Cramming It In

Our new kitchen island let me set up stations! I had a recipe-reading station, a mixing station, a roll-out and cut-out station, and a decorating station.

An Oxy Tree. A UW tree. And a Christmas tree. Putting together the tins and plates of baked sugar and butter.

I'm sitting in the Bay Area as I write this overdue post, which actually helps illustrate its point: leaving for our Christmas vacation so early--on December 16th--required jamming in all our Christmas-related tasks, errands, and obligations 9 days early.

The biggest task? Taking care of my big fat bake day was a massive undertaking this year. Every Christmas, I put together arrangements of baked goodies for Chris's analysts at work. Chris tried to convince me that this year's baking would be a slam dunk because now I had two fancy schmancy ovens and a giant island. Sure, all that helped, but I felt like I was going 100 mph last weekend as I tried to squeeze in a couple batches of cookies in between errands to the post office or Target, or several sheets of peppermint bark in between loads of laundry. You get the idea.

It's a relief to not have the holiday rushing around to deal with anymore. Gifts are wrapped and sent. Shopping is done! Treats are baked. Ta dah!

I'll post soon about our time in the San Francisco area!