christmas cookies

he 

He is our little gingerbread man, some friends 'found' the outfit for him! I thought that would be all I had to report about him and Christmas cookies, but, while friends were over on Saturday evening, I was finishing some baking, and he climbed on our friend's lap and began rolling and cutting cookie shapes, just like he'd seen us doing. Perfectly! I don't know why I thought I'd wait until next year to get him properly involved (possibly because of how much ended up in his mouth - although this will, surely, only increase during the coming years)!

me

My Mom has always baked Christmas cookies to give away to friends and neighbours. It's quite an operation, and quite an extensive list of recipes! I can think of 8 different types right now, off the top of my head, and she made multiple batches of each. I became responsible for jamborees, and helped with a couple of others, usually doing some icing/decorating, and my sister made the brownies. I LOVED this time of year at home, the kitchen bench was loaded with towers of ice-cream containers full of tasty treats. They seemed to magically appear, I don't know when she did it all. I do this on a smaller scale, myself, now. Usually early in the morning, before anyone else is awake. I made the jamborees yesterday (with orange marmalade made by a neighbour, from another neighbour's home-grown oranges), and I've also made two types of truffles and another cookie recipe so far this year. And i invented 'top deck hedgehog slice'. I don't know if I'll get around to doing any more, we'll see! I've 'tasted' a fair bit of cookie dough in the past week... Is it irresponsible that I choose which cookies to bake based on my knowledge of how good the particular doughs taste?