White Friday

I know a lot of people who participate in the shopping frenzy on Black Friday. Heck, I used to be one of them. Up by 3 or 4 in the morning, shopping through the day until we finally divided the stash later that evening at one of my aunt's or my grandma's house. It was a great excuse to spend the day with my aunts and cousins shopping for Christmas presents.

In the past few years (last year excluded as I had just come back from Belize) I've been partaking in a different tradition. A clerk at the grocery store the other evening had the perfect name for it: White Friday. See instead of waking at the crack of dawn to wait outside in the snow and cold, I wake up, head to my kitchen and fire up the oven. I spend the day doing what I love to do: baking. I bake numerous different kinds of cookies and candies in preparation for Christmas. Most of these are treats I only make this one time of year, so they really are special.

This year the baking is going slower, and I'm not enjoying myself quiet as much. I'm thousands of miles from home and missing my baking buddies. I also miss the space that having a house affords. Apartments weren't designed for the magnitude of baking that I do. Regardless I've already made the peanut butter cookies and the peppermint swirls. Now I'm just waiting for the peanut clusters to firm up before I move on to a Christmas favorite: Christmas Testicles (they won't be the same without you Laura).