How I'm spending my Christmas vacation

With Christmas in less than a week, it should be no surprise that I’m in the holiday frame of mind. I’ve been feeling rather festive most of the month. Perhaps that is because we’ve had snow since December 1. While snow is expected in this part of the country, it is a bit unusual to have it snow nearly every day in December. See the pretty photo? That was taken on December 1st around 1 p.m. All of the snow is alright with me…as long as the roads are safe for those traveling.


I’m lucky enough to be off work for nine days. Yay! It’s nearly like when I was in school (or working in a college library) and had a winter break. While I’m looking forward to sleeping in a lot over the next week and a half, I also have a lot of plans for baking, candy making, celebrating and more. My holiday shopping has been pretty much complete for a few weeks now, and, as of today, I have all but one or two gifts wrapped. We didn’t put up our big tree this year. Instead I have a small tree set up on a TV tray in our entryway. The presents are mostly under it, so it looks quite festive.

I’ve been busy making cookie dough and candies. So far I’ve made batches of the following:

• Loaded Oatmeal cookies
• Chocolate Chip cookies
• Peanut Butter cookies
• Peanut Butter Blossoms (with both hugs and kisses)
• Dark Chocolate Cherry Cordials
• Chewy caramels
• Chocolate covered caramels (homemade caramels, too!)
• Chewy caramels with walnuts
• Buckeyes
• Fruit and Nut Clusters (with raisins, dried cherries, dried blueberries, dried cranberries and walnuts)

I still want to make the following:

• Peanut butter fudge
• Chocolate fudge
• Chocolate covered maple and black walnut crèmes
• Peppermint patties
• Buckeyes (yes…more of those are needed)
• Cranberry orange cookies
• Chocolate covered pretzels
• “Evil” brownies
• Almond buttermilk cake with raspberry filling and almond butter cream frosting (for a friend's party)
  

I still need to bake the cookies as I’ve been making the dough and freezing it in balls. That way I can bake only what I need. Less temptation for me to eat all the deliciousness. Or so I like to think.

Of course, I can’t talk about all of these yummies without sharing a few photos. Enjoy! I know I have been…

Chocolate covered caramels


Buckeyes



Chewy caramels with walnuts (before being cut)


Dark chocolate cherry cordials