The weather outside is frightful...

but the smell inside is delightful! Well, really the smell of cookies is delightful. It's too bad that right now I can no longer smell baking cookies anymore. Can't smell anything baking, cooking, anything like that. I have to point that out, as I rarely swell upon the negative... So much for the holiday spirit! I have yet to say bah or humbug yet, really ever :)

So here's what is completed so far:
Clockwise from top left: coconut shortbread, 5-ingredient-cake box cookies, peanut butter chocolate swirls, orange wheat cookies, chocolate chip bars.
Chocolates. Some are mint, some are white, some have peanut butter filling, most are dark chocollate!
Last is a pretzel rod dipped in chocolate and then rolled in crushed peppermint sticks. On the coling racks are the tahini thins. These will be quite delicious with tea.

So I *just* turned off my oven today. I turned it on at 10am, and it is currently 8:30pm. Even if you subtract the hour that it was used for dinner and not cookie baking, you might eaily agree that that is still many hours of cookie baking, eh?

Before today, I only spent a few hours in the afternoon for a couple days, planning and mixing. I just love the "new" (to me, anyway) cookie book found by my mom in law at the last library book sale. The book has SO many interesting recipes. And lots of great mix-now-chill-in-the-fridge-and-bake-later type cookies. I am usually more on the ball, but recent surgery, you know...

I even baked through a couple visits of family stopping, as well as a couple of lengthy phone calls from people not seen too recently. My brother and sister in law stopped by to tell me that Dan is to be at their house tomorrow evening for induction of their son to the ripe ole age of 21, a monumental birthday party for my nephew. Yep, I am now officially middle aged -- um, no, I'm not. You bite your tongue! lol Hey, if you have a nephew that is old enough, you have to be, right?
Anyway, Mark tasted the still-warm coconut shortbread, but they were not yet powdered with sugar, a fact that I nearly forgot altogether since I was planning to wait to powder them until just before they are packaged. I learned that my sister in law does not like coconut at all. Good to know. More for someone else, I guess :) I think they still tasted pretty good. It *is* shortbread after all! Butter, sugar, flour, still warm from the oven. Mm...

After lunch, my cousin came over with her two boys. But it was too cold for the kids to be outside for too long - hovering above zero degrees today! I guess we should count ourselves lucky for the quiet inside during the hour they were outdoors. Of course, warm cookies were ready and waiting upon their return!

At this point, I was finally done with The List (I am referring to Christmas cookies and candy) and the kitchen was mostly cleaned up already, and not wanting to break stride, we decided to add a batch of tahini cookies for after dinner dessert :) It's all good, really. This batch, at least, the kids and husband get to have at it, unlike the previous thirteen batches! What a mean mommy I am! Grr.

See what you miss not living close by?