The Most Wonderful Time of the Year

I wrote this a long time ago, but just got the pictures posted: Ladies and gentlemen, that time of year is here.  Last year, I was not ready for the holidays and, for some unknown reason, fought the coming of Christmas and winter tooth and nail.  This year, I saw the Christmas trees going up in Honolulu before Thanksgiving even arrived and I was nothing but excited.

I kicked this year off with a cookie day with a friend and her son.  We made a (semi-successful) batch of double chocolate peppermint cookies, sugar cookies of all shapes and sizes and gingerbread cookies.  I'm going to post each over at the Brooklyn Forager since they were fun recipes and I'm a bit behind in my weekly posts and new recipe counting.

Here are some of the creations we made: