Is that Fall just around the corner??!

It’s getting close to...THAT TIME!

COOKIE TIME!!

Every Christmas, Gail, Debbie and I make metric tons of cookies to feed all of our co-workers, friends and family. We sit down at the end of October and make a game plan, then keep an eye out for specials on ingredients like butter, nuts, chocolate and other pricey items. Then, on an appointed day in mid-December, we gather at someone’s house (usually an unsuspecting person with two ovens and a dishwasher) and bake, bake, bake.

We have developed rules about the types of cookies we make. Here are a few of them:

1. No chocolate chip cookies. Those are everyday cookies and this is Christmas dammit.
2. No peanut butter cookies. See number 1.
3. Cookies are divided up equally. Except when Gail’s husband Jim is around and cookies disappear at an alarming rate, then we dun her for his sneakin’ ways.
4. There will be no drinking. Every time Debbie gets a few drinks in her, she is up on the table and reliving her days as a “dancer” at the Thirsty Eye.
5. No feeding cookies to the monkey. Too much sugar..and he goes bananas.

The whole tradition started out as a cookie exchange at work. The first year, we had eight people and everyone was on the same page. Everyone brought a dozen cookies for each person. We notified the others in the exchange what each person was bringing in advance so there was no duplication. We packaged each person’s dozen up nicely. It was really great.

Second year, fifteen people signed up. Seven of those brought either peanut butter or chocolate chip, hence rules number 1 and 2.

Third year, we were back down to eight people. We had one gal bring Chip Ahoys. That was the last year we did the exchange.

However, we did like the whole sharing cookies thing. December is very stressful when you are working retail, and when the crew sees us bring in a big platter of cookies, they get big smiles on their faces and a sugar high that lasts all day.

As the season progresses, I’ll let you folks know what kind of tasty treats we will be baking up this year. Until then, eat all the chocolate chip and peanut butter cookies you want!