Christmas Advent Calendar: Day 1

My entire body is aching from exhaustion. Today's Christmas advent calendar called for "baking Christmas cookies" and baking I did. Whoo boy. It hurts to type I'm so tired ....

I'm hosting my annual Cookie Swap tomorrow and I had big ideas to have a frost-your-own-cookie table for all the kids coming to the party. I wanted the party to be so special - part of my determination to go above and beyond this Christmas - so I bought boatloads of ingredients and baked sugar cookie after sugar cookie today. I AM EXHAUSTED (have I said that already?) and weirdly, I'm super proud of the Tupperware containers sitting on my counter, bursting full of delicious cookies.

Part of my vision for the Christmas advent calendar is to do each activity together with Tory. But let's be honest, there's no way I could bake 12 dozen cookies with a toddler in the mix. I kept her occupied for some of the time by allowing her to taste cookies samples.

My sous chef approves of this recipe

Half way through baking, she demanded to be held and I spent the remainder of time kneading and rolling dough one-handed. Not easy. Therefore, that's why my kitchen looked like this when I finished. Yowza.

My saving grace in-laws, Janie and Jim, arrived just as I was finishing baking. Tory flocked to them and began to lead Grandma and Grandpa all over the house to show them our Christmas decorations. In the meantime, I raced to clean up the big mess I'd created. Janie and Jim played with Tory all afternoon so I could set up for the party tomorrow. I don't know what I did to deserve in-laws like those two, but I am forever grateful. I truly appreciate all their help with Tory.

In addition, Janie came armed with outdoor Christmas lights for my house and Jim volunteered to hang them for me! Seriously, aren't I lucky to have them? Now we have Christmas lights on our house and I'm so excited.

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I made 12 dozen sugar cookies today and I have two extra batches of dough in my refrigerator waiting to be made. I just didn't have the energy to create (and clean up) another floury mess. Later this week, Tory and I will make the rest of the cookies together. I'd like to let her decorate some herself - ones we won't be gifting to the neighbors or our friends and family coming to the party tomorrow.

Sugar cookies are my favorite Christmas cookie, and the best recipe is my mom's. I can (and will) eat 6 of them for breakfast when we go home for the holidays in a few weeks. I attempted to make a sugar cookie recipe I saw on Pinterest earlier this week, but the dough didn't turn out quite right. So when in doubt, stick to what you know. I dusted off my mom's recipe and my cookies turned out perfect.

Mom's Sugar Cookies
Make 2 1/2 dozen

1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup butter or margarine, softened
2 eggs
2 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. vanilla
2 3/4 cups flour

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Cream together sugar and butter using a mixer. Add eggs and baking powder. Add flour, one cup at a time. Bake 7-8 minutes.

**Don't forget to cut the dough into Christmas shapes BEFORE you bake them. I made that mistake once and all you get is a biscuit-looking cookie. Not the desired outcome.

All this effort in baking will pay off tomorrow when I have containers full of Christmas treats. My big day of Christmas baking is checked off the advent calendar list and now it's on to the next activity - sharing them all with our friends and family.