How I Spent My Sunday

I spent my Sunday decorating cookies and covering pretzels and peppermint sticks with chocolate. These are the handmade goodies I give out to my family/relatives at Christmas every year. I think the pretzels are my favorite. It's the mix of the saltiness of the pretzels with the sweetness of the chocolate that is just yummy! These have become a family favorite.

More chocolate-covered pretzels and peppermint sticks.

I finally found peppermint sticks this year right around Halloween at Cost Plus World Market. What I really like about these are that they are soft and chewy. I have been wanting to cover peppermint sticks with chocolate for a few years, but had never been able to find peppermint sticks - you see candy canes everywhere, but the peppermint sticks are not that easy to find.

I made the dough for these gingerbread cookies on Friday night and chilled it overnight. I baked them yesterday and decorated them today. I found this really cool edible glitter (gum arabic) at my local cake decorating shop and I really like the little extra "sparkle" it gives the cookies, although it's a little hard to see in this photo. I am a firm believer that you can never have too much glitter!

What kind of baking do you do each year for Christmas? Do you have a special recipe or cookie/treat that your family and friends look forward to each year? I'd love you to share some of your baking traditions. I think it would be fun next year to do a virtual "cookie swap" where we could all share what we've made with each other. And there's no calories!!! I have some cute tins to put the peppermint sticks and gingerbread cookies in that I had bought last year at JoAnns (and they were like 75% off!), and some cute cellophane bags that I bought at Michaels this year to put the pretzels in. I'll post those photos soon.

It was a very productive day, but I still have lots to do, as we are having Christmas Day at our house this year and I also still have knitting that I'm trying to finish-up. I don't know if I'll be able to finish them to give on Christmas though, as one project has to be blocked after I finish knitting it. I have a feeling these gifts are going to be a little late this year, but that's okay. I should have started sooner, but I thought I would have plenty of time. There's a saying...