Merry Christmas from Cookieland

The holiday cookie trays are finally finished. It's a statement on my general state of preparation this year that I am only this morning putting them together. I just finished the baking portion of the exercise yesterday afternoon, something which would ordinarily have been done by last week. They'll all be wrapped up in cellophane and ribbons in a few minutes and ready to go to their new homes tomorrow. To the curious, the contents are: Aunt Bill's Brown Candy, Cranberry and Pistachio Biscotti, Haystacks, Date Pinwheels, Paula Deen's Chocolate Cherry Chunkies, Brown Irish Soda Bread, Mexican Wedding Cookies, and Sugar Cookies, filled out with a bakery cookie of unnatural color and a handful of chocolate kisses. For brunch tomorrow what was meant to be a harmless cranberry orange bundt cake is assuming the unfortunate form of a turkey, thanks to the gift of a turkey shaped bundt pan. If that turns out to be recognizable (or not) I'll post a picture. I have a feeling that the intricate shape of the pan will be ill served by whole cranberries. If it turns out hideous it will be a good joke.

Miss Vivian is back home after a couple of nights with us. It went quite well, partly due to the timely acquisition of a portacrib. She's learning so fast - the difference between Friday afternoon and Sunday afternoon in terms of seated balance and crawling was quite apparent. Roxy's Dog Auntie behaviour improved to the point of showing Vivian her belly. Although she's not yet reliable around the baby she seems to be learning her place in the pecking order. I have laods of pictures of Vivian to load up to my Flickr gallery, but that probably won't happen until tomorrow night at the soonest. I've got a million things to finish up today. Merry Christmas and a Happy (Belated) Yule to all!