84 Christmas Cookies Decor!

Alas, Christmas is here! And man, did I feel behind?! Literally, Christmas is five [5] days away, and we just now finished our Holiday Cookies! Wow. But of course the wait was worth it, and with 84 done and pretty, Eddy can even take some to work. And we know how popular that will make him! d: (or SHOULD)
Now let's get to logistics. I LOVE decorating the cookies with my mom come the holidays. But this year, is the FIRST year, I will not be with my extended family for Christmas. Sad right? Well, kind've. But the fun and exciting part - -> I get to do all the fun traditions from my family, and the ones Eddy wishes to continue from his, with OUR family! So oh yes, Paetin got down to business and helped me make our Christmas Sugar Cookies. Cause without cookies, it just isn't Christmas. And she has been around my family long enough, to understand that. (Of course this rule also applies to cherry roles, and even Eddy is accustomed to that one already!)
The Baking.

After days and days of asking Paetin if she wanted to make cookies with me, we FINALLY got to it. (: In my defense, I wasn't sure that we had everything (like powdered sugar) to make or decorate the cookies with, so why try to start until you take a good long trip to the store? Then of course, Eddy was going to be off the next day, so we made a family event of it. After Cameryn was down for the night of course! d: I mean, what good would she be? The distracting little bugger she is! d:
Now after making 5 pies for our Thanksgiving out of a double batch recipe, I've decided that cookie dough, is much more my friend than pie dough! We can ball it up, re-role it, toss it around and just flat out play with it like play-dough if we wanted, we could still use it! Pie dough, not so forgiving. So taking this in mind, and the fact that I would not let Paetin help me with other mentioned dough, Paetin sure had a blast rolling it out and cutting out the shapes! The recipe says it'd be a 5 dozen batch. It LIED! I mean really, why lie about such a large amount of cookies? We got 84 before we tried eating as much we could bare, and eventually just tossing out the rest. But 21 each of Paetin's 4 picked shapes, we're talking a good amount of cookies! Especially when you think of decorating the beasts!! 
Eddy was our awesome oven man! We rolled and cut, he placed in, and took out the cookies. Aw was that nice. It was like a production line. Well, as a matter of fact, it WAS a production line. ( : 21 Snowmen, 21 Christmas Trees, 21 Bells, and 21 Stockings later, we were done for the night! Let those bad boys cool, and we can get going on the hard work tomorrow!


The Decorating.


As I had mentioned before, I wasn't sure if we had everything for decorating the cookies. And of course, even AFTER a nice long trip to the store, we still didn't have everything. I had such a nagging feeling as we looked for our easy, yet still common, recipe for our crunchy cookie frosting.. yet I could not put my finger on it. Many unanswered calls to my mother later, I was desperate. We tried a few different recipes from online; all FAILED! Ugh. It was miserable. Then, finally, I got a call. "Oh Naomi, you need to use meringue powder, silly. That's what makes it harden". **DUH ALERT!** But then of course Eddy had to head to work, and you know grocery stores don't carry it. I mean, why would they? Not like people ever bake or anything.. LoL. So a trip to a craft store would have to wait for another day. Sadly, we bagged up the cookies, and waited yet another day to start.

FINALLY tomorrow came. Off to Hobby Lobby and a can of meringue powder later, we were on our way to frosting the cookies!! Now, did I mention we made 84? Egads! What were we thinking? 84 darn cookies for us? What are we, an army? No. We are people who like to decorate cookies, and a hard working dad among that family, happens to have co-workers, who no matter how much they do or don't like them, will tell me my cookies were lovely. ( : So.. That afternoon we got on the lovely Skype with my mother, and started our decorating process. Mom of course hadn't made her cookies yet, so instead of decorating, she made spritz (mmmmm) cookies, and got her sugars all baked. Now, again, with the high number of cookies, I decided that since it'd take two batches of frosting to even get the darn things done, I'd start out with just basing the cookies. Then I'd see how I felt, and probably put the pretty stuff off for the next day. And THAT, is exactly what I did. I finishes basing mine, right as Mom finished baking hers, so we set another date for, well, today to finish them off! (Since she had a MUCH smaller number to do).

And today came! I hate waiting for people when I'm anxious. So five minutes after she got off work, I called her and asked if she was ready yet. LoL. Of course I had to wait another 45 minutes or so for her to get home and changed and well, not go STRAIGHT to what I wanted in life. LoL. Not to mention, I had to mix up my frosting batch anyways. Oh yah, I'm sure I forgot to tell you. Day one of frosting, my beater died about 5 minutes into my supposed to be 12 minute mixing job. And did we mention that this frosting is thick? No, of course not. So today, I had to HAND MIX my frosting. Needless to say, I only mixed it for about 4 minutes.. Eh. It was good enough in my opinion! And my hands weren't arguing with that logic!

I have to say, doing the basing one day, and the decorating the next (when you're the only one, that is) was SO nice! When I finished today, I was totally ready to do more!! Eek! I can't wait for Eddy to take them tomorrow! I know I'm such a dork, but I am that wife. "Here darling, I made a crap ton of cookies. Now go force your co-workers to eat them and smile! (as they slowly lower them to the garbage when you're not looking)" 
So here they are! Not great, but fun, and enjoyed! Had a great time making them, and they are crunchy, crunchy! I, of course, forgot to make some to hang on the tree. But Mom got a few on hers.. Well, the ones Dad didn't eat before decorated.. LoL. (: Merry Christmas ya'll! Hope you get to do all the fun things that make the season what you love!