan at all times with a cold glass of lemonade within reach. Needless to say, near unbearable weather, stifling, and not fit for man nor beast.

BUT, Jesus loves me {Big Smile} and sent relief. Rain, glorious rain arrived late Friday night and did a marvelous job of, not only watering the parched flowers, but cooling us off by about a 30 degree drop in temperature! I admit it seemed a bit surreal after the heat of the day before and I wasn't quite sure how to dress myself or my little charges. So, what did I do? I didn't dress my little baker girl at all. I left her in her comfy pink kitty PJs and we made cookies to our hearts content, and then some!

What a time we had! We started with peanut butter cookies, a very rare and priceless thing to behold here in this "peanut butter-less" land, complete with chocolate kisses on top. Clara had such fun pressing them in just so. Then we moved on to Snickerdoodles {YUM!} and had a ball rolling them into balls and rolling the balls in the cinnamon/sugar mixture. Clara is a first-rate "cookie dough ball roller"! Ha! Later the Perfect Chocolate Chip Cookies were prepared and some Oatmeal Raisin, too! Screech, screech, open, shut, went the oven door. It did not get much rest that day, to be sure! Checking the cookies, changing racks, letting them cool, starting over again. In and out of the oven quick as a flash, and the wonderful aroma that filled the house and warmed my heart. Not only the wonderful tradition of Christmas baking, but also the beautiful sharing of time, precious quality time, with my dearest daughter. I cannot tell you how blessed I am and how I treasure these special moments.

The Messy Bakers

Snickerdoodles, waiting to go in the oven

Hard at work?!

Proud of her cookie making skills

Roll, roll, roll the dough...

So, what's in the oven at your house? Happy Baking!! :)