Random Christmas Stuff

We put our tree up last weekend while Joe's sister and brother were here. Much to our surprise, HayZeus hasn't destroyed it yet. He's actually made himself a little lair underneath the branches. More often than not (assuming he's not running around the house like a madman) he can be found here:

We also acquired a china cabinet from my Mom and Steve last weekend. Joe put all of the nice glasses and such we got for the wedding on display in it:

Apparently the cat thinks he's one of the nice things we got for the wedding.
On Thursday I stayed up wayyyy too late to finish up my contributions for the cookie exchange at work. I'd regretted signing up the instant I put my name down, but it was too late to drop out so I sucked it up and made up some bags of assorted candies. I don't like making cookies...I don't mind making the dough and putting the first cookie sheet into the oven, but after that I get bored/tired/distracted and I usually end up burning half of them. I try to stick to candy and bars instead.

Unfortunately, by the time I was done with everything on Thursday I was throwing things and swearing a lot. Nothing ever goes right when you're overtired and trying to dip truffles into chocolate that just won't melt correctly. On the plus side of things, I think I'm nearly done with my Christmas confections - I have a batch of Chocolate Raspberry Crumb bars in the oven now and have two more bar recipes I want to try.

Last night was my work Christmas party. The dinner that management put on was fine I guess, although you could tell half the people in the room didn't want to be there. That was the half of the room I was on....along with all of the people that had attended Andy's Pre-Christmas Party Party. We all got together at his house beforehand and worked on a quarter barrel of Bud Light...I think there were about 25 of us there. Words cannot describe my hangover today, but we all had a great time.

We also spent some time yesterday at Joe's co-worker's house for a cookie decorating party. I spent over an hour decorating cookies, and these are all of the ones I made:

Yeah, over an hour on four cookies. This is why I don't make sugar cookies.

Anyway, back to the kitchen to finish up. Then I think I'm going to catch up on ANTM and Grey's via the internet. Toodles~