Before I'm 31

Chex Mix is made. Chocolate Orange Fudge is done. I am about to finish up the Peppermint Pinwheel Cookies. I thought those were a lost cause yesterday, as the dough was way too loose to work with, much less roll out, so I had to chuck it. I regrouped today and discovered that rolling the dough between two sheets of wax paper made it much easier. I also let the ever-handy Kitchen Aid Stand Mixer to her thing and mix in the food coloring. Much less messy for me, plus I don't fit into the dishwasher as well as she does (I have gendered the mixer female, not because she does work in the kitchen, but because she is a bad ass).

We hit the nightmare last night that is known as Hamilton Place Mall. I don't know why we were thinking "It won't be too bad at 4:30 on a Saturday, two weeks short of Christmas." But we were able to hammer out almost all of our list before he tried out a new (and over-priced) restaurant on the North Shore. We came home and watched a movie and were racked out by 10:30.

This mid-morning, we made the long, treacherous drive to the Christmas trees at the produce stand that is next to the stoplight at the entrance to our campus. There are actually two Christmas Tree places at the intersection to choose from. Most people go for the big fancy joint that has a 20 foot tall inflated Santa and hot chocolate. But we discovered last year that it is way pricey, so we gladly take our business to the smaller place across the street. We found a wonderfully proportioned, petite tree. It fits perfectly in its spot, and it isn't so full that you can't walk around it. We could have lit it with only two strands of lights, but upon the discovery that we had four strands, my husband declared, "Oh yeah, we are going to light this bitch up."

The tree is up, presents are purchased, goodies are baked. Work is going to be quite busy for the next week and I am glad we got everything knocked out this weekend.