nothing says Christmas like cookies + bonfires...

We decided to have an impromptu (aka last minute, which is generally how we roll, and generally the cause of great stress) little get-together for some friends over the weekend. It seems that December always flies by and there's so much to do - Christmas shopping, office parties, etc, that gets in the way of hanging out with the people who's company we actually enjoy. We still haven't put our grill away for the winter, so that was the perfect excuse to have a casual dinner party while our house is decorated for the holidays.

I made five dozen cookies...

Italian Chocolate Cookies


I had the frosted cookies sitting out on a platter and one of our friends thought they were mini cheeseburgers...which is exactly what they look like. Disturbing! And it's all I can think of whenever I see the cookies now.

Sparkling Peppermint Cookies. (Or as Larry calls them, Pepperoni Cookies. He also mixes up mushrooms and marshmallows. Note: There is no pepperoni or meat products in these cookies.)

Making Sparkling Peppermint Cookies involves pulverizing candy canes in the food processor until they resemble what I like to call Candy Cane Crack.

And these cookies are indeed like crack, as we crushed two dozen of them in less than 24 hours. They are definitely our new favorite Christmas cookie.

After stuffing our faces with burgers and cookies, we headed out to the patio for a bonfire. We strung up some lights on our busted trellis so it was very festive. (Nothing quite says Christmas like a looming structural failure!)

Our fire pit is one of the best purchases we've made for our house - yes, it's an overpriced metal drum, but sitting on our patio with a fire going on a summer night is fantastic. And it's equally fun in the winter - particularly if there is snow on the ground like there is right now.

Of course, I failed to take any pictures during the party, but I snapped a few after most of our guests had left and there were just a few of us hanging out on the patio drinking beer and enjoying some good clean fun...

Like this...

I know it's blurry, but yes, that is a hatchet.


The evening's late night good clean fun also included drinking Busch beers, burning the cans, poking the fire with a stick, and dousing the fire with urine. So by good clean fun, I really mean general redneckery. (Obviously, I opted out of the above activities. I'll stick with baking cookies and peeing inside, ok?)

Yep, nothing says Christmas like cookies and bonfires and a fire pit full of piss.