3rd Annual Festivus Cookie Decorating

Last night was one of our increasingly favorite new Christmas traditions: Festivus Cookie Decorating, where Nate and I host all of our favorite Jewish friends over to partake in some non-denominational holiday fun. Sure there was Christmas music playing, but Alex said as long as it was on vinyl (thank you Aunt Deloris) it was all good.

For those of you not familiar with Festivus, perhaps you should try watching Seinfeld. There are all sorts of cool things like feats of strength, airing your greivances, a pole, etc. And I think everyone in attendance last night would agree that cookie decorating at the Hanson household does require feats of strength by the end.

This year we introduced the new "light bulb" ornament cookie cutter (think old school Christmas lights). Each person had 10 cookies to decorate, which doesn't seem like a lot, but when you start feeling the pressure of having to top what you did last year it gets exhausting. We even had a request for tweezers this year...that is how crazy this crew is.

Now, for those of you who have been with Nate and I since the beginning of this blog, you may remember some past cookies.... This was the first year all the boys could attend, and let me tell you we were impressed. We had some seriously skilled 'solider boys' representing police forces across the world....Sam unfortunately lost his soldier boy to the intense craving to eat a cookie...but he totally made up for it with his mad skills of turning the light bulb into a dreidl.

The girls selected our angels as the best cookies of the night. From Debra's perfectly crafted braids and bows, to Rachel's "Victorious Secret Plus-Size Angel", and to my "Army Fighter Angel of Death" dressed in camo, our angels pretty much rocked.

And a Festivus wouldn't be complete without the senior picture pose in front of the tree.

This night is one of my favorite nights in the holiday season. Just good times, good friends, good decorating...all around good. And JUST what I needed last night.

The night ended with the mixing of the frosting, which ended up looking like pea soup this year. Sam and I went back and forth on how much one would have to pay the other one to eat the whole thing. I said $1,000 as long as I could throw up and Sam said $500, so he won.

We decided there was a high risk of all that frosting coating his stomach, lungs, etc, hardening and cutting out al oxygen thus leading to death, so we nixed that bet. Lets be real, Festivus has feats of strength, but not stupidity.