It's the Holiday Season

The Mister and I are about to embark on a lovely little 12 hour drive tomorrow to spend Christmas with family in Michigan. In preparation, I've had to squeeze a lot of holiday rush into the last few days! We finished shopping over the weekend and today I had to wrap, sticker, and cleverly pack a box of gifts that would fit into an already too small rental car. I also spent the last two days in the kitchen. A few of you might find a sneaky package resembling something like this in your mailbox soon. :-)

On Monday I had a few failed experiments, that included peppermint meringues that weren't swirled enough (I eventually threw them out, but it was not a total waste of time; I learned Martha Stewart's recipes are deceiving, and that I'll use another next time) and a late night batch of caramels that turned out like rock candy. FAIL. So yesterday I was determined to make up for it. Chocolate pretzels were dipped, a new batch of caramels was perfected, sliced and wrapped, christmas chocolates were created, cut out cookies were cut, baked, and decorated for the Mister's office, and somehow in between all that, I even managed to wrap everything up and get it off to the post office. Whew! I'm a little bit exhausted.

So excuse me today while I throw in a few more loads of laundry, clean the apartment for visitors upon our return, run last minute errands, and then pass out for a nap on the couch. I'm hoping dinner tonight will consist of some form of take-out as well, since my brain hasn't been functioning very well on a non-stop diet of sugar. Happy Holidays from my Brooklyn kitchen to yours!