It’s the weekend and I’ve been awake since about 7. The house is quiet and it’s just the cats and I milling about. I’ve finally made my way to the room with the treadmill and wowza is it cold in here. 62 degrees. We don’t run the heater in here unless people are going to be using it and I don’t even think Jim and his boys ever turn it on because they like it cold when they are working out.

Me? I like to be toasty warm all the time so I always crank it on when I come in. It warms up pretty fast.

This morning when I was doing my daily rounds (feeding fish and checking the cat’s dishes) I was thinking about what kind of cookie sounds good to be today. Yesterday was all about reminiscing the past and my grandmother and my childhood Christmas eves. Lunch with my mom didn’t really yield any extra insight into the past despite my gifting her the divinity and trying to steer the conversation to the past. Oh well oh well.

It’s not my moms general personality anyway, to dwell on the past. She’s all about living for today and the present moment. There’s a good lesson and a lot of value in that too. I guess I’d rather have gotten that from her than some demeanor where I was always dwelling on the past.

So bringing the focus back to today and embracing new and unexplored territory, I think I might just hunt for something I’ve never done before….

***

Five minutes and one sweet Christmas cookie search later.. I’ve found a very strange beast to try today. They are called Santa’s Trash Cookies and of course I clicked on that because with a name like that, you just gotta know. These cookies promise to satisfy any elf with a hankering for the combination of sweet and salty. The tag line? “Even Santa has a naughty side”. Ohhh yes! Let’s go!!!

Now I didn’t start this whole “different cookie every day” thing with the thought that was actually going to be doing any baking, but it’s the first time this season I’ve actually been in the mood to do anything related to Christmas. That’s serious.

I used to love decorating and wrapping presents and listening to Christmas music but the last few years it’s all dwindled to feeling like a bunch of chores. I think it has something to do with the kids not being into it anymore. Before they became teenagers we were all about our annual Christmas house decorating party which started with a trip to the grocery to pick out our favorite junk food and ended in me taking silly pictures of them in Santa hats and a big fight about whose turn it was to put the tree-topper on the to of the tree.

We also had a tradition of watching the polar express and drinking hot chocolate. We’d stop the movie just before the scene where the servers came into the train car to serve the kids cocoa to go make our own.

Two years ago nobody was interested in it and we watched the lord of the rings instead. Also somewhat magical but not very Christmassy. Last year we were getting ready to move and the house was a holy mess of boxes and I don’t think we watched a movie at all. So what about this year?

Well nobody helped me decorate, except the bits that Jim did to get ready for the holiday party we hosted for his work mates last weekend. And let me tell you, there’s nothing more spirit-killing than spending hours and hours decorating a space that’s only going to be seen/used for less time than it took to set up. For real!

I literally spent more time setting up our two Christmas village sets (mine from my house and then the one Jim and I bought together at an estate sale). If I could rewind time, I would go back and not buy all those boxes of tiny lit up houses and businesses and, since that set was from the “old world”, Big Ben.

They even had the London bridge which we bought but that one was busted and in pieces when we opened it so I just leave it in the box. The way I set it all up was kind of clever because my set (which is a New England village) is all together on one side of a room and the new London set is on the opposite wall. Kinda like the Two in real life, separated by the Atlantic Ocean. So that’s cool, but for real, all I could think when I was spending the time to set it all up was that nobody was going to appreciate it and how much time it’s going to take for me to put it all away again. Bah-humbug.

It sounds like I NEED those trash cookies to brighten my mood, or maybe I’m just channeling the salty parts of the recipe (potato chips and pretzels). Ha!

Actually I am kind of in the mood for a peppermint coffee. Maybe I’ll start my Saturday with that and see where that takes my mood.

Later today I’m supposed to be meeting with a new acquaintance I met through the MFA program I’m in. This lunch date may or may not happen as he has cancelled or forgotten the last 2 or 3 times we’ve agreed to meet. We shall see. Other than that the weekend is pretty open and Jim and I have exciting plans to discuss the household budget and numbers as well as some wedding planning business. Simply scintillating!! 😉

(That wedding ya’ll .. 50 days and counting! 😱)

We’ll friends.. that’s my hour. I’ve got to get busy doing something. Maybe I should buckle down and start that last homework assignment I’ve been procrastinating. Nawwww… it’s not Sunday yet. 😂

Keeping it Classy,

~Miss Santa’sTrashCookie