baking for days

Our list of neighbors and ward friends who we do Christmas gifts for seems to be increasing, but in a fun and great way :)  Some years we bake goodies, other years we do black bean salsa.  This year, I settled on mostly goodies with 6-8 containers of salsa for my gluten-free and more health conscious friends :) 

I like to do this baking early in December before people have loads of goodies sitting uneaten on their kitchen counters.  I picked a weekend that we didn't have much going on so that we could deliver the goodies on Sunday afternoon as a family.  That meant that we did the baking on Saturday. Kevin normally helps, but he was off at a Stake dance, so it was me and the littles.  They were seriously great helpers, which didn't surprise me, but since I almost put them to bed at 6:30 for fighting, I WAS surprised that they worked so well together on the peanut butter cookie rolling, dipping, and hershey kiss placing.  

At one point, I was in between them helping roll the cookies while we rocked out to Mariah Carey's "All I Want for Christmas is You."  It might not seem like a big deal, but in that moment, I felt so grateful to be doing something I love (baking) with the two little humans that made me a Mama.  I want them to have fond memories of baking at Christmas and delivering goodies to friends who love our cookies.

We did a double batch of the peanut butter kiss cookies, a triple batch of chocolate chip cookies, and when I went to grab the almonds to start on the english toffee, I realized that the almonds were outdated.  By this point, it was nearly 9 PM and I just needed to be done so I could cover the cookies and get the kids to bed.  So, I scoured the pantry and found white chocolate that I could drizzle over pretzel crisps.  I had also planned to place wrapped Hershey Kisses on the plate, but opted for small wrapped dark chocolates instead.

I think we had 20 large plates and 4 little ones, which was A LOT of treats! I then started the process of wrapping them while the kids sat and watched a sing-a-long together, but because the plates were square, my clear cellophane wasn't working properly. I was super frustrated, and ended up having to wrap each plate like a flat gift which wasn't nearly as cute :(  By 10 PM I was finally finished and I rushed upstairs to get the kids in bed.  

We spent nearly 2 hours on Sunday delivering all the treats, and it was a good holiday outing as a family. 

Fast forward to the day before Christmas Eve when I made 17 cookie boxes for Kevin's employees.  I was super happy that my cookies were back to normal. The last few times I made them they weren't as soft as normal and I couldn't figure out what was different.  I have used the same recipe forever and they always turn out the same.  I decided to start fresh with the sugar and flour to see if that had something to do with it, and I think it made a difference.  I'm not sure why because the other stuff was definitely still fresh, but I'm glad it solved my cookie problem, haha.

Kevin said that his employees loved their boxes, and I was officially done with my holiday gift baking!!