A Herd of Christmas Cookies

At last it's finals week; the end of the semester. My only class has their final on Thursday morning from 8-10 a.m. and after that I grade it and turn in the grades and I'm done. The freshman class population falls off sharply after the first semester and there are fewer sections of the class I taught so I won't be needed. I'm glad because I'm happy to have every day be a "snow day" in the winter time so that I can stay home in my pj's and wave goodbye to the school buses that pass my house on their way to school. I'll be thinking of my old colleagues as I sip my second cup of coffee and catch up on the news.

Last week I baked a couple of batches of Christmas cookies: double-chocolate-mint brownie bites and mini-gingerbread men. I put them in the freezer straight away or else we would have devoured them long before the Christmas party this weekend. Rich has invited the people from where he works out for a beer tasting and I'm looking forward to it.

We went "beer shopping" in Columbus over the weekend. That's the second weekend in a row that we've been there. The weekend before I shopped with daughter, Amy, and granddaughter, Olivia. The party menu is just tapas style and I have picked several munchies that I think might go with the seasonal and micro-brew style beers that Rich has chosen to taste. Of course everything is pretty savory and it seemed that I should serve at least one sweet thing. It's Christmas time. Cookies seemed the logical choice.

Overnight the weather turned to freezing rain and most of the schools in the area were cancelled, giving the kids a three-day weekend. It's cold, icy and windy out there. Just the right kind of day to catch up on Christmas related tasks like wrapping, knitting and making another batch of cookies. I got a little creative with this batch...

I had a cookie cutter that I purchased at the Country Living Fair in Columbus a couple of years ago and haven't used it until now. Today I baked a herd of Christmas alpacas! They are the colors of the animals in our actual herd...white, brown and black. I am not sure how I am going to store them without crushing the bow around their necks. Maybe make a little alpaca barn out of sugar cookie dough? Nah! I used up my daily quota of ambition making the cookie herd so I'll just have to store them in my old le Cruset roaster. It's the only thing big enough.

Queen Firenze is not impressed!

P.S. For those of you who read my blog on a semi-regular basis, I just want to thank you. I really appreciate your readership and try to include alpaca pictures every time since I know that's primarily why you read this. Have a really happy holiday season. (Hannukkah, Kwanza, Christmas, Solstice, whatever you choose.)