Who Says Christmas is Only for Children?

This Christmas has been an interesting one to say the least, without going into much detail it has been filled with some of the highest and lowest moments of our lives, and for a little while we weren't quite sure if we'd be having much of a Christmas at all. However, through this roller coaster of a week we managed to fit in some holiday cheer after all, and I've managed to set aside a mere 10 minutes to post about it. First, I found a shop in Carlisle that sold Yankee Candle! Despite the fact that their selection was rather grim in comparison to what I'm used to I did find a cinnamon scented candle that reminded me of Christmas at home. Unfortunately for Josh, I hadn't realised he loathed cinnamon until I got home, oh well :)

 Second, I found this beverage at Marks & Spencer's that glitters when you drink it! At first I was skeptical of such a drink, but then I read the ingredients and realised it had fresh pomegranates and apples, I'm still not quite sure how they get the gold glitter in there, it didn't list that in the ingredients, let's just hope I'm not eating plastic.

Since I can't enjoy a lovely glass of wine for another 7-10 weeks I figured this glittery beverage was just what the baby and I needed and it was chocked full of Vitamin C!

Third, we managed to make sugar cookies! I even snuck a couple bites of raw dough when Josh wasn't looking, he did catch me on one occasion however and I got shouted at because there is raw egg in the batter, I swear I've broken so many pregnancy rules, but who can resist cookie dough, I actually like it better than the actual baked cookies.

 We had been meaning to use these tree cookie cutters for some time now but our kitchen was never clean or finished enough around Christmas. Finally, we have a clean house and an operational kitchen, and we couldn't be more ecstatic about staying in on a Saturday night baking cookies and watching Christmas movies! Sadly, the green tree sprinkles I bought 2 years ago, and never used, expired. We were going to use them anyway but when I tried them I spit them out all over the counter, they tasted horrendous!

Sugar Cookies

Cream together 1c. sugar and 2 sticks softened unsalted butter. Add 2 eggs, 4 Tbsp cream, a smidgeon of vanilla and mix together. Then add 3 cups of flour, 2 tsp baking powder, 1 tsp baking soda and mix well. Refrigerate for at least 2 hours. Flour the works surface liberally, roll, cut and bake at 175C / 350F for 6-7 minutes.

I swear, no Christmas trees were harmed during the baking, OK, maybe one tree was harmed but I swear it broke before we started to eat it ;)

 Josh trying to be more festive by using his "peaceful" green tinted dough, unfortunately when baked the green faded and it looked like the batch I had made, oh well, I'm sure they taste the same :)

Ready to decorate! My favourite part.

Buttercream Icing

75 g butter

1 Tbsp milk

6 oz natural icing sugar

1/2 tsp vanilla

Cream until you've reached the desired consistency. Josh whipped ours at a high speed to add some air into the icing. We had to double the recipe for the amount of cookies we had.

The beautifully decorated trees :)