4th Annual Festivus Cookie Decorating

It was one of my all-time favorite parts of the holiday season this week as we hosted some of our favorite Jewish friends over to our house to help us decorate Christmas cookies. There were grievances aired, but no festivus pole. We still feel that may be a little out of place for this particular event.

However, there WERE feats of strength this year. And that came in the form of all of the cookies that had to be decorated. This is not your average slop some frosting on a cookie and put some sprinkles on it and call it a day cookie decorating. No, there are angels that need braided hair, snowmen that need holly put in their hat, and toy soldiers that need to be made into Buckingham palace guard.

And this year, I added an epic-ly large Christmas ornament cookie that you literally had to summon your strength to attempt.

The boys have seriously stepped up their game in the decorating department too. (Need I remind anyone about Nate's first year, before he realized how serious this was?)

These weren't even their best work--but the most meaningful to them. They were quite sentimental.

The ultimate feat of strength came when Sam was facing 1 last cookie that needed to be decorated. We were all done, and sat there taunting/encouraging him. He had hit his limit. He didn't have his creative vision for this last snow-man, but he had reached his limit for "decorate and eat immediately".

And so, "The 30-second Snowman Challenge" was born. And it isn't much more complicated than that. 30 seconds. One snowman cookie. Sprinkles. Frosting. Go.
And here was the result:

A new tradition was born, and you can be sure there will be 30-second snowman challengers next year.

All in all, it was a very fun night with great friends, that resulted in some pretty kick-butt cookies if I do say so myself. **Note: no cheating utensils like a piping bag were used in the decoration of these cookies.**