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The cards are now beyond counting. (OK, maybe ten or a dozen--we're not THAT popular.) It's time to do something with them. Open them, read them, staple them to ribbons and decorate the fireplace? Something like that. So far I have opened and read them. It's a start.

I have, however, turned in my grades. So now the festivities can begin. I also found Christmas cards in my drawer where I keep ornaments and the like. They must have been on sale last year. So perhaps I will send some. Not until after New Year's, however. So if you're hoping for one from me, just sit tight.

I baked cookies with Nick's class today for their "pioneer party" tomorrow. I find this odd. It is, of course, a Christmas party, but they can't or won't call it that. Public school and all that. I'm fine with that, but the charade is weird. It's a pioneer party because they're studying the pioneers right now. So we baked--pioneer cookies? Not so much. We creamed butter and sugar together with an electric mixer, for starters. (Though the butter was soft enough that we maybe could have been more pioneer-ish about it.) The dough for the first batch came out sort of sandy--I had scanted the butter and carefully added only the yolk of an egg, as the recipe said, and we got sand. So I had the kids squeeze it in their hands into little balls and put the balls on the cookie sheet. They looked lame, but the kids got a kick out of getting all messy.

The second batch came out better. I had enough butter for that one, and we added the whole egg, so the whole thing was moister. The cookies came out perfectly round and browned around the edges.

Still, the kids who made the first batch seemed perfectly satisfied with their misfit cookies.

We get to eat them tomorrow at the "pioneer party." Will we be wearing gingham? Not me.