The Weekend Before Christmas

Whew.

I finally get a chance to sit down. Granted, I'm sitting down to blog, the last item on my list of things to do this weekend. It's been a busy one. Which is why you get bullet points. :)

• I attempted to finish my Christmas shopping after work on Friday night. Not very successful. Did manage to pick up a gift for my office gift exchange.
• Saturday it was time for the annual cutout Christmas cookie extravaganza. My mom, two aunts and I get together the weekend before Christmas and make cutout Christmas cookies. Not just a few dozen. Nope. We triple the recipe. Instead of using things like cups of shortening, the recipe See here for photographic evidence of last year's edition.
• I was in charge of the cookie cutters this year. Actually that's usually my job. Although they did make me roll dough for awhile. Something about getting practice for when they no longer can do this.
• It took us 3 hours to mix the ingredients, roll the cookies out, cut them and bake. We ended up with 37 dozen. And in case you're wondering, that's 444 cookies.
• After the cookie extravaganza I headed to the mall. There was Christmas shopping that needed to be finished. And this time I was successful. I've got everyone, except my mom, done. And shopping for my brother? Yeah, that was interesting. Let's just say he's getting the gift receipt, because I'm not sure if what I picked out is what he needs or wants for this hobby he has.
• Then it was home. Time to shower and relax. Yeah, nope. Got to shower and throw the pjs on, but then it was time to make out Christmas cards. Yeah, I'm a little behind. But they're addressed. Just waiting for stamps.
• When I got up today, I needed a bit of non-Christmas related me time. So I headed over to the YMCA. Jumped on a treadmill and ran. At first I wasn't sure how busy the YMCA was going to be, so I set the timer for my allotted 30 minutes. When the time was up, there wasn't anyone waiting for my treadmill, so I kept running. Ended up running 5 miles in 51 minutes, 10 seconds. Felt really good.
• Then it was time to go back home and dive into more Christmas stuff.
• First up? Decorate my share of the 444 cutout cookies. With the TV tuned into the Packer game (seriously Green Bay? You lose to Pittsburgh on the final play of the game?) I sat down at the table and started frosting. I was done and the kitchen was cleaned up by halftime.
• Then it was time to move onto wrapping the gifts. Done.
• Now I need to fold a load of laundry (did I forget to mention I was doing laundry today as well? I'm a multi-tasker, what can I say?) and jump into bed to read a bit before going to sleep.
• It's been a long day. And tomorrow? Should be interesting. It's the last swim class before the next session starts up after the new year and we've got a 900 yard time trial on the schedule. And I'm lugging my running clothes with me to work because I've got the Winter Misery One Miler virtual race penciled in on the calendar. And since there are sidewalks by work, I figured I'd pound out a short run before heading home.
• literally calls for an entire CAN of Crisco. And flour? We need so much, and have so much practice at this, that we don't count cups. We just keep adding until the dough gets to be the right consistency.

Whew. Even though that was bullet points, that was a tiring blog post to write!