sun-dried tomato dip & herb pita chips

Christmas Eve is my absolute favorite day of the year. I love Christmastime in general, and Christmas Eve includes a little of all of my favorite holiday activities. Last-minute presents are wrapped while listening to Gene Autry croon classic Christmas tunes, food for the annual Christmas Eve party is prepared, and family and friends attend the children's program at church and then gather at our house for a party.

rugelach (for grandpa)

Do you ever think about where your hands have been? Sure, they go everywhere you go, but have you really thought about the unique -- and often overlooked -- role they play? In the last week or so, my hands have been on an amazing journey. They touched things in four different time zones within four days. They exchanged currency for bags of presents, were intertwined with the hands of one of my closest friends, baked dozens of cookies, lit a candle at Notre Dame's grotto, and embraced a former professor.

sugar drop cookies

I love sprinkles. I don't particularly care to eat them, but I love to collect them and decorate with them. And I think it could be argued that nowhere do sprinkles look better than on a beautiful Christmas sugar cookie. Lovely indeed, but I hardly ever make them because I just hate to roll dough. However, the fine folks at the Joy of Cooking, apparently quite aware of the existence of people like me, created a dropped sugar cookie -- all the sugar cookie, sprinkly fun without any of the rolling or icing required.

oatmeal-raisin cookies

It was 2:30 a.m. on Saturday morning and I was standing in the middle of my living room staring at two open suitcases and two very heavy carry-on bags. My ride to the airport would be here in just over an hour, and I had to get an entire week's worth of baking into my luggage. Sure, I thought about shipping it all, but what if the packages don't arrive on time? What if a postal employee accidentally steps on my box? And, most importantly, what if I die standing in the world's longest post office line? There would be no Christmas cookies this year!

mexican wedding cookies (snowballs)

When I was younger, my grandmother (on my mom's side) was the primary cookie baker in the family. She would make cookies throughout the year, but there were a few varieties she would only make during the holidays, leading me to believe they were extra special. One of these was a bite-size cookie that reminded me of a powder-coated pebble. Grandma called them "snowballs." I can't remember eating the snowballs often, if ever, but I don't think it was because I didn't like them. If my memory serves me correctly, Grandma put rum in her snowballs, and knowing I wasn't old enough to have liquor, I don't think I ever even asked to try one of the cookies. I can, however, remember my dad nibbling on them with glee. The sugar would always get caught in his mustache -- a sight that delighted me endlessly.

ginger snaps

Let's just start off by saying that I made 376 of these over the weekend. Yes, 376. Sometimes I get very excited about an opportunity to feed people and before I know it, my mouth has opened up and I have volunteered to take on a task that many people would consider their own personal hell. I usually end up realizing what I've done sometime around batch 5 or 6 of whatever baked good I have decided is tasty enough to feed the masses. Oh well; it's done.

fruitcake

Yesterday started out just like any other day. Got up, got dressed, and got ready for work. Just before leaving the apartment, I took inventory of my liquor cabinet above the fridge to see if I had the requisite spirits for making Christmas fruitcakes. In order to do this, I was forced to acknowledge and move aside the stubbornly-too-large-for-the-cabinet bottle of metaxa ouzo, an anise-flavored liquor. I bought it to use in an apple cake I made in September, certain that if I tried the anise in an otherwise delicious baked good, I would like it. No such luck. I thought the cake was gross and then, because that dumb bottle was too large for the cabinet, I left it just outside the cabinet and on top of the fridge.

Surely you know where this story is going.

fire-roasted tomato sauce

I thought for sure I would do something this weekend worth posting about, but it turns out that I didn't. I bought a fedora -- and it's smokin' hot -- but who wants to read a whole post about that? I bought some Christmas presents, too...along with 8 zillion other shoppers this weekend. Not interesting. I did finally get around to renting Transformers, and holy smokes, it was good! I can't remember the last time I was so utterly thrilled by a movie. It was like I was only 6 years old again, anxiously watching Optimus Prime and his team battle against the evil Decepticons. (Perhaps I've just made this obvious, but I wasn't a very "girly" child.) Transformers was my absolute favorite cartoon, and last night I was reminded of just how ridiculously cool it was. Even the theme song is great. (And is it just me, or does Optimus Prime have a completely sexy voice? Oh, please make a sequel....)