Christmas Cookie Wreath!

Yes, I know it's January. I know I'm posting Christmas cookies. All the good cookie bloggers had their Christmas cookies posted by like Dec. 1. What can I say, I'm a little behind. Somehow, I don't think you mind. Unless of course, you are one of those people that can only handle Christmas stuff for a certain period of time, then it starts to make you go crazy. If you are one of those, you might want to just close this webpage and back away now. I don't want to be responsible for anything bad happening.

Now that I've scared away any Christmas haters, these cookies were a collaboration with a friend. We made them for A Christmas party that she goes to that has a dessert contest every year. Sadly, the cookies did not win, but her husband thinks it's because they looked like they came from the store instead of being homemade. I'm pretty content to hang my hat on that reasoning.

The berries are actually oreo balls-yum!

Christmas Cookies!

All summer and throughout the fall, my husband and I have been going to a weekly/biweekly dinner group. And, all summer and fall they've been seeing pictures of my cookies, but they hadn't actually seen or tasted one in person. shame, right? I signed up to bring dessert quite a few times, there was always just something else I wanted to make (This was a really great opportunity to actually get to try out those million desserts I have pinned on pinterest). Well, we had a Christmas Dinner group last week and even though I signed up for an appetizer, I figured it was about time they got some of these cookies themselves! So made some fun Christmas trees and ornaments and gave them each a little package of two.

You'll be able to tell I was having a little editing fun with some of these pictures.

Descpicable Me!

Have you seen Despicable Me? If not, you really should. It's a fun movie no matter how old you are. It's about a super villain who adopts 3 little girls in order to one-up a fellow villain. His workers are his minions. One of my husbands co-workers had sent him a picture of some cupcakes that were the minions from despicable me wondering if I could make them. It took a while for me to actually have a chance to do them, but just last week I finally was able to take a day and make them. And yes, they are made with Twinkies and I bought those Twinkies before hostess went under.

Go Bo!

Truth time. These cookies are at least partially responsible for the blog (and cookie making) hiatus. I know, I know, I'm blaming cookies, but really-it's their fault. They drove me crazy.

I should tell you first though, that the reason I made them was awesome. A fellow cookie baker, Jill FCS, put out a call for cookies a few months ago in honor of a young man named Bo. Bo was 12 years old and passed away from Leukemia on Sept. 28, 2012. Jill called out to her fellow cookie bakers asking people to donate cookies that would be sold at a fall festival in Bo's town to raise money for cancer research. You can read more about Bo and his life's message here. I recommend heading on over there, because I know anything I write won't say it nearly as well as the facebook page does.

When I saw this call for cookies come across my facebook newsfeed, I knew I wanted to be a part of it, There was no question in my mind...until I started actually making the cookies. First, I had to decide what to make. The parameters were to be fall themed and to use orange. First, I had to figure out what was fall themed-leaves, pumpkins, fall colors...hmm what else? I couldn't really come up with anything else. I tried to get more creative, and I struggled. I mean, really, struggled. I finally just got some leaf cookie cutters and decided to go with leaves and pumpkins-that would be easy, right? Leaves? easy? thats what I thought till I actually tried to make them. Let's be honest, they turned out ok, but we all know I can do better.

Then....I got started and tried to make my icing colors. Oh. My. Goodness. I could NOT get  my colors to look right. I had fall colors in my mind, I had pictures to emulate on my computer. For the life of me though, I couldn't get it to actually work out in the icing. So, I went to work on my cookies and just did the best I could, frowning at them most the time cause they just weren't coming out how I wanted them too.

I spent forever trying to figure out why these were so hard for me. And then, it happened. I commented to my sister-in-law one day that her outfit looked very fallish and cute while also realizing I didn't really have or know what a fallish looking wardrobe consisted of-I just knew she had it figured out.

 

 

Then, she made a comment that I was probably more used to flip flops and summer then fall. LIGHTBULB! THAT was my problem! Despite the fact that I've lived in Colorado for 4 years-I spent my life in FLORIDA-the land of summer. Give me summer colors and a beach theme and I'm golden. This fall thing though? I'm still figuring that out. We didn't get fall in Florida. No wonder I didn't know what to do with fall. I know Spring, I know Summer, I think I've learned winter. Now I'm resolved to figure out fall. So maybe next year If I need to make fall cookies, I'll feel better about it.