Wednesday, December 31, 2014

I Sure Do Like Those Christmas Cookies

I am typing this in a few stolen moments amid the craziness of New Year's Eve Day stuff. This afternoon—by which I mean all afternoon—involved shopping with my girls for a mother-of-the-bride dress, as well as shoes for the bridesmaids. I am now grabbing a quick shower—shopping makes me feel grungy—before heading into the kitchen to work on the festive Swiss-German feast my husband planned and is supposed to be cooking, but isn't, because he's stuck at Men's Wearhouse taking care of getting his suit for the wedding—and my son PT's, who at 6'7" is too tall for the one they chose for the groomsmen to wear! (I'm telling you, wedding planning is not for wimps!)

My dear father-in-law is here with us this year, and he forgot to bring his hearing aid. Having been deaf in one ear since a childhood illness took his hearing on the right side, he is now almost completely deaf without the assistance of a hearing aid in his good left ear as well. What this means for us is that the movie we will watch tonight as we wait for midnight, has to be mostly dialogue-free. Enter All Is Lost, a perfect movie for Opa, an avid sailor in his youth and still-sometime-sailor now, at age 80. Never mind that it's kind of a downer for New Year's Eve. With a mere handful of words at the very beginning, in a voice-over monologue, it is really the only movie he will be able to follow and enjoy.

As I type, I am eating a cookie. In fact, I have been eating cookies for days. We have all been eating way too many cookies for about a week now, and I have polished off at least two dozen all by myself in the past three days, I'm sure. Why so many cookies? Because that's what we're giving up as a family this year. Beginning at midnight tonight, No Cookies 2015 will begin for us. My son PT has agreed to join us even while he's away at college. My daughter EV, the one getting married, has remained silent about her intentions once she's in her own home in February, but for now, she's joining us in our solidarity effort. Hopefully we'll have better success than we did last year, when we bit off more than we (couldn't) chew.

A few remaining Peanut Butter Kiss Cookies and Cheri's Snickers Cookies are still in the kitchen, and Laurie J.'s Chocolate Chip Cookies are being prepared as I type. Yum! Like George Strait declares in one of the goofiest Christmas songs of all time: "I sure do like those Christmas cookies!" And for a few more hours, at least, I get to eat them to my heart's content.
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*Entry 7, The 12 Days of Christmas Blog Challenge
The title is a line from the song "Christmas Cookies" by George Strait.

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