Christmas Baking

Saturday morning, I woke up feeling very tired. But, I had something to look forward to that morning. Despite the sleepy eyes, a bunch of us ladies were getting together to do a bake exchange. I was looking forward to it because I've been feeling sorry for myself that we can't indulge ourselves in our mother's baking this year.

I have to admit at 8:50 I still hadn't decided what kind of cookies I was going to make and we were meeting at 9. Oops! Well, I decided on a creation of my own. Sort of a chocolate chip recipe, sin the chocolate chips, mas 1/2 cup of cocoa and a table spoon of nescafe (I find that adding coffee gives chocolately things a real good bite!).

We gathered in the unit house and started baking. I brought my batter and just rolled my cookies in white sugar to make them a little less plain. There were candy cane cookies, just like Marcia's back home, some Russian cookies, a type of jam-jam, some peanut butter cookies, amazing chocolate chip cookies and little shortbreads with chocolate on them. The ovens were on in my house and the unit house, and it was a hot day, so we were all sweaty by 9:30. None of us minded, and it was a good morning to visit with each other. By noon, we were finished, proud of what we had done, and for some of us, encouraged by the little familiarity of home. We made up pretty plates and despite the Saturday morning look, we decided to take a picture.

I was glad that we did this, it's beginning to feel a lot like Christmas....