The Sugar Cookie Fiasco

Some of you may have already heard this story or parts of it.  I apologize, but my life is lived on Facebook.  It's a sad fact.  That is not the point of this post, however.

Background info:  I LOVE Christmas.  It is by far my very favorite holiday/time of year.  I even love Christmas more than my own birthday.  That's a lot, I know.  (It's not because of the presents.  I actually enjoy watching my nephews open their presents more than opening my own presents.)  I come by it honestly, though.  My Mom also LOVES Christmas and instilled this fervor in all 3 of us girls.  Many of you know that Mom and Kelly usually puts up their Christmas decorations in the middle of November (this is not the only holiday Mom decorates early for; her Halloween stuff is usually up mid-September).  I would probably do the same but my husband is adamant that the Christmas decorations do not go up until December 1st.  I managed to get them up the last weekend in November 2 years ago but I think I caught him in a weak moment or had some stunning arguement that he couldn't resist.  Christmas to me is all about being together with family and friends.  I am slightly biased because I think Christmas with my family is the most fun of our celebrations.  I just love being surrounded by all of my Mom's Christmas decorations (there literally is Christmas oozing out of every nook and cranny at her house), eating stuff I remember from Christmases past, and just hanging out playing games or visiting.  It is also the easiest holiday for my little family because we get to spread it out.  Jay's parents are divorced so for most holidays we end up trying to sqeeze 2 families into 1 day.  For Christmas we get it spread out over the month since we celebrate with his Dad either the 1st or 2nd weekend in December (they go to Jay's Step-Grandma's house for Christmas week).  We then usually go to my parents' house on Christmas Eve and Jay's Mom's house on Chrstmas Day or Boxing Day. 

This year our traditions are changing somewhat because Kelly and her family are not able to come down for Christmas.  So I thought, "Hey, why don't we do Christmas at our house?"  I phoned Mom with my grand idea, but she said that she, Dad and Kinsey are planning to go up to Sylvan to spend Christmas with Kelly.  No big deal.  Since we only live a half hour away from them I'm sure we can get together some other day to celebrate.  But I still want to have Christmas at our house with Jay's Mom, step-dad and step-grandpa.  I think this desire is mostly fueled by the fact that we now have Paxton.  I just want to set down some traditions for our family to hopefully give Paxton some good memories (I would really like for him to love Christmas as much as I do).  This whole plan is still in the works since it is only mid-September after all and Jay's Mom and Step-Dad are currently on holiday in England so I haven't been able to pitch the idea to them.

"Isn't it a little early to be thinking about Christmas?" you might ask. It probably is and usually I would only give it a fleeting thought (you may have noticed the countdown at the top of my blog telling you how far away it is.  You need to subtract an hour since apparently it's for Pacific Time and I haven't been able to find on in Mountain Time) since I'd be busy with other things in my life, namely work. But since I'm on Mat Leave I have a lot of spare thinking time. Don't get me wrong, my days are busy taking care of Paxton, but there's a lot of thinking going on during the day (as well as at night since Paxton's teething seems to be causing insomnia for me. Boo-urns insomnia!)  I also have realized that I only have 2 months of Mat Leave left.  I'm pretty sure that the last 2 weeks of November and probably all of December are going to be a giant gong show so I've decided I should try to get as much stuff done in the next 2 months as possible so that I can "relax" once I go back to work (ya right).

As part of my grand plans for Christmas I decided that I wanted to bake a bunch of different kinds of cookies (don't worry I will be freezing them so that they're still good in 3 months) both for us to eat as well as to give to friends.  My Mom does it, so since I'm the Mom now I guess I should do it, right?  I've made cookies before and have eaten a lot of cookies so how hard can it be?  So I made a list of the different kinds of cookies I wanted to bake.  Sugar cookies were at the top of the list as they are one of my faves and supposedly one of the easiest kinds to make.  Armed with my recipe, rolling pin and cookie cutters I prepared to tackle the sugar cookies.  As you may have guessed from the title of this post, things did not go quite as planned.  Since I am planning to give away a bunch of cookies I decided to double the recipe.  Mistake # 1: I did not look at the amounts required of all the ingredients before starting the dough.  I had already creamed the margarine and sugar together before discovering that with doubling I needed 10 cups of flour.  I realized that I don't own a bowl big enough to contain the 4 cups of margarine I had on the go already as well as 10 cups of flour.  No big deal.  I scooped half of my mixture out and prepared to make the recipe as normal.  Once all the ingredients were mixed together, I floured the top of my island and dumped the dough out onto it.  The dough was super sticky so I added more flour figuring that maybe there was too much margarine since cutting it in half wasn't too precise.  Mistake # 2: I then attempted to roll out ALL of the dough at once.  Picture this: my island is 49 1/2 " by 26 1/2" (I know because I just measured it).  By the time I finished "rolling" the dough out I would say that about 45" by 24" was covered in a big, sticky cookie dough mess.  The dough was sticking to my rolling pin (which I did flour by the way), it was sticking to itself and it was sticking to my hands.  Gross.  I persevered and attempted to cut out some shapes but the dough had been rolled out too thin and I couldn't pick anything up since they just smushed together.  At this point I was so frustrated that I just wanted to dump the whole concoction in the garbage.  When I informed Jay of my feelings and that I was about to cry over stupid cookies, he asked, "Why don't you let me get in there?"  (Side note: Jay does most of the cooking at our house and took Home Ec. while I did not.)  I let him and retreated to the computer to let my friends make fun of me/console me via Facebook (we've already covered this part of my life).  Jay was able to get 2 dozen cookies cut out and then gave up and wrapped the rest up in saran wrap to put in the fridge so I could deal with it the next day.  Mistake # 3: This one I don't really count as a mistake because it wasn't in the recipe so I was unaware, but it did contribute to my epic failure.  I did not refridgerate the dough before attempting to cut out the cookies because it makes it easier to work with.  Ironically, by sticking it in the fridge to deal with later I solved my own issue.  Notes have been added to the recipe for future use.  The next morning I was much calmer and ready to tackle the rest of the cookie dough.  It worked marvelously and I finished cutting out and baking the rest of the cookies.  They actually weren't too bad considering that I added about 1 1/2 cups of extra flour to try to combat the stickiness.  I think with some icing they'll be ok.  I'm also happy to report that the 2nd half of the batch worked out marvelously since I applied all of my new knowledge to making them.  I even iced some of them and they taste pretty close to Mom's I think.

Sorry there are no pictures to accompany this post.  I was not able nor did I want to take any pictures as my experience rapidly went downhill.  And I'm pretty sure Jay was fearing for his life (sort of the whole "poking a sleeping bear with a stick" thing), so he didn't want to take any pictures either.  Feel free to use your imagination and chuckle or guffaw over my antics.