Easier than pie

I think I start most of my posts with a reaffirmation of my insanity. Why stop now?

Today is my office’s holiday potluck, and I’d signed up to bring a pie. I had planned to bake my chocolate pecan recipe last night, but then my evening plans changed suddenly and I wouldn’t have enough time for 20 minutes of stovetop time plus an hour in the oven (plus sleep).

My cupboards are perennially stocked with all manner of baking goods. If you have a dessert emergency, I am prepared. So, changing my dessert plan didn’t require a trip to any store. I quickly decided on a basic, from-the-box chocolate cake. And the absolutely easiest way to prepare a cake for a crowd is to do a sheet-cake. Served in the pan, with icing on top. Nothing fancy.

I tried. I really tried. I even began extracting my 9x13 pan from the stack of casserole dishes. But I just couldn’t. No, the dish was not stuck. The problem was me, not my cabinet organization.

When I have a cupboard full of fancier pans—-choo choo trains, snowmen, cupcakes (mini, normal, and "Texas-sized"), round, square, heart--I can’t make just a big plain rectangle. Even for work.

Insanity.

I used my bundt pan, which is almost as easy as a big plain rectangle, but looks fancier. And it isn’t a layer cake, so doesn’t require as much work to ice it. I also had some leftover homemade peppermint white chocolate icing (what, you don’t just keep this stuff around?). By "leftover", I mean that I used about 3/4 of the batch on cookies about twenty minutes earlier, in preparation for a cookie exchange (also at the office today), to make Peppermint Sandwich Cookies*.

So, once the cake was cool, I warmed the peppermint icing up just enough to make it runny and poured it over the cake. Then crushed 2 candy canes and sprinkled them on top. Perfect. Fancy looking, but a total of about 10 minutes of active work (the stand mixer does most of the hard part, and there’s practically no measuring since it’s from a mix).

Maybe I'm not entirely insane. Just obsessive. Or is there a difference?



*Note on the cookies: I added about 1/2 cup powdered sugar to the filling recipe because mine just would not thicken even after spending the night in the fridge. With the sugar and about 2 minutes with the whisk in the stand mixer, I had a fluffier, icing-like filling for my cookies. And since I used salted butter in the cookie part (and had added the full amount of salt called for in the recipe), I think the extra sweetness was a good thing.

11 days

The Christmas tree is up.  The dining room table looks like a dining room table and not an oversized junk drawer. The carpets have been vacuumed.  It was a productive weekend.

 

I hope that the crazy-busy part of our holiday season is over.  After a week-long vacation, followed by an additional weekend away, then a dance recital and a grownup holiday party and a school Christmas program, I feel like the rest of the lead-up to New Years is smooth sailing.  Maybe that’s because I don’t yet know what all is going on over the next two weeks.

 

Maybe I’m speaking too soon, since I have cookies and a pie to make before our office Christmas party tomorrow, and Char’s classroom Christmas party to attend on Thursday.  And we have 50 cards to address and mail.  And buy stamps for.  And do any of those 50 people really want a letter?  Or will a nice photo card do?

 

But after all that’s done, what is left?  Char wants to go see Santa Claus, so I guess a trip to the mall is in store.  And Christmas shopping?  Well, we’re in better shape than most years.  It’s just that for some reason, I see toys everywhere that would be perfect for Trystan.  And I have no idea what to get Charlotte.  I’m sure she’ll give Santa some good ideas, though.  Instead of selling overpriced photos with the man in red, they should sell soundbytes of the kids’ conversations. 

 

Anyway, I think that I should be a lot less hurried the next two weeks than I felt the last two.  I don’t know why, since my to-do list seems as long as ever.  Maybe waking up to a glowing Christmas tree helps (I love light timers…ours is set to turn on in the evenings, and come back on at 6 in the morning to cheer us at breakfast).

 

What about you?  Will you be sliding into Christmas Day or coasting?

Why does this room look lopsided?

It is entirely possible that I am insane. Or that I own too much furniture.

That would be an inclusive "or".

I think part of the reason that I get grumpy about Christmas decorations is that they require so darned much work. I have to practically remodel the house every December, and then put it all back again come January.

All I want is to put up the Christmas tree. I'm not attempting to display the 3-foot wide Santa sleigh, or the thigh-high wooden Rudolph with the lights, or the Santa bear that still stands several inches taller than my youngest child. Just the tree.

And yes, we probably own too much furniture for our space. There was a short period of time when we owned just the right amount. That period ended abruptly in August of 2004 when our perfect space had to re-arrange to fit a baby swing, cradle, pack-n-play, and other assorted baby items. Our family room has never been the same since.

Of course, if you look at the room these days, it is full of the echoes of laughter and tickle-fests, of boo-boos and tantrums and chase games. And toys. It's worth having to give up my perfectly-proportioned glass-inlaid coffee table so that Thomas the Train can chug along in front of the couch. And it's worth having to roll up the rug--the one that compliments our sofas and drapes so beautifully--to make room for the Disney Dance Dance Revolution. And Rock Band--with Trystan on drums and Charlotte belting out eighties metal ballads.

All of the fun makes it harder every year to re-arrange things to make room for the tree. And if you've ever seen just how hard a two-year-old can throw small objects, you'd understand why the decorative knick knacks stay safely stowed in their boxes. Its for the safety of all--human, furniture, and knick knack alike.

Tonight, I have to thank my husband for patiently moving couches, chairs, ottomans, tables, the sub-woofer, the rug, and the children back and forth across the family room, into and through the dining room, and back again so that we can make space. I think everything fits.

Maybe tomorrow we'll actually bring or Christmas tree out of hiding, er, storage.