Ready, Set, Christmas!

I had a fabulous weekend...

 Each year for my birthday my Sister-In-Law gets me a subscription to Real Simple magazine, it's the only magazine I read consistently. Anyway, it came in the mail on Friday & I have been devouring it all weekend. In fact, I revised my baking list to include some of the treats in this months issue.

Our lights are up! Brian had a bit of a Griswold moment (below) when he got all the strings out of the garage, but we finished them last weekend & turned them on this weekend. Is it too early for lights? Our neighbors have theirs on, so we're taking their cue. It was so nice to have the fireplace going & the lights on.

I checked a couple baking items off my over-zealous Christmas baking list this weekend. I made 5 dozen Molasses Spice Cookies & 2 dozen Banana Loaves. They turned out great & are in the freezer, ready for Christmas company to stop by. I know that I set my goal of 16 items (I've added one more since I last blogged) a little high, but we've been home-bodies for the past couple weekends to try & save money for Christmas, so baking has been the perfect way to keep busy.



My Over-Zealous Christmas Baking List

1. Banana Loaves

2. Molasses Spice Cookies

3. White-Chocolate Peppermint Brownies (New this year!)

4. Sugar Cookies (For the kids to Decorate)

5. Peanut Butter Toffee Pretzel Cookies (From Real Simple)

6. Shortbread Cookies (I've already made these, they didn't make it to the freezer! Oops!)

7. Chocolate Chip Cookies

8. Nuts & Bolts (New this year!)

9. Fiddle Diddles (A tradition. No Bake = Easy to Make)

10. Peanut Butter Balls (Also No Bakes)

11. Martha Stewarts Klassens Saltine Cookies

12. June Bars

13. Cinnamon Pull Aparts (For Christmas morning)

14. Lemon Jelly Squares

15. Granny Ruths Butter Tarts

16. Chocolate-dipped pretzel sticks

So. There it is. A little daunting. We'll see how it goes. Now I am off to finish decorating the rest of the house and have a warm molasses cookie. I am feeling so Christmas-y this weekend & am pretty excited for Brian's Christmas party this coming weekend.