almost christmas'd out

well it was a nice and quiet christmas around here.
for which i'm grateful
so much hubbub beforehand
we did something on Christmas Eve we've never done before - we went out for dinner! Now that was nice! Came home and dove into the Christmas cookies!
here are a few pics (i make a number of other cookies but you'll get the idea)

note the total destruction of the rainbow cakes. I had to have a discussion about proper choice of knives for cutting this particular creation with the family. i spend a lotta time making that particular one... i'd rather it not be hacked to bits.

By the way - the rainbow cookies - or really cakes - came to be part of our regular holiday fare a few years ago when I was finally able to find a recipe that tasted like a childhood memory of mine. It took years to find this recipe. When I was little. my grandfathr would go to a particular french bakery in NYC nearby where he and my grandmother lived on East 35th Street. My grandparents would come to visit every Sunday and they would often bring those cookies. Delectable cookies of all kinds but the favorite, hands down, for my sister, brother and myself was the Rainbow. These little cakes were not very large but there weren't that many in the lovely bakery box so my mother would cut each one up into 3 pieces and we'd each get a piece. Unbelieveably delicious. Three thin layers of colored cake. In between the layers was raspberry jam and the whole thing was topped off with chocolate. Yum doesn't even begin to describe the flavor. Anyway I finally found a recipe that I tweaked every so slightly and we've been in Rainbow heaven for the past maybe 5 years!

Anywho....
Christmas day came and went but we're still Christmas'ing it. We're off to the husbands family Christmas tomorrow in Delaware. I wrapped some more presents today and baked another round of sugar cookies. Then i set about decorating them - ze best part!

We always painted cookies as far back as I can remember. My mother would sit us down with paintbrushes, icing and food coloring and she'd let us have at it. I came upon the edible gold dust - used on the stars you see above - over 10 years ago in a cake decorating store. I take the "dust" and use lemon extract (like you'd use water and watercolor paints) and then paint on the cookies. You get the pretty gold as well as a light flavoring of the lemon and its really delicious.

I think its time to post this so I'll be off. We'll be back on Sunday and hopefully I'll get a moment to post another gift card holder I made. This one is definitely a little different - i hope our niece likes it. I'll let you know.....