When I was growing up, my Dad's birthday marked the start of the Christmas season. We'd put up the tree, hang lights, bake cookies, and wrap presents. Nowadays stores don't even wait for Halloween to be over before playing Christmas music. This year, I even saw a Christmas display next to the Back-to-School supplies at Walmart.
It's been a busy week with all the clubs I belong to. I went to Opa Grill (a Greek restaurant) with my Ladies Out to Lunch group. This is the last month for this group of ladies, because we re-shuffle the names into new groups in January. It's always fun meeting new people and the restaurants aren't bad either.
I spent an afternoon making cookies for several different club functions. I thought I had picked an easy kids' recipe, but I think Google meant kids would enjoy eating them, not baking them. They were called Peppermint Hot Chocolate Cookies. The base was a chocolate cookie, which was really kind of tasty, but then the recipe called for frosting each cookie with marshmallow fluff and crushed peppermint candy. You were also supposed to dip the lower half of the cookie into melted chocolate, but I figured it was already a diabetic coma waiting to happen. Notice my "helper" who is fascinated by anything we do in the kitchen.
The Baking Club had a potluck dinner and cookie exchange. I took my chicken sausage soup and 4 dozen of my peppermint cookies.
In return I brought about 4 dozen cookies back home (the soup was devoured). I put the cookies in the freezer and am trying to hold off until Christmas Eve.
The Baking Club also had a gift exchange during the potluck. Everyone got a number and when your number was called, you could either take a wrapped gift off the main table or steal an unwrapped gift from someone else. I stole this lady's gift which happened to be dish towels and spatulas (something I really needed). She wasn't too upset, because she got to steal from someone else. It took quite a while to get through all the presents with all the stealing that was going on. Luckily a gift could only be stolen twice, otherwise we would have been there all night.
The next day I burned off all the cookie calories by going to Mt Falcon with the Hiking Club. It's been snowing in the mountains, so we had to wear ice cleats on the trail, but the snow on the trees was really pretty.
There are some old castle ruins in this park that were very interesting. They sit at the top of a hill, normally with gorgeous views, but the clouds were so low that we couldn't see a thing. It was kind of eerie hiking in all that fog. I'm putting this park on my bucket list as a place to do some sketching next summer.
Meanwhile Bruce has been working on the back yard widening the retaining walls so we can add some paths through the garden next year. Our yard will never be flat, but the retaining walls really help to tone down some of the slope.
Bruce and Charlie have also been going to the dog park a lot. It's been too cold to take the eBike, so Bruce just throws Charlie into the back of his jeep. I'm not sure Charlie will ever truly enjoy riding in the car, but he's getting better. At least he doesn't throw up anymore.
Janet has almost reached the California/Nevada border on our Route 66 Challenge. Thank goodness, because that means she's only 35 miles from completing her 3,000,000 step goal for the year. I sincerely hope she picks something simpler next year, like going to the gym once a week. She's killing me with these multi-million-step challenges.
