spreading the holiday cheer

This is the first year in my adult life that I felt like I had enough people to justify giving out a fun and festive goodie bag. I am a regular at the gym (ugh, I know right) so that means gifting the parking lot man, the front desk ladies and my beloved child watch ladies some yummy goodness. Luke is a huge part of my passion for the gym (free child watch, anyone?!?) so I wanted him to help pick out the goodie bag and help make the goodies. I want him to grow up knowing that Christmas is more about giving and less about receiving. I want him to put as much effort into gifting as he does looking through the toy magazine. Huge dreams, right? Well, I am on my way! 

Michael's is dangerous any time of year but luckily around Christmas they are the JCPenny of craft stores, everything is on sale, always. I got these cute Reindeer to-go boxes on deep discount. I believe they were marked down to $3.50. 

I already posted about the amazing sugar cookie recipe and annual decorating contest here. Luckily we keep most of the cookies, so we had a huge amount to give away. This was after a few days of attempting to keep them in my house and them disappearing daily. 

I wanted another easy, but good, Christmas cookie. While looking through my Facebook feed, the Kentucky Butter Cookie popped up. I clicked on the link and thought that it looked really good and REALLY easy. I was right on both thoughts. I did not change the recipe, so check out the Cookies and Cups Blog for the recipe. Interestingly enough, Luke did not like these. Everyone else I sampled them on, loved them and thought they were yummy. I even had some with my morning coffee (whoops) and thought it added a nice bonus. 

We handed the goodie bags out well before Christmas, so I think  we had a bit of a surprise element, which was nice. I loved seeing Luke hand them out and the huge smile he had on his face. We even took a big pan of the cookies to our local firehouse. Ok, so this wasn't just us being nice to our local firemen.... when we bring them goodies, Luke has free reign to the fire trucks. Which, he loves and it kills a good hour of our night. 

If I could hand out a Reindeer Goodie Bag to each and every one of you, I would! Thank you for letting me share my life with you! I truly appreciate you all! 

Holiday love,