Yesterday a friend emailed me and said that a lady had brought in ginger cookies to the office. They were thin and crispy  and she wanted to know why they had spread out so much. Here was my answer.

1. Almost always, the cheaper the butter the more water content. Never use whipped butter or margarine, way too much water content.

2. If you like a “fluffier” cookie to that of a thin crispy cookie, use half butter and half shortening in the recipe.

3. In making chocolate chip cookies from the recipe on the back of the Nestles Semi Sweet CC’s it calls for 2 eggs, I only use 1. If recipe calls for Large Eggs, and you have Extra Large, use only half of the eggs called for in the recipe.

4. Using parchment paper seems to help the dough not spread out so much.

5. Measuring the flour is really important. I never sift the flour. I stir the flour in the canister before I dip the measuring cup into the flour. I do not pack it in. I just dip the measuring cup in the flour and then level it off at the top.

If you like them soft, be sure to begin to watch the cookies in the last 2-3 minutes of baking time. Because all ovens are different, yours might be done in 9 min as opposed to 11. If the cookie just barely creases when you poke your finger in it, that is usually when I take them out. I am assured that they will stay soft that way. I also don’t use cooling racks. I put the hot cookie straight from the cookie sheet to the paper towel that I have placed on the counter. Soaks up some of the grease and seems to keep them softer than the cooling rack.

We haven’t figured out yet why these things always seem to happen to us. I remember Erma Bombeck saying that she felt that God allowed the circumstances in her life so she would write about them and give people the gift of laughter. Maybe that is why these things happen to us. All I know is that if Candid Camera were still being filmed today, Frosty and I would probably be the stars of the show, as we just seem to attract “situations”.

It all began Saturday morning, when, “with visions of sugarplums danced in our heads,”  we set out to storage with our sleigh to pick up our Christmas decorations. After Frosty dropped the first box of “treasures”, and us scrambling around trying to salvage the unbroken nativities and the shattered ornaments,we decided that maybe a flat bed dolly would be good to use. So, in a few minutes, he comes back with a dolly.

We loaded up about 15 boxes on the dolly and we proceed downstairs to the car to load up the first haul. So far so good, (except the boxed “we” dropped). Frosty opens the back gate to start loading the SUV and I go around to the side to put both seats down so we have more room to pack  boxes. When I cannot get the seat to budge, I ask him to come around to help me put the seat down. He does….in doing so, he left the dolly, still filled with the boxes at the back of the car. I happen to look up to see the dolly rolling down the parking lot, still filled with the boxes, headed straight for a “Rent Me for $19/day” van. I take off running and then grab the handle to stop the roll away cart, finally stop it just before it crashed into the van. Frosty said he had never seen me move so fast. I give him a dirty look and proceed to load boxes. We take the dolly upstairs to the storage unit. The hallway is dark. He tells me that the lights are motion detected and I will have to walk to the other end of the hallway to activate the light. I do so, but by the time I walk all the way back, we only have about 5 min before the lights go out again. So another trip back down the hall. I am not singing Christmas Carols by this time. After 3 trips down the hallway to get the lights to come on, we get another load of “treasures” and head to the car.

After we finally get the tree loaded in the back of the car (this is now our 3rd trip back to the storage unit) I told Frosty that instead of bringing the other 15 boxes of Christmas decorations, let’s keep this year simple and just use green and red balls on the big tree. It is then that he reminds me that if we are truly going to keep it simple, we wouldn’t have made 3 trips to the storage unit. But off to WallMart to buy green and red balls for the tree. We enter a crowded store and head to the seasonal section where we find just what we are looking, containers of green and red Christmas balls. 50 green per container and 50 red per container. I pick up just the perfect container and the bottom falls out. Balls are rolling all over the isle with people having to back up their carts because they cannot go down the isle without running over the balls. Randy quickly runs around the corner pretending not to know me. That poor sweet clerk who came to help pick them up. I don’t think he was wishing me a merry Christmas. But off we go to check out. On the way out of the store, Mr. Randy is busy laughing at my fiasco with the ornaments and doesn’t realize that each person going out of the door is being stopped by a “friendly Wallmart Clerk” to check receipts. I was ever so thankful that it wasn’t the same clerk who cleaned up the isle after me a few minutes before. We are trying to hurry out of the store before we can damage anything else when Randy completely runs our cart into the “backsides” of the couple in front of us. Well…I guess I don’t have to tell you the looks we got from them. By this time, we were afraid to go anywhere else. We headed home to begin making our little abode into Frosty and Noel’s Gingerbread house. We both knew that we had had enough fun for one day. It is now truly beginning to “look a lot like Christmas” but we hope that by next weekend, we will have recuperated from loading and unloading boxes to just enjoy our new Christmas decorations. After all, “keeping it simple” is our new Christmas Season motto!

Hope you have noticed the new look to the blog. When my son was here for Thanksgiving, he helped me to put a new look to the homepage. I am so grateful to his computer knowledge, while I do good to just write on the blog. Thanks, Jason, I love the look and the pictures of the desserts, just makes me want to get in the kitchen and bake.

