Martha turned my frown upside down

I was in a bit of a funk about Christmas this year. We had let a friend stay with us to help him get on his feet in a new town and it went downhill from there. Needless to say the loss of a friendship and a feeling of having generosity taken advantage of can zap any Christmas spirit.

But just as I was starting to send out invitations for a pity party I decided to bake it out. So I baked 2 dozen thumprint cookies, 2 dozen sugar cookies, another 2 dozen gingerbread cookies, and a loaf of bread. I can't take all the credit on the bread since I let the bread machine work a brioche out for me but it came out so delicious.

I'm going to decorate as many cookies as I can tonight and hopefully get a good handprint of Kinsley's so I can make hand cookies. I used this royal icing recipe but doubled it and subbed powdered egg white for the real thing and used almond extract instead of lemon juice. James just called and said he picked up pink sugar sprinkles for me. It's like he knows what little thing is going to make me happy in the day and he knows being able to pink up the holidays is just what I need to do right now.

I'll upload pictures of the cookie madness tonight (except the thumbprints, those disappeared since Saturday).

I will make time for this-

Martha makes my heart all aflutter when I find things like this on her site. Oh, I think I will have to make these this Christmas and every Christmas thereafter. I'm wondering if I could make a herb bread and cut it into cubes and forgo the icing and use cream cheese instead (of course mixed with Paula Deen's house seasoning*). Oh, and a little pecan half for a door.

*House Seasoning:
1 cup salt
1/4 cup black pepper
1/4 cup garlic powder
Mix ingredients together and store in an airtight container for up to 6 months.


It's the best thing in our house. James mixes it up in large batches and then we store it in little glass spice jars I picked up from World Market. It won't last 6 months, you'll use it far too often.