Cookie Swap 2012

Today was the Cookie Swap.  It was actually the 9th Annual Cookie Swap.  I have been involved with them for 9 years, can you believe it?  Anyway, we had a theme this year, which was "Favorite Fairy Tale." 

The fairy tale I chose was Rapunzel.  I chose to bake gluten-free lemon bars, which I called "Rapunzel's Lemon Tresses."  I got the recipe out of a book called The Cake Mix Doctor Bakes Gluten-Free.

This book is filled with tons of cakes, cookies and bars that are made with a gluten-free cake mix.  The bars came out really yummy.  Each year we try to be more creative with how we present our cookies for display and the packaging.  This year, I was thinking of making Rapunzel's Tower as my centerpiece. 

I recruited Vince to help me and he was great at coming up ways to make them easy.  We took mailing tubes and cut them about 4 inches high (these will be for the individual sets that people will take home) and one that was about 10 inches high for the centerpiece. 

Then he drilled a hole towards the top for the window and we covered the tubes with strips of scrapbook paper that was a brick wall and he made little pointed roofs out of construction paper.  His daughter and I then took yellow yarn and braided long lengths to hang out of each window hole, which helped suspend the bag of lemon bars in the tube.  They came out so cute!

Here are the individual sets:

We had such a good variety of cookies and bars.  I will show a few here:

Apple Toffee Crisps (Snow White Twists)

Apple Pie Cookies (Evil Witch/Snow White)

Hazelnut & Gretel Cookies

Cinderella's Pumpkin Streusel Bars

Princess & the Pea Bars (Graham Cracker)

Meringue Clouds (Kisses)

Everyone brought such yummy cookies.  There were also Chocolate Pillows, Honey Lemon Cookies and Pumpkin Cheesecake Coaches.  I could not eat all of them, but they all looked delish.

We also vote on superlatives, and I won for "The Most Magical" which was Best Presentation.  The other categories were: "The Fairest of Them All" (Best Cookie), "The Queen's Jewel's"  (Richest/Most Chocolatey), "The Court Jester" (Nuttiest), and "Over The Moon" (Best with Milk).

We had a good time and I did not come home in a sugar coma.  Hooray for that!  I tried to off set all the sugar with a healthy portion of veggies from the veggie tray and cheese cubes. 

We'll have to think of a fun theme for next year too.  Anyone game for coming to Florida for the 10th Annual Cookie Swap??

Christmas Village

Each year I go up to Mass to visit my family and friends at Christmas time.  Each year my sister's husband Dave assembles a Christmas Village in the basement.  The Christmas Village is made up of ceramic shops, houses and people that both his mother and our mother have given him.  The Christmas Village now encompasses not just the railing shelf in the basement but now two additional separate tables.

Ooooh!


He has assembled icicle lights along the ceiling and tree lights along the shelf.  This year he had his niece help him and I heard she really got into it and wanted to place each person just right.  Each year he adds a little bit more charm to the village.  One addition this year was the Frosty movie playing from a projector onto the wall.


Local train depot

He has features such as a train depot with a functional train, takes branches from outside and creates trees, and even made a covered bridge to connect the "town" across the doorway.


Christmas Village - Eastside

One year, there was an ice storm in the area and he recreated the ice storm in the village.  There were downed trees, fake snow covering the roadway, and even a snowplow.


Christmas Village - Westside

The westside of the Village has a town square and cars on the roadway.  Like I said earlier, he adds more charm to the Village each year.


Fire pit


This summer, my sister and husband cleared an area in the woods in the back yard and made a firepit with a picnic table and chairs.  So this year in the Village, he also created a firepit.  He was working on the picnic table last night.  He made it out of wood tongue depressors and glue.


Picnic table - isn't is great?!

Here is also a truck with branches cut-up to look like logs.

Logger truck


During my winter visit to Mass, we always make a trip to Foxwoods Casino in Conn to play a morning session of Bingo.  When we were walking to the Bingo hall area, we past a Christmas Village that was made entirely out of gingerbread, chocolate, and royal icing.  It really was amazing.

Foxwoods Village

In this Foxwoods Christmas Village was a church, houses, houses that were destroyed by a storm, royal icing trees, chocolate rice crispie rocks and bushes and, the best of all, Rapunzel's castle.

Click on pic to see more detail

If you look closely, you can see the prince climbing Rapunzel's braid of golden hair on the tower.  My picture really does not do it justice, but it was the coolest gingerbread house I've ever seen.  The Village continues to the right of the castle, but I did not get a good picture of it. 

On a side note, each year I go to Bingo and I have never won a game.  This year, one of my friends in our group was the sole winner of one of the games, so she did not have to split the pot with anyone!  It was very exciting for us, so she was even more hyped-up after the win.  So much more hyped-up that she could barely concentrate on the next game.  It was a great time.  Congrats, Crystal!!!

Now that we have all seen the Foxwoods Christmas Village, I wonder how Dave will be inspired for next year's Christmas Village.