...is almost here.

We celebrated with some friends.  There was plenty of great food and drink.  There was fire.  There was symbolic burning of stuff one wanted to be rid of.  There was drumming.   There was singing:  Christmas carols and show tunes.  I could not resist "Oklahoma!"

There were pretty lights.

The gifts for the coffee shop's adopted family were delivered to the distribution site this morning.  Then I threw some lights into the Christmas tree where there were some dark spots.  I didn't even take out the dead light strings -- mainly because at least one was half-working and, man, what a pain in the butt even figuring out which strand is "the one."  The good thing about having a bazillion lights on the tree is that I can just blind 'em with the light.  Decorating may now commence, if anyone feels like it.  Personally, it looks just fine the way it is -- with the one twisted metal icicle thingy that was forgotten the last time we put the tree away (at least three years ago).

So.  Ali packed up all my baking pans, cooling racks, and the KitchenAid this morning and hauled it all over to Katie's.  They took the sugar cookie recipe that we always used for cut-outs, made two batches, ran off to do other stuff while the dough chilled, and then rolled and cut and baked.  Ali reported that our old stand-by recipe, while very delicious, is not "sturdy" enough -- the edges don't hold their shape and the cookies are soft and "dainty."  Ali's going to check her technical book about baking that I gave her but can't remember the name of... and I'm going to put it to the blog.  Do you have a good, sturdy, cut-out cookie recipe?