Christmas musts

what is is about the holidays that make us feel like we HAVE to do things? we make ourselves crazy trying to do every single thing and then end up being grinches because of it. yesterday my sister wrote this post about going to visit santa and trying to tackle the mall. hysterical...maybe not for her, but for the rest of us reading it. well here's my own little "christmas must" story...not quite as bad because i wasn't doing it with twins running around, but still annoying.

last night, hubby and i were going out to dinner with friends. these friends have children who we love and i wanted to make cookies for them. i also wanted to make some extras to give to a couple neighbors who i like. but yesterday got a little busy for me and i got tired, so i took a nap in the afternoon with my kitties and thought "well i'm pregnant, i'm allowed to nap." when i woke up at 4:15 i realized that i needed to go to the grocery store to buy cookie making stuff. what made it awesome was that rush hour had already started so a quick trip turned out to be longer.

anyway, when i got home i needed to dive right in because i only had two hours. so i started making the first recipe and found out that it didn't call for cocoa which i knew i had, but baking chocolate! i hadn't gotten that at the store, but was able to find some in the cabinet (still good). of course it needed to be melted and then cooled before it could be used in the recipe...so convenient. so i threw it in a bowl and into the microwave. the first round didn't melt it so i put it back on for another minute.

then i heard a sizzling and popping sound...wtf? i reached in and grabbed the bowl and burned myself. daaaamn that hurt. after using a pot holder to get it out, i noticed that the bowl was seeping liquid out of the cracks that had formed in concentric circles around the bowl. i had used these bowls in the microwave before, not sure what the issue was. problem was that i was afraid the bowl would blow and send shrapnel into my belly! i considered putting it in the fridge but thought that would almost certainly create an explosion, so i just kept my distance for a while.

the chocolate still wasn't melted so i had to scrape it into another container and melt it again...then cool it. while the chocolate was cooling i realized that the whole batter had to be cooled for THREE HOURS before i could actually bake the cookies. um what? why don't they tell you that shit from the start of the recipe? well i finished the batter and put it out to cool on the porch and considered my next step.

this time i read through the whole recipe and decided on snickerdoodles. with hubby's help, we were able to make all the cookies and put them in a cookie tin with christmas colored peanut m&ms. our friends were happy and i'm thinking that they ate a couple on the way home from dinner.

just finished baking the chocolate crinkles and they're delicious...but are they really worth all this hassle??? why do i feel that i MUST make cookies like this? it's not relaxing or enjoyable at all...just one of those christmas musts, i guess. this is the same way i felt last week when i was scrambling to get christmas decorations up before my family visited. what, did i think that they would leave if my tree wasn't up? that they would disown me if i didn't have a christmas tablecloth on the table?

what are your christmas musts?