It's my absolute favorite time of year. It's full of magic and hope and the promise of an entire day that isn't filled with whining and tales of certain death at the hand of broccoli and carrots and tantrums on the floor that rival a personal Cirque de Soleil performance. (To be clear...personal Cirque de Soleil peformance = good...somewhat horrifying, but good. Giant tantrum of death and destruction = bad.) It is officially... THE CHRISTMAS TOY CATALOG SEASON!!!! (It's also the CHOCOLATE ALL THE THINGS SEASON and I won't complain about that one either.)
Christmas toy catalogs are better than money around my house. I dole out minutes of perusing said catalogs as payment for chores and good behavior.
You know what's amazing? On an average day it takes me about eleventy-million hours to wrangle all 4 children through their daily quota of learning reinforcement tasks. (You can call it "homework" if you want to...but something that requires that kind of monumental effort to accomplish needs a fancier title if you ask me.) As their mother, I advertised for a Ninja Master of Learning Reinforcement Tasks and when no one suitable applied, I gave myself the job. It's a step up from "Homework Badgerer." ANYWAY...(stop distracting me all the time!)... the day the first toy catalog showed up - they were miraculously finished in less than 20 minutes. ALL FOUR OF THEM.
Which...to be honest...was not exactly ideal because I only had one toy catalog and four children who had been promised that THEY could look at it first if they finished their homework first. I don't always make colossal parenting mistakes...but when I do...you can be sure the stakes are pretty high. Like...Christmas Toy Catalog Season high.
Thank goodness I had some cookies with which to buy their love and affection. I mean... patience.
A few of you may have already seen my Sugar Plum Fairy cutter I recently designed for Ann Clark Cookie Cutters. I'm a little bit in love with it and can't wait to have a chance to turn it into an angel too!
1. Start by outlining and fill the face area of the fairy with a skin-color icing. Let it dry for an hour. (There is a lot of dry time with this cookie because we want to avoid the saturated colors getting too cozy with the lighter colored icing.)
2. Outline and fill the dress with a medium consistency plum colored icing. Pipe the head part of the hair. Leave the bun part of the cookie empty for now. Let it dry for an hour.
3. Fill in the bun part of the hair with the same brown icing. Add wings with a medium consistency white icing. Pipe a waistband across the dress with a lighter purple icing and add feet with the skin-color icing. Let dry for another hour.
4. Put a #2 tip on the brown icing and pipe hair details. Add arms and hands with the skin-color icing.
5. Draw a face on the...umm...face with a black food color marker. Add a fringe collar with the lighter purple icing. Sugar Plum Fairy Cookie -- DONE. Go read your toy catalog.You've earned it.
You can see it in action here. With some annoyingly festive music. (Someone please save me from my own music choices.)
NEED MORE??
Add the EASIEST CANDY CANES EVER to the mix!!
