Cookies and a letter from Santa

This has been a bit of a crazy week.  Coming home to the aftermath of the burst water pipe in our garage left me without a clothes dryer as that 220 line was being used by the heater and blowers which were drying out the garage so all the vacation laundry had to wait. In addition one of our three HVAC units decided to only blow cold air and before I left for Aruba I had scheduled to have some solar lighting installed in the house this week.  Needless to say, contractors have been in and out of the house all week long.  Then on Monday afternoon Steve and Anne had a small grease fire in their kitchen which managed to ruin some cabinets and fill their entire house with soot but thankfully no major damage and no one was hurt.  So this week while their house was being cleaned from top to bottom they kept us company and watched me bake…Stress baking I’m calling it and baking I did, making fifteen different cookies. 

1) chocolate mint layer bars  2) speculoos   3) oatmeal coconut raspberry bars  4) lemon squares  5) almond glazed sugar cookies  6) cranberry cinnamon chip bars  7) cranberry almond & white chocolate chip biscotti with dark chocolate glaze  8) chocolate cherry walnut meringues  9) sour cream apricot roll-ups  10) chocolate crinkles  11) peanut butter blossoms  12) Hungarian allspice poppy seed cookies  13) buckeyes  14) Mexican wedding cookies  15) chocolate dipped candied cherries.  

Tonight we had dinner over at Steve & Anne’s in their freshly cleaned home and after we ate we went out to the mailbox to find letters from Santa for Maisie, K & A.  The children were very excited to read their letters. 

Then K & A received email videos from Santa like the one Maisie received back after Mortimer made his report.  It was a fun evening.

Maisie’s very excited for Christmas this year and I can’t wait to experience it with her as I know it will be great fun. 

From our house to yours, we wish everyone a very merry Christmas.