My favorite Christmas tradition

Generally speaking, I hate winter time. I'm a California girl at heart- I love the sunshine and absolutely HATE the cold. The only good thing about winter is that it contains my favorite holiday. That's right folks, I'm talking about Christmas...still. You know the best thing about Christmas for me? The family traditions. I love them. From getting Starbucks before walking this HUGE court to look at the lights, to my parents giving my sister and I pajamas every Christmas Eve, and making my grandma's cheeseball recipe and sharing it with our loved ones (HUGE hit. You all would love it). Even getting up at ridiculous times to open presents with my parents (this year my sister and I got up at the ungodly hour of 3 am). I love them all. But you know my favorite tradition? Every Christmas Eve, my sister and I bake Christmas cookies with my dad. It's a tradition my dad started several years ago, and it's one of the things I look forward to most when December rolls around. And we don't just make a single batch of sugar cookies. Oh no. We make a day of it, and bake loads and LOADS of cookies. That being said, better prepare yourself now for a loaded post. You've been warned.

This year we made chocolate chip, snickerdoodles, and my favorite, oatmeal scotches!! So let's get started with the recipes already. First up, Chocolate chip!

These are seriously so good. Nice and chewy, not too soft, and not too crunchy. We use the same recipe every year, it's from...well it's from a cookie cook book. I honestly couldn't tell you what cookbook it is because it is OLD and ratty, and the cover is missing. Seriously people, this cookie cookbook is VERY well loved. We usually double the recipe, but I'll give you the original recipe. Y'all may not want crap-tons of cookies like we do.

Chocolate Chip Cookies

3/4 C firmly packed brown sugar
1/2 C sugar
1/2 C margarine or butter, softened
1/2 C shortening
1 1/2 tsp vanilla
1 egg
1 3/4 C all purpose flour
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 C chocolate chips

Heat oven to 375° F. In large bowl, beat brown sugar, sugar, margarine and shortening until light and fluffy. Add vanilla and egg; beat well. Lightly spoon flour into measuring cup; level off. Add flour, baking soda, and salt; mix well. Stir in chocolate chips. Drop by teaspoonfuls 2 inches apart onto ungreased cookie sheets. Bake at 375° F for 8 to 10 minutes or until light golden brown.

Next up is my dad's personal favorite: snickerdoodles!

These are great; soft with just the right amount of spice. We use my mom's recipe, which usually makes about 5 dozen.

Snickerdoodles

1/2 C soft shortening
1/2 C butter
1 1/2 C sugar
2 eggs
2 3/4 C flour
2 tsp cream of tarter
1 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt

Heat oven to 400° F. Mix shortening, sugar, and eggs together. Blend all dry ingredients together and stir into egg mixture. Roll dough into small balls. Mix 2 tablespoons sugar and 2 teaspoons cinnamon together; roll dough balls into mixture. Place 2 inches apart on ungreased cookie sheet. Bake 8 to 10 minutes.

And finally, my favorite. Seriously, I hate oatmeal. Hate it. Like...it's the devil. But these oatmeal scotchies?? Delish.  Maybe its the butterscotch chips. Butterscotch is one of those amazing things that is sort of underrated, am I right?

So here's the recipe we used, from the back of the butterscotch chips. I suggest you go out now to get some so you can make these!

Oatmeal Scotchies

1 1/4 C flour
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1 C butter, softened
3/4 C sugar
3/4 C brown sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla extract
3 C oats, uncooked
1 12oz. package (2 Cups) butterscotch flavored morsels

Preheat oven to 375° F. In small bowl, combine flour, baking soda, salt, and cinnamon; set aside. In large mixing bowl, beat butter, sugar, brown sugar, eggs, and vanilla extract until creamy. gradually beat in flour mixture. Stir in oats and butterscotch pieces. Spread the mixture into a greased cookie sheet and bake for 18-22 minutes, or until golden brown. 

The recipe says it's supposed to yield 4 dozen bars...but as you can see, we made ours ginormous, so....needless to say, we didn't get that many out of it. I love making all of these cookies every year; you should give some of these a try sometime! You can probably see why this is my favorite holiday tradition. =)

That wraps up my holiday catch-up posts, lets move on to normal treats!!!

The stockings were placed on a tree plate with care...

in hopes that my family likes the goodies I share.
Boom! Look at THAT! Shel Silverstein status over here!...No, not really. Not even close. Don't worry folks, I won't be quitting my day job...night job...whatever.
Do you guys know what I JUST noticed?? This past year was the first year I've made Christmas goodies, other than our annual tradition of making cookies every Christmas eve with my dad (post to come later). Seriously, self?! The time of year where pretty much all diets go out the window! Well, regardless of my YEARS of slacking in the past, this year was pretty productive. Everybody received a plate of decorated cookies this year! Between school garbage, work, and FINALS, these were a freakin' Christmas miracle. Take a look:

My thought process behind these was to use the marbling technique to give the stockings a knit or crochet feel to them. I promise, one of these days I'll branch out and try NEW techniques...but this one is clearly one of my faves. What cool technique should I try next? Hmm...

I've heard it said that "The best way to spread Christmas cheer, is singing loud for all to hear", a la my favorite holiday movie Elf. I disagree. The best way to spread Christmas cheer is plates of cookies. I've heard some horrible singing, but I've never met a cookie I didn't like. =)

Catchin' up on holiday crap...

I know, I know. I'm like the worst food blogger ever. Holiday time, the time when I should be baking/blogging non-stop because you guys HAVE to see holiday goodies during the HOLIDAYS...and I'm totally MIA. Combination of finals (which didn't end until RIGHT before Christmas- what the frick) and HARDCORE getting ready/baking/wrapping for Christmas totally killed me. Anywho...Happy 2013! I'm so glad to see you all survived the apocalypse of 2012, and had a safe holiday. Although the holidays are over, I finally have some time to share my holiday goodies with you. Kind of lame, but hey, late holiday goodies are better than no holiday goodies at all, I think.

So first up on my list...Holiday cake balls!! Actually they aren't as exciting as they sound (way to start the new year with a bang, self), but they were tasty nonetheless.

And I will tell you this- they were easy peasy. Like, even easier than cake pops kind of easy. No stick to worry about? Sa-weet! I did these for our annual ornament exchange Christmas party. The best part? The cake on the inside is Christmas funfetti. I had this genius plan to make white cake and put my own red and green sprinkles, but then I found the Christmas funfetti mix and I grabbed that faster than you can say "Holy easy alternatives, Batman". I love funfetti. And I love these cake balls.

*As a related side note, this is the best picture I had out of like, tons. I am clearly having camera/photo taking issues, and I apologize. If you have any suggestions, please feel free to suggest away. I'm totally open to constructive criticisms/tips/suggestions, as I'm getting ridiculously frustrated.

Til next time!