Sniff sniff…I smell Fall

For those of us who love to bake, especially during the holidays, Christmas will be here before we know it.  Now some folks look forward to the shopping, decorating and parties.  Not me.   Nope, I look forward to all the grocery stores setting up the baking display.  Like a moth to a flame, I start circling as soon as the poor employees break out with the center baking isle at the Wal-Mart. 
 

I’ve already declared I would bake this year.  I started Christmas baking when we bought our first house in Jasper as a way to have inexpensive but delicious gifts for neighbors, coworkers family and friends.  I taught myself to bake with the really good ingredients, buttah and high fat chocolate.  Once I returned to full time work, baking became my therapy.  I was meant and determined to bake myself into the holiday spirit. 

As an accountant, the worst part of the year is from November through March.  Really it starts in October…and just ruins any Christmas cheer you attempt to conjure up.  The worse work was, the more I baked.  One particular year, our ENTIRE freezer was completely full of cookies. 

I have no clue how many dozens or flavors I baked.  I just know I baked and baked and baked.  And sang Martina McBride’s Christmas cd for hours…late into the night. I don’t recall if I ever developed the full blown Christmas spirit…but I my coworkers can testify to a tasty Christmas!!

Unfortunately, my love for baking and my RAD tend to contradict one another.  I’ve always used a hand held mixer to mix cookie dough.  This past Christmas I baked about half my usual repertoire due to not physically being able to use the mixer.  Unless my right wrist experiences its own Christmas miracle, this might be the last year I can bake solo.  (The wrist has completely knitted together and gives me fits.  Some days I’d literally like to gnaw it off, but the sight of blood makes me faint.)

Y’all know I got a game plan…I’m gonna bake.  But I’ve got a few obstacles to overcome.  First, I don’t have an upright freezer up here.  So I’ve got to either find a very economically priced freezer or bring up the older very heavy one from home.  Then I need to figure out how I’m going do so much chopping with my left hand.  (Send band aides…I’m gonna need ‘em.)  Lastly, I’ve gotta get a way to play Martina McBride Christmas favorites cd while I bake.  Perhaps I need a trip to the pawn shop for an early Christmas present to me…an iPod!!

Task number one is going to write down all the recipes…that’s right.  I’m going to make me a booklet of all my favorite Christmas cookie recipes.  I would like to make up a mini recipe book with the 30 plus Christmas recipes along with some of my Granny Fussell’s most famous.  Hopefully I will be able to figure how to do this and sell it through pay pal or Amazon.

 

Task number two is to make my baking list: a guesstimate of all the folks I would like to gift some of my baby Jesus Joy to.  And lastly task number three is my baking budget…It may amuse a few folks but I do budget this into my Christmas and holiday expenditures…right along with gifts, decorations, extra gasoline and donations.

I’m tremendously looking forward to this season of holidays and ready to spend extra time with my family and friends.  So I better get to baking…only 91 days until Jesus birthday!!