My birthday was Saturday (40! How the hell?) and I hosted a cookie swap. It's becoming an annual holiday tradition here in Seattle for us, and it was a lot of fun. About 25-30 people came, all bearing cookies of different stripes and flavors -- I think the only duplicates we had were two different batches of chocolate clouds (I call these chocolate crinkles) and some chocolate-chip variations (never can have enough chocolate-chip cookies).Cookie types included citrus-chocolate jammers (this recipe, with variations because I do not like marmalade but do like apricot-pineapple jam), maple stars, lemon sugar cookies, fudge, chocolate-cherry cookies, pomegranate biscotti, peanut-butter cookies, seven-layer bars, chocolate peanut-butter balls, rum balls, world peace cookies and many more. And we also had birthday cake (see photo), sandwiches, meatballs, veggies and fruit, chips and salsa, party mix, caramel apple cider and much more.
We had a decoration station set up where folks could decorate the plain sugar cookies I'd cut out the night before (bless you, Pillsbury Dough Sheets), Christmas music and more. Our youngest guests loved the cookie decorating and for the second year in a row, helped by setting up our Fisher-Price nativity set.
Rob whisked Miss Kelly away for the party and an hour beforehand so I could get ready and play hostess without worrying about her. Everyone missed her, but it definitely made for a calmer party, and in a year or two she'll be able to get involved and will love it. And that morning, he gave me my presents -- a sapphire circle necklace and an iPhone!
I am very lucky to have such friends and family. I still miss my Minnesota contingent, every day, but as we said way back in Brownies, "make new friends, but keep the ooooooold/ one is silverrrrrr and the othhhhhher's gold."
40 is looking pretty darn sweet.
2 comments:
Happy Birthday Gael! It sounds like you had a great day and party.
I have a question about December birthdays. I am pregnant and due December 30...how did your parents make your birthday special growing up? I don't want my kid to feel jipped in the birthday department!
Happy birthday, Gael!
I'm impressed that you got to have your party without Kelly. My daughter is four and a half months and I have not yet been able to have her away from me for that long without major meltdowns. (Plus she won't take a bottle, so it just doesn't happen.) I can't go get my hair cut, much less host an entire party!
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