Christmas Cookie Baking, Round 1 Day 2

I am glad to say that Round 1 of Christmas baking for this year is done! Whew. It feels so good to be done.

I scaled back my plans by one batch today but I still have tons of cookies to take to my family on Thursday. At last count, there were over 26 dozen made.

Eric, the kids and I have had our fair share along the way too. I usually crave something sweet, especially with my nightly coffee. But it's funny...whenever there is a huge surplus of sweets in our house, I crave salt instead. Oh well.

All of today's cookies were more labor-intensive, so even though I made less, I was still in the kitchen for most of the day.

First up were eggnog crescents drizzled with a maple glaze.

Then chocolate-dipped shortbread fingers.

Next I made my favorites - jam thumbprints. These are very similar to my childhood favorites of traditional Polish kolacky that my grandmothers both used to make. But these are not nearly as much work.I made strawberry and apricot jam cookies. The apricot ones are my grandma's favorite, so I packed a whole bag full for her. I finished out the day with chocolate crinkles. I had to hide these almost instantly before the kiddos devoured them all.And now I'm done! At least with the cookies.

Tomorrow I'll make 2 pies, wrap presents, finish laundry, iron clothes, pack clothes, pack miscellaneous stuff, clean the house, trims the kids' hair and give them baths. Anyone notice a trend here? These things have been on my to-do list since last Thursday. I have finally become so adept at procrastinating that I managed to squeeze at least 30 hours worth of work into a 24 hour day. What an accomplishment!