Christmas Break: Day 1

Actually, this is day 2 of my kids’ Christmas break.  Yesterday was a 1/2 day for my younger ones and since they had a dentist appointment mid-morning, I figured it would be a waste of my time to drop them at school and then turn right around and get them for their dentist visit.  Mom’s executive powers at work.

Today it is a balmy 70 degrees at my house, sunny, no clouds.  In a word, weird.  I’m a cold-weather-loving girl and even though I live in the South, I like for my winter weather to feel like winter.

My husband would tell you it is because in the winter I can be in a  turtleneck and not look out of place.

We’d both be right.

On this first Friday of Christmas break, my floors need sweeping, my furniture needs dusting and bathrooms need cleaning.  But I found these great things at Sur La Table and I wanted to share them with you.

Here’s the spot where I tell you I am NOT a great cook.  That’s why I love the baking stuff in a box.  Love it.  And my girls can do the putting together part by themselves, allowing my little guy to jump in at the end for the fun decorating part!

How funny is that?  The Runaway Gingerbread boy!  We read a lot of different versions of the Gingerbread Man around here and this particular cookie made me laugh.  Plus, look at all the stuff that comes in the box!

Eyeballs.  Creepy…especially the one in the bottom right corner.  Ewww….my son has already called that one for his cookie. And just for kicks, we counted the eyeballs and there were 91.  Why do they give you an ODD number of eyeballs?  Unless you plan on making some kind of monster gingerbread man……but I digress….

The running Gingerbread Man cookie cutter!  So funny!

The “glue” to stick the stuff on with, plus something to add detail with.  My royal icing has turned out correctly exactly ONCE in my life, so here’s hoping the stuff from the box works for us!

Candy hearts for buttons and whatnot.  Sweet.

There was also the bag of dry ingredients, but the girls had already begun to mix and stir before I could get my camera out. So just pretend this is a picture of a bag of dry ingredients…..and please notice the image of the gingerbread man on the package.  Keep that image in your head for a moment.

After an hour of chilling then rolling out the dough.  Not quite the Martha Stewart experience we were all expecting.

Flour EVERYWHERE. Really.  We were both suprised how messy rolling out cookies can be.  Then we thought that maybe we were doing it wrong, but since we didn’t have Martha on speed dial, we trudged on through, blind to any mistakes we were making along the way. And oh my goodness! How much junk can I stuff on my counters?  And this was AFTER I’d given away about 10 boxes of stuff.  You’d think I’d have a clean counter somewhere.  Oh well.  Keepin’ it real.

Remember that image from the package?  Um, yeah.  The above picture was the result of our baking.  They look pitiful.  Bloated, cracking, eyeball a bit runny.  Gross, but in a funny holiday-ish kind of way.

We even made some cars for my little guy…

And to wash it all down, I got some Frozen Hot Chocolate a la Serendipity restaurant in New York.  I’ve been to New York about 10 times and have yet to brave the line to get a cup of  this sweet goodness in person.  Hopefully this mix will be as good.  I’m sure it will do the trick on this freakishly warm December day.

Here’s to a great Christmas break!  Cheers!