Merry Christmas!!

Merry Christmas Eve, and Merry Christmas! I thought I would take tomorrow off from posting so that we can all enjoy the holiday, away from a computer.  Although the computer is a source of entertainment, I urge you to seek out other sources of entertainment, such as friends, family, wine, and presents.  And appetizers.  And cakes!

Last weekend, I had friends over to decorate Christmas cookies.  It was a blast.  Think about activities you could plan for kids, and chances are, you can do it with adults.  You just need to add one thing - alcohol.  For example, making ginger bread houses is fun... with wine.  Building a fort is great... while drunk.

I love food.  You all know that.  And I obviously love restaurants.  But I have started cooking recently, and it makes me appreciate the food I eat at restaurants even more.  I see how difficult it is and how complex it can be to make dishes that seem so simple.

So for those of you that like to entertain, we can talk for hours about great dishes to serve.  But, food is also fun, and you can certainly have a little party or a small gathering where everyone is a part of prepping the food.

As you can see above, I made Christmas Cookies, a snowman, a star, and a tree, using a sugar cookie recipe and cookie cutters.  Here is the recipe: 
http://www.joyofbaking.com/ChristmasSugarCookies.html.

This recipe is a little bit more complex than regular sugar cookies because you want them to be thick, so that you can handle them without the cookies breaking in your hand.  I thought that working with the dough might be tough, so I made the cookies the night before the gathering, so that decorating would be the main event.

Cute right?  I bought Christmas M&M's, candy canes, green sprinkles, and chocolate frosting.  I crushed some of the M&M's and the candy canes so that you could sprinkle them on.

Now, keep in mind, you have to think about transport when you have these gatherings. How will your guests get their creations home?

When my roommate Emily and I had friends over to build gingerbread houses, no one wanted to take them home.  What a hassle! So we had a bunch of leftover gingerbread houses. I'll be honest - ain't nothing you can do with a bunch of leftover gingerbread houses other than eating stale treats.  The next year, we smartened up.  We got shoeboxes and had people build their houses in a shoebox.  They could transport it home very easily!

These cookies just needed some aluminum foil for transport.   Everyone decorated three, ate one, and took 2 home. If you want to decorate more, just tell your guests to bring tupperware with them to transport their cookies home.

On the left you can see the end result!  It was a fun and delicious activity.  And we probably only spent 15-20 minutes decorating them.  As adults, thats all we needed.  We just wanted to drink and talk, and it was nice to have a cute little activity as a bonus.

Have a delicious holiday!
NYCMenuGirl