soaking up all the christmas

the rest of the christmas season went by in a flash, as it always does.  we tried to enjoy it as much as possible while it lasted.  and while we'd actually put the tree up on november 1st, we didn't get around to actually decorating the thing until a full month later.

this is random...on our way home from vegas after wan-niversary, we made a pitstop to charge the car and stumbled across what used to be the very first del taco.  hahahaha:

i signed up for a booth at a christmas boutique for the bean's old school and decided to add a couple of new items to the inventory.  i'd seen these from other cookiers before - cookie decorating kits that include plain sugar cookies, disposable piping bags with different colors of icing and sprinkles.  i'd never done them before, but thought they might be a good seller:

and then i made some mini cookies and buttercream frosting dip and packaged them in these cute cups:

speaking of cookies and the boutique, i was torn between amused and horrified when i went to the box where i keep stuff like the cash box and business cards and leftover inventory and found the cookie samples i'd made a full year ago to be displayed for presale orders:

on the morning of the boutique, i brought a bunch of the dipper cups to the bean's school for the monthly class meeting and handed them out to all of their classmates.

and then the bean and the old lady both came with me that evening to the boutique.  while the bean went off to shop and find snacks with a bunch of their friends who'd also returned to school for the event, the old lady stayed with me to man the table.  she does an awesome job in a retail setting and somehow is in her element when working with the public.

and just like last year, on the last day of school before winter break the bean busted out the santa costume and wore it as they handed out gifts to all of their teachers.  i love this new tradition.

and while i'm usually up till after midnight on christmas eve wrapping presents, i decided to be smart about it this time and started the task while the bean was still in school.  and so this year, instead of stacking the shipping boxes in the gym as they arrived, they were placed in there wrapped and ready to go.

after sitting on my desk for a full three weeks, i finally got the stack of christmas cards out in the mail.

thanks to my friend dailygluttony during one of our saturday breakfast club meetups, i found one of my favorite comfy sweatshirts for the season:

we went to hollywood to celebrate the old man's birthday.

with a couple of dinners coming up with our friends, the bean and i spent some time in the kitchen making batches of cookies to box up and give as gifts.  they actually did the majority of the work while i acted as the sous chef, pulling out ingredients and measuring them out to make things easy.  we made peanut butter blossoms, lemon ricotta cookies, chocolate crinkles, cosmic brownie cookies and tiny chocolate chip microcookies.

we had a really fun afternoon with lilcee and mini cee, going to our favorite sushi spot and piling up the empty plates before dropping them into the slot at the table.

and then we met up with our longtime BFFs for dinner another night, and had so much fun that we were the very last to leave the restaurant at the end of the night.

the cookies were a big hit, and everyone loved all of the different flavors.  i made sure that everyone knew that the bean was the one who had made them all, which made them even more special.  

the christmas season is always so much fun.  i wish it didn't go by so quickly, although every year it seems to go faster and faster.  i guess that's what happens when you get old.  heh.