Grandma’s (Annual) Christmas Cookie Party

This afternoon Charlotte and I headed over to my mom’s house for a cookie decorating party with my sister, Sancha, and my nephews, Jacob & Brennan.

Grandma started the party by giving the kids Christmas aprons she made for each of them. They loved having their own baking gear and the aprons are SO cute.

Next she got Brennan and Charlotte involved in separating the mini M&Ms by color….quite a few never made it to the separating stage as these two were eating them faster than we could stop them!

While that was going on Sancha and I were rolling out the dough that our Mom prepared and making icing. Once we had individual trays ready the kids sat down with Grandma to make Reindeer Cookies.

All the kids did really well making their cookies, adding eyes, noses and antlers. My favorite was a cookie of Jacob’s that had no less than seven antlers. :)

When the cookies were ready Jacob, with help from his mom, put his in the oven to bake.

Then we got the kids started on the Melted Snowmen cookies. Sancha and I melted the marshmallow heads then Jacob was able to help me with the initial icing of the cookies.

We then let each kid add eyes, noses, buttons and arms to each cookie.

Charlotte got A LITTLE (that’s an understatement) preoccupied with the gumdrops Grandma used to make the noses! She was eating them SO fast that she had one in hand ready to go before she’d swallowed the last one!

After many hours of decorating fun, the kids (fueled with candy energy) ran around Grandma’s house turning her Christmas decorations into toys. I am not sure she ever found all of her Nesting Santas (think Russian Nesting Dolls). The kids really enjoyed discovering the next smallest Santa and then hiding him!!!! They also each took turns treating her very extensive nativity scene like a GI Joe war camp. At one point Brennan and Charlotte had the camels (with riding Wise Men, no less) tromping ALL OVER the house – luckily Grandma was a good sport about this injustice!

Don’t even ask about the tree ornaments….

Somewhere in the middle of all of that madness my amazing sister managed to make dozens of cookies for her friends and Neighbors!

I am so glad my Mom decided to do this for her grandkids, Sancha and I. Baking with my mom is such a huge part of Christmas for me and I am happy that it can now be part of Charlotte’s Christmas memories too. Everyone had a GREAT time; I hope my not-so-subtle hits to make this an ANNUAL event were noted! Thanks Mom!