Despite the inclusion of a cookie recipe on our Christmas cards this year, I really am not much of a baker.  We made one batch of sugar cookies earlier in December and ate those in about five minutes.  We decided that we had to make a few cookies to leave for Santa, but I wasn't sure I could manage another full-blown round of cookie production.  Luckily, I learned some good baking tricks from my mom who left her secret recipe in our freezer.  Pre-made, pre-cut gingerbread cookies.  The directions are tough - place on cookie sheet, bake, decorate - but we managed.

To be perfectly honest, we managed to make three cookies.  I thought it would be a fun activity and not too difficult - frosting in tubes, wide variety of sprinkles.  Martin did a great job decorating his cookie, then promptly ate it.


Sophie really couldn't be bothered with the actual cookie decorating, she was too busy doing sprinkle shots.


We ended up with two and a half cookies to leave for Santa, one child with a green frosting face, the other with bright red sprinkle stain lips.

On the table last night: Brisket and sausage from one of our favorite Texas bbq spots - The Salt Lick.  My friend Kathy also helped me to find two recipes that were like the cole slaw and potato salad served there.  The cole slaw was tasty, next time I'd cut the vinegar to 1/4. c and the ginger in half, probably add more pepper.  The potato salad was pretty tasty, next time I'd double the bbq sauce and cut the mayo in half.  All in all, it was an awesome treat to have on a cold winter night when we're so far away from their smoky bbq goodness.