Christmas Cookies

Here in the Burk household we love to decorate cookies, and use any holiday as an excuse to indulge in our hobby. Seriously, if I could remember when Arbor Day and Earth Day occurred, we would probably decorate cookies on those days too.

While Nate made dinner, the kids and I started to make our sugar cookie batter. The recipe usually calls for the dough to refrigerate for a few hours, but this time, I was actually on top of my game, and had the dough planned for Saturday night followed by rolling, cutting, baking, and decorating for Sunday.

Now when we bake, everyone busts out an apron and the music gets turned up loud. Usually, this results in an impromptu dance party. Maybe it is the Christmas music, or maybe I have been sniffing the vanilla a little too much, but something about baking makes me deliriously happy. I would love to have my own bakery full of delicious fattening treats. Then again, I am not exactly a morning person and getting up at 3 AM to run a bakery is less than appealing. That and I would probably end up eating all my merchandise and would wind up weighing 800 pounds.

Just as a warning, if you so happen to receive a plate of cookies from us, please be aware there is a high probability that Brynlee has sampled everything in and on that cookie. Nate finds this a little distasteful, but then again, maybe this was in reference to our dance moves. One can never be sure with him.

On Sunday night, we rolled out the cookies. And look who got caught sampling the dough. Honestly though, who doesn't sneak a little bit of cookie dough on the side? On a funny side note, I bought some "sugar pearls" for the Christmas cookies. Brynlee was using the bottle and put way too much on one cookie. I turned to her and told her not to use so many sprinkles. Of course she wanted to know why, so I told her the only thing I could think of, "Because they are expensive." This must have clicked in her mind because a few minutes later when Nate grabbed the bottle to put some of the sugar pearls on his Christmas tree, Brynlee grabbed his hand and said in a very serious voice, "Daddy, don't use all of those. They are 'spensive." So if you got a cookie with the sugar pearls on it, you should feel pretty darn special. We don't use our "expensive" sprinkles on just anybody.