This year was the second annual Cookie Party hosted by my Mother-in-Law and Aunt-in-Law (sidenote: I don’t think people say “Aunt-in-Law” but let’s make it happen).
For those unfamiliar with a cookie party, the idea is that everyone who comes brings a pre-determined number of dozen cookies in a baggie (for this particular party, it was eleven dozen). Usually, one dozen of each kind of cookie is set out to eat during the party and the other several dozen are exchanged among the attendees. You come with ten dozen of your own cookies, you leave with ten dozen cookies baked by your nearest and dearest.
I made lemon cookies. At Thanksgiving, I joked that I wasn’t going to tell my Mother-in-Law what kind of cookies I was making and it turns out she also made lemon cookies. So did another cousin. Lemon was very well-represented.
Similarly to last year, there was a quiz. This year, however, I had a shot at winning because the quiz wasn’t about particulars of my Mother-in-Law’s family (though, I did win points last year for having clever answers. One of the questions was “which of Grandma Powers’ grandchildren had red hair?” My answer, “the lucky ones,” was counted as accurate). This year, the quiz was about the names of Christmas Carols, and I came in second.
We ate lunch (tacos) and then dug into the cookies. I’m always impressed with how creative people are – no one wants to make the same cookies as someone else, so we end up with an impressive variety.
One of the other highlights this year was watching the younger cousins play with one another. Perhaps they knew Santa was watching, but they played together so well (“can you help me draw a picture of my Mommy and Daddy?” “Of course I can!”) my heart melted. Plus, two out of three were in tutus. Tutus make everything better.