It is now 4 weeks from today until that magical morning when, if we have small children, we awake to shrills of laughter and delight. If we are in the season of life that allows us to actually sleep past 8 because the children are either older or gone out of the house, we awaken to just the opportunity to sit beside the Christmas tree and remember special years of the family gathering around the tree. Isn’t it odd, when we have the children under our roof, they wake us up at 5:30 a.m because they cannot wait a minute longer to see what Santa has brought. We think, “oh how nice it will be when they are older and we can sleep in past 8 on Christmas morning sitting by the tree with a cup of coffee all the while listening to carols on the “iPod” (notice I didn’t want to sound too old and say “radio”)”.

Then, when they are teenagers, we have to threaten them with”you will have your iPod, computer and iPhone taken away, unless you get out of bed right now so we can have Christmas morning”.

Then the season of  wishing that they would grow up just a little more to where they will “appreciate all we are doing to make their Christmas special” Why, do they not realize that I shopped and shopped just trying to pick out the perfect present” only to find out since it was purchased, there is already a “new and improved” version.

Then the years come that we are empty nesters. We are now able to sleep in until 8, but because we go to bed so early now, we awake on our own at 6:00 a.m. As we head to the living room to turn on the lights to the tree and Christmas music. it still doesn’t make the longing of wanting a full house again,  go away. The longing for just one more year that we could have little ones back in the bedrooms, waking us up at 5. Or maybe just one more year of teenagers, sleeping so soundly that we have to turn up “Santa Got Run Over By a Reindeer” just to irritate them out of bed. That was always one of my most favorite ways to irritate them. Oh for the good times.

This year, I am learning to be content in whatever season of life I am in. Yes, I will sit by the tree and reminisce about Christmases’ past. I will give thanks to God for the years when we did have to stay up until midnight to put together trikes, or desks or train sets. The years of trying to get them all to sit down together for Christmas breakfast before they took off in their own cars to go show off their new clothes to friends will be remembered. But it is also very nice to sit with my husband, listening to”O Holy Night” while we enjoy the quiet of Christmas. We will give thanks for all the wonderful memories of children, teenagers and our parents being crowded into our house. When we have had enough quiet, we will quickly get ready to join our adult children at their house. It is now time to pass the baton to them to begin their traditions and memories of Christmas in their own homes.  We are adjusting quickly to the “passing the baton”. After all, we now, for the first time in years, are truly in control. We can leave whenever we want and head home to the quietness of Christmas as seen only through the eyes of grandparents.

The memories of Christmas past are absolutely wonderful but the new memories that will be made, maybe in a different way, are just as priceless. And because we can approach Christmas morning after having a great nights sleep, while visions of sugarplums danced in our heads, we will be so excited as the little ones jump up to greet us, with the sparkle of Christmas in their eyes.

So Christmas Countdown begins with renewed hope, renewed excitement and renewed love for our precious family who we love so much. Let the celebration begin! Noel and Frosty,

PS…that is now how we irritate our children, we change our names the day after Thanksgiving until Christmas, even on our phone answering machines and everything we sign (except the checks we send to them, we tried that, but the bank sent them back and the kids threatened to send us early to the nursing home if we did it again)

It’s almost here, the hour that both cars will pull out of the driveway and head home. Back to reality. Back to cooking for two. Back to having no toys to step over, no dishes in the sink, after I have cleaned up 14 times since lunch. No background Little Einstiens, no sharing my iPad, well, actually we didn’t share, I haven’t seen my iPad since last Monday. No Pop Tart crumbs to vacumn up. No cookie crumbs in our bed because all the little darlings wanted to lay in our bed and watch cartoons. Wait, why am  I getting depressed? Because with all of that, comes the cutest little voices telling me that “dats otay, Nana, I fine” when one of the other kids ate the last chocolate chip muffin. Or, “Nana, I wuv you so much” or, “I wish I could just stay here”. All those precious words are what make all the afore mentioned things worthwhile. So even though it will be nice to not have to “share” the iPad, or only cook for 2, the day after they pull away to head home will be the day that we begin to plan our trip to visit them in 4 weeks for Christmas. After all, the Thanksgiving blues would turn into a Blue, Blue Christmas without them. We love you guys and are so thankful that you were here this year and helped make new memories that will stay with us forever, especially the pen marks on the couch, the sticky gum that won’t come out of the carpet, the broken expensive pumpkin that won’t sit in the middle of the table anymore…..Oops, sorry, guess I did have  a little more Holiday Stress than I  thought. Well, we truly are thankful for each and every memory we have for Thanksgivine 2012, good and bad. Our family has come to accept the fact that our holidays relate more to Clark Griswald than to Norman Rockwell. We are signing off from Peter and Penelope Pumpkin to Frosty and Noel as of today…..The Christmas Countdown begins now!

If any of you have any funny Thanksgiving Dinner stories, please share them with us. Would love to hear from you.