Visions of Sugar Plums

 The title of this post should be" A Christmas Miracle" because for the first time in my entire life (and I'm pretty old) my spritz cookies were a success.

 Right after the soap making, The Mister and I set ourselves to making sweet treats for gifts. The process was similar. There was lots of chopping and mixing.

 We had never made bark before so we gave it a go first.

 It was a perfect day for it. It was cold and dry so instead of stashing all the trays in the fridge we just sat them on the deck to cool.

 While we were waiting I looked up spritz recipes and reluctantly mixed up a batch. I used the hand mixer to get the dough fluffy this time around.

 Someone said the secret was to put your trays in the freezer so the cookies will stick instead of bunching up under the press as mine always do. Think of the flagpole scene in A Christmas Story (ouch) and it makes sense.

 Look at that. Perfect little cookies. I also did not roll the dough up into a tube to shove it in the press but instead kept it soft and just spooned it in.

 Eureka. I have a tin of perfect little spritzes.

 In addition, we made coconut thumbprints...

...and Hello Dollies.

The bark broke up nicely except for the one that I put mini M&Ms on. The candies all fell off so I melted it down again and added toffee chips. Yum.

Now it's time to go slice the fruitcake, pour a glass of nog and pop It's a Wonderful Life in the DVD player.

 Before I go I want to wish a belated birthday to Grandson who turned two on the 21st.

The poor little guy was very under the weather for his big day. Lucky for him he gets another go at this present thing today.
Merry Christmas!