(no subject)

I am feeling rather anxious... But it's typical for this time of the year... It's almost Christmas so that means a lot of things to do...

Giftwise, I'm pretty good. I have something for everyone and I'm working on something for my sister... I don't know how it'll turn out but I'm feeling hopeful about it. It's going better than I thought it would at least...

I'm also doing Reddit's Secret Santa exchange so this year I have an extra person to shop for. I did international and now I kinda regret it. It was super expensive and in a way, I feel like I might relate better to an another American. It didn't help that my giftee is basically Reddit's core demographic -- white, 20-something male gamer. I was really hoping for another geek to geek out for... Anyway, I didn't feel like I did my best... :( But hopefully it was good enough.

And now I still have shopping to do. I still have some Christmas baking to do but I can't start on it too soon or they won't be awesome...

So far, I plan to make white chocolate cranberry bars, snickerdoodles, sugar cookies, and I'm thinking gingerbread people. I bought some cute gingerbread cookie cutters last year and I want to give a gingerbread family to everyone...

But people don't really like gingerbread. And I don't do gingerbread very well either (so many bad recipes out there) so I might switch it out for something else.

I'm also thinking chocolate dipped biscotti... That in a nice bag, a tin full of cookies, a bottle of my homemade vanilla extract, a small glass jar of vanilla sugar will make out my giftbags for this year...

I want to get working on it already but if I don't time it properly, it won't work... Biscotti can keep for a while, snickerdoodles and sugar cookies can have their dough made ahead of time and frozen... Vanilla sugar takes very little time and the extract has been infusing for a while so the only thing I need to do there is buy the bottles and jars, but thank god for Amazon Prime and their 2-day shipping...

But the bars won't keep and I have no idea if gingerbread can be frozen... And it's not like they're easy and quick to make... Just decorating them takes forever.

And I also want to make some red velvet white chocolate chip cookies too... I made some last year and while I gave some to my brother's girlfriend intending on them sharing the cookies, apparently she ate them all before he could get one... And he was miffed he didn't get a tin of cookies to himself... But really, even Diana and her husband only got one giftbag to themselves too... When you're a couple, you share the swag. But now I feel guilty and feel like I want to make it up this year...

But last year I did four types of cookies too (red velvet chocolate chip, snickerdoodles, bourbon chocolate crack, and Mexican wedding) and that was a lot of baking over a one week span. I'm not totally sure I want to do more this year...especially when some of those recipes are new to me...

And what the hell is up with butter prices this year? It's like $5 a pound!! O.